Non-Russian Republics have Best Demographic Trends; Russian Subjects the Worst, New Survey Finds

Paul Goble

            Staunton, February 16 – A new survey prepared by the Sober Russia Project and the analytic staff of the Russian Social Chamber finds that non-Russian republics make up nine of the ten best places in Russia in terms of demographic success while Russian oblasts form nine of the bottom ten.

           

            The study rated the subjects in terms of the birthrate, population growth, number of children per woman, number of abortions, and level of social comfort about pregnancies and was reported in yesterday’s Izvestiya (izvestia.ru/news/664553) and discussed on the Nazaccent portal (nazaccent.ru/content/23183-nacionalnye-respubliki-stali-liderami-po-rozhdaemosti.html).

            These overall patterns as reported by the survey were echoed in each of its component parts:

·         Nine of the ten subjects with the highest birthrates were non-Russian republics, while nine of the ten with the lowest birthrates were Russian oblasts.

·         Nine of the ten subjects with the highest number of births relative to deaths were non-Russian republics, while all ten at the bottom of that scale were predominantly ethnic Russian oblasts.

·         All four regions where the average number of children was three were non-Russian republics, while those with only one child mostly consisted of predominantly ethnic Russian oblasts.

·         The three subjects with the lowest number of abortions per live births – between 12 and 13 – were all non-Russian republics; those with the highest number were Russian areas, with the nominal exception of the Jewish AO which is predominantly Russian as well, where the figures ranged from 74 per 100 live births in Pskov to 97 in Magadan.

·         The level of alcohol, drugs and tobacco threats had the least importance in Ingushetia and the most in Sakhalin. The well-being of the population was highest in St. Petersburg and lowest in Chechnya. And a healthy way of life was found most often in Belgorod and least in Ingushetia. Infant mortality was lowest in Chuvashia and highest in Chukotka.

What this pattern means, although neither Izvestiya nor Nazaccent pointed it out, is that the non-Russian nationalities continue to grow more rapidly than does the Russian nation, something that can be shown only in this indirect way because the Putin regime has cut back in the amount of ethnically-arrayed demographic data that it allows to be published.