Paul
Goble
Staunton, January 16 – Most
commentators expected Vladimir Putin to devote most of his address to the
Federal Assembly to the economy and the problem of poverty; but instead,
Anatoly Vishnevsky says, the Kremlin leader devoted half of his remarks to a
discussion of Russia’s demographic crisis and his plans to boost the birthrate
by increasing maternal capital.
But the director of the Institute of
Demography of the Higher School of Economics says that such spending will not
have much influence on birthrates as “low birthrates are observed now not only
among the poor” and reflect declines in birthrates in most developed countries
(novayagazeta.ru/articles/2020/01/16/83471-nadezhd-na-reshenie-problemy-rozhdaemosti-v-rossii-net).
The declining
number of newborns in Russia reflects both low fertility rates among Russian
women – now each has about 1.7 children per life time and not the 2.1 needed to
maintain population at the current level – and the declining number of women in
prime child-bearing age groups.
In the course of his address, Putin said
that the situation in Russia with regard to mortality rates is “better than in
many European countries.” But Vishnevsky
says he would like to know which ones have a worse situation in that regard
than Russia. In fact, on average, Russia is a half century behind Europe in
terms of mortality rates.
But perhaps Vishnevsky’s most important
observation on this occasion is his argument that “people should receive incomes
not via assistance packages but through incomes earned in the workplace.” The
Kremlin appears confused about that or doesn’t see any way forward to boost the
number of jobs.
The demographer added that it is
difficult to say why Putin focused on demography rather than the economy and
especially on poverty which in Russia today is “a real problem” but one that
can be addressed in a serious way. Talking about demography as Putin has done
is simply a distraction from issues the Russian government should be tackling.
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