316,000 More Russians Died than Were Born in 2019, Rosstat Reports

Paul Goble

            Staunton, February 25 – For the fourth year in a row, more Russians died than were born, with this most critical measure of natural population trends rising to 316,000 in 2019, the result more of a sharp decline in the number of births rather than a dramatic increase in the number of deaths, according to a report released by Rosstat, the State Statistical Committee.

            This figure, equal to the population of several mid-sized Russian cities, has shocked the Kremlin, Moscow economist Igor Nikolayev says, prompting the government to rush around to try to come up with some measure that will change things including paying maternal capital to women who give birth at all (echo.msk.ru/blog/nikolaev_i/2594806-echo/).

            But such measures are at best palliatives and will do little to change the larger and longer demographic trend Russia has faced over the 20 years since Vladimir Putin became the country’s leader. On January 1, 2000, Russia had 146,700,000 people; on January 1 of this year, it had 146,700,000 – or 200,000 fewer.

            That might not seem like much were it not for two other developments: the massive influx of immigrants over this period and the annexation of Crimea with its 2.3 million residents.  Had those two events not occurred, the population of Russia would have plummeted. As it is, the indigenous population is in fact contracting ever more rapidly.

            This collapse is especially unpleasant for the Russian leadership to face because as recently as 2015, it was celebrating a turning of the corner demographically, suggesting that all the predictions of professional demographers were wrong and that the Russian population would continue to grow.

            But beginning the very next year, the situation “sharply changed” and has become worse with each passing year. “The question arises: why?” According to Nikolayev, “elementary logic” leads to the conclusion that “families do not want to have children, they do not believe in their future, they do not believe in their country and they aren’t counting on government support.”

            That is not what Putin and his regime want to hear and so they continue to talk about “the echoes” of World War II and other problems, factors that do matter but that matter far less than this change in the attitudes of the Russian people about the current situation and even more about the future.

            But until the regime recognizes this truth, all the enormous sums it seems ready to spend on demography will do little or nothing to change the demographic trend the country faces.  And it is entirely possible that in the coming years, Russia’s demographic decline will be even greater than n 2019.