Russia on Course to Having Fewer Births in 2023 than in Any Post-Soviet Year, Raksha Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, June 4 – In April of this year, Russians gave birth to only 95,000 babies, less than in any earlier month in 2023 or an in month in 2022, according to independent demographer Aleksey Raksha who collected data from regional registration offices because the State Statistical Committee has stopped publishing this depressing data.

            According to him, Russians gave birth to 4.7 percent fewer children in April 2023 than in April 2022 and 14.2 percent fewer than in April 202. The latest monthly figure is the worst in some 24 years. In only November 1997 and the last three months of 1999 were births fewer (agents.media/spad-rojdeniya-detei/).

            For the first four months of 2023, the number of children born was 3.4 percent fewer than during the corresponding period of 2022; and Raksha along with other demographers projects that the total number of births this year will be around 1.2 million, eight to ten percent fewer than a year earlier (agents.media/demografia-prognoz/).

            Raksha says that these figures reflect a combination of the following factors: a decline in the number of Russian women in prime childbearing age groups, military mobilization, the flight of large numbers of young Russians abroad, and continuing declines in the income of the population, all of which have contributed to uncertainty about the future.