Fewer than Four Percent of All Newborns in Russia in 2023 were Children of Foreigners, ‘To Be Precise’ Says

Paul Goble
    Staunton, Jan. 28 – Many Russians fear that their nation will be displaced not only by the influx of migrant workers but by births among that group and thus support harsh measures to block more migrants from coming and the children of migrants from remaining in the Russian Federation.
    But their fears are not supported by statistics, demographer Aby Shukyurov writes in a report for the To Be Precise portal. In fact, while the number of children of parents at least one of which was a foreigner in fact doubled between 2019 and 2023 to 50,000, that number represented less than four percent of all newborns in Russia (tochno.st/materials/v-2023-godu-inostranki-rodili-v-rossii-50-tysiac-detei-eto-pocti-v-dva-raza-bolse-cem-v-2019-m-no-menee-4-ot-vsex-novorozdennyx).
    While there are problems with these data sets, the demographer says, noting that the citizenship or nationality of fathers is often not listed, the facts are that more than 80 percent of the children born in the Russian Federation in the most recent year for which statistics are available were the offspring of two citizens of that country.
    Consequently, the frequently expressed alarm about the supposed threat of “the replacement” of ethnic Russians by migrants and their children is completely unjustified both for the country as a whole and even for particular cities where the number of immigrants and their offspring are more numerous.