Paul Goble
Staunton, April 21 – The Russia countryside and its smaller cities have been emptying out and filling the country’s major cities with ever more people, a trend that some Russian officials have promoted as pointing to a Russia of the future consisting of these urban agglomerations.
In the past, Putin has even appeared to support that idea, especially as it requires less of the government; but now he is changing course, the URA news agency reports, because birthrates in the major cities are so low and those in smaller cities and villages are much higher (ura.news/articles/1053087393).
In the two largest cities, the capitals of Moscow and Saint Petersburg, the fertility rate – the number of children per woman per lifetime – has fallen to just over 1.0, far less than the 2,2 needed to keep the population constant. But more immediately, it is below the rouhly 1.5 to 1.8 in smaller cities and villages.
Russia’s demographic situation has become so dire that even though the rates in smaller cities and villages are also below replacement levels, they are higher than in the megalopolises and so Putin has felt compelled to stop supporting them as he had and instead to support smaller cities and villages.
Doing so will entail enormous economic and political consequences; and it is entirely possible that no Russian government, especially one spending so heavily on Putin’s war in Ukraine, will be able to do so. But to slow Russia’s demographic decline, Putin and his regime now have little choice.
No comments:
Post a Comment