11 July 2008
By Nabi Abdullaev / Staff Writer
The fact that Russia's population is shrinking should come as a surprise to no one. According to the State Statistics Service, 12 million more Russians died than were born from 1992 to 2007, with the arrival of 5.5 million immigrants only partially compensating for the loss.
It is clear from statements by political leaders that the government is aware of the problem and the serious threat that it poses to future economic growth and security as the country's work force shrinks.
What is also clear, according to demographers and public health experts, is that the government hasn't made enough effort to get to the root of the problem or to measure whether the policies it has put in place to deal with the demographic crisis are really helping. Although some financial incentives have been created to help couples have more children, experts say a much more comprehensive approach is necessary.
Given existing trends, demographers say the population will shrink from the current level of 142 million to something between 125 million and 135 million by 2025, and could fall to as low as 100 million by 2050.
This demographic decline has serious economic consequences -- there will be as many as 8 million fewer people in the work force by 2015 and possibly 19 million less by 2025, according to study by a group of Russian demographers sponsored by the United Nations and released in late April.
Population change is dependent on three main factors: the birthrate, the death rate and immigration rates. Last October, then-President Vladimir Putin approved a government demographic strategy through 2025 that sets targets in each of these three categories. But while this strategy shows that the government is concerned about the current situation, the program's goals suggest that it has little interest in understanding the roots of the problem, preferring to throw money at it instead.
Demographers have calculated that, in Russia, the replacement fertility rate -- the number of births per woman necessary to maintain the current population -- is 2.15. In 2006, the fertility rate was 1.3 children for every woman.
The number of babies born last year jumped to about 2 million -- up 8.3 percent from the year before and a post-Soviet record. Still, the fertility rate rose only to 1.4 children per woman.
State officials wasted no time in claiming that government policy was to thank for a new baby boom, with Health and Social Development Minister Tatyana Golikova only the most recent example.
"It is a true demographic explosion that no other developed country has generated," Golikova said in a speech on April 26. "We are proud that ... Russians have had the right reaction to the measures to encourage births."
The measures introduced by the government included an increase in monthly social payments to mothers, making it easier for young families to get mortgages, and "mother's capital" -- a one-time payment of around $10,000 for those women giving birth to a second child. Access to the money comes only three years after the child is born, and it must be used for the child's benefit, such as improving the family's living conditions or paying for education.
Demographers doubt, however, that government perks were the sole or even the main cause of the rise in births.
Vladimir Arkhangelsky, of the Research Center for Population Problems at Moscow State University, said the latest spike in births is the result of an increase in the number of women reaching their peak childbearing years. These women were themselves products of an early 1980s baby boom, which followed increases in Soviet-era social payments and an anti-alcohol campaign.
Arkhangelsky and other demographers say the number of children being born will likely fall off again in about five years as the women of the 1980s baby boom move out of their most fertile years and are replaced by the much smaller generation born in the 1990s.
According to the State Statistics Service, in 2007 there were 24.1 percent fewer females from the age of 10 to 19 than in the 20 to 29 age group. There were 44.1 percent fewer females under the age of nine than in the 20 to 29 group.
An added concern is that, even if the new benefits are partially responsible for the increase in births, they may still have a negative effect on the country's wealth disparity in the future. Women living below the poverty rate experienced a more significant rise in birthrate than any other segment of the female population, said Valery Yelizarov, head of the Research Center for Population Problems.
According to the Social Insurance Fund, the government body that issues birth certificates, about half of the women who gave birth last year reported a monthly income below the poverty line for Russia -- 3,500 rubles ($150). About 70 percent of the mothers reported a monthly income of less than 7,000 rubles ($300).
"The government needs to think of how to stimulate [births among] those who are more successful in life," Yelizarov said.
According to the government demographic strategy, incentives designed to get families to have more than one child should boost the birthrate by 50 percent by 2025. But the global trend, and particularly in developed countries, has been away from larger families, leading some experts to express doubts that the target can be met.
Karl Kulessa, the UN's population agency chief in Russia, said there were many social and economic factors that work against bigger families.
Benefits for larger families introduced by the French government have played at least some part in a jump in the birthrate from 1.7 babies per woman in 1994 to almost 2.0 in 2006. But to achieve similar results in Russia, the government needs not only to provide families with the financial resources to provide for more children but also to influence attitudes in a country where one-child families are the norm, Arkhangelsky said.
