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Ukraine War Pushing Russian Birthrate Down To Its Lowest Level In History By End Of Year – OpEd
By Paul Goble
Because births lag nine months behind the decision to have children, the events of last year involving the war in Ukraine and uncertainty about mobilization and the future mean that by the end of 2023 or in early 2024, Russia will have the lowest number of births per year in its history, Igor Yefremov says.
The Gaidar Economic Policy Institute demographer says that just throwing more money at the problem as the government now plans or even more carefully targeting aid to boost births in both rural areas and cities won’t do much. The overall situation people feel themselves to be in must be changed (ng.ru/economics/2023-01-08/1_8628_demography.html).
The number of births in Russia has been falling for seven straight years. In the first ten months of 2022, it fell by six percent over the same period in 2021; and that decline occurred before the expanded invasion of Ukraine, partial mobilization, and the economic problems and personal uncertainties arising from the war.
Government experts are currently trying to come up with a solution. Most of their attention is focusing on better targeting of maternal capital and other assistance to families with children. At present, the system is working relatively well in rural areas but not in cities where the birthrate continues to fall.
Consequently, a consensus is emerging in the government that more money should go to women in cities rather than in the regions. But Yefremov warns that such an approach won’t work because regions are demographically diverse and so Moscow will not be able to achieve the results it seeks.
Only by changing the environment in which potential parents can decide to have children or not is there any chance that Russia will have any hope of boosting birthrates.
Paul Goble
Paul Goble is a longtime specialist on ethnic and religious questions in Eurasia. Most recently, he was director of research and publications at the Azerbaijan Diplomatic Academy. Earlier, he served as vice dean for the social sciences and humanities at Audentes University in Tallinn and a senior research associate at the EuroCollege of the University of Tartu in Estonia. He has served in various capacities in the U.S. State Department, the Central Intelligence Agency and the International Broadcasting Bureau as well as at the Voice of America and Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty and at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. Mr. Goble maintains the Window on Eurasia blog and can be contacted directly at paul.goble@gmail.com .
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