Russia is on the verge of a new demographic collapse / Economics / Nezavisimaya Gazeta
Officials removed performance indicators from the profile national project
The birth of a second or third child is associated with the level of income of the population of the Russian Federation. Photo by RIA Novosti
A record drop in the birth rate this spring, experts call this last year’s vaccination program, when many families from the birth of a child due to the unclear consequences of anti-COVID vaccinations. The historically most deeply developing birth rate in Russia is inevitable in two years due to the reduction in the number of women of childbearing age, a new drop in incomes of the population and a change in the sexual behavior of young people. In order to increase the birth rate in the Russian Federation, the authorities should multiply stimulation programs, demographers count. But instead, the government of the Russian Federation chose the path of management: officials simply threw out the birth rate from the demographic national project. This helps the ministry to report to the front about the success of the implementation of the population policy.
In Russia, over the past two years, it has been possible to slow down the growth rate of the birth rate, Deputy Prime Minister Tatyana Golikova said at the end of May at the drawing up of the Presidium of the State Council. At the same time, according to Rosstat, as a result, the signs of birth coincided with the time of the Great Patriotic War. The total birth rate in January-April of this year is 8.8 births per thousand people. This is the lowest birth rate since 2000. At the same time, the population in January-April exceeded 0.3 million people.
The accelerating depopulation of Russia is not only a question of demography, but also of economics and even geopolitics. There are no cases of rapid economic growth in the world with a reduction in population, reputable consulting companies note. And if Russia is a country with a declining economy, a declining population and a shrinking army, then it naturally becomes a potential victim in long-term geopolitical competition. Therefore, the preliminary protection of the population of the country is a key task of the assignment, in relation to which special tasks have not yet been observed, as the rate of natural population decline increases. In the first four months of this year, the number of deaths decreased by 2.5% compared to the same period last year, and the number of births fell by 5.4%, Rosstat said. That is why the rate of population movement has increased.
The high-level socio-economic situation is a seven-year stagnation (2013–2019) and a three-year crisis (2020–2022) of growth, argues Academician Abel Aganbegyan.
“In the course of 20 years of demographic development (1992-2012) in Russia, the birth rate and mortality increased sharply – a depopulation arose. The total population decline over the years is estimated at 13.5 million people,” recalls the economist. According to him, in 2016, the birth rate and death rate almost equalized, and since 2017, the birth rate has begun, three times the decrease in mortality. The second demographic crisis began with natural depopulation. During the coronavirus pandemic, it turned into a demographic catastrophe with an unprecedented increase in mortality, a decrease in depopulation and a decrease in the population.
|
Most families in modern Russia there can only be one child. Photo by Moscow agency |
“The birth rate in 2014-2016 reached a level of almost 1.8 children per woman. And all the grounds suggest that it will continue to grow, ”remind economists from the Institute of Economic Forecasting of the Russian Academy of Sciences. However, in just a few years, the birth rate has skyrocketed to 1.5 children per woman in 2019-2020.
Independent demographer Aleksey Rakovoe increase and subsequent decline in the birth rate in the Russian Federation “When the authorities announced that the maternity capital program would not be extended, many families who were planning to have a child preferred to do this before the state of emergency. As a result, we are seeing an increase in the birth rate followed by a decrease,” says the demographer.
April’s failure in the number of Raksha births was boosted by last year’s vaccination campaign, which opted for the desire to have children due to the unclear consequences of vaccination, on the observance of “anti-vaxers”.
“The birth rate according to April statistics is only the first sign of a deeper decline in the birth rate that awaits the country in 2023 and 2024. This fall could be the largest in the history of the last few centuries,” warns Raksha. the highest prevalence in the developing decline in the birth rate is due to a decrease in the coverage of women of childbearing age, a new increase in income growth in the face of growing economic uncertainty, and also a factor in the growing changes in the sexual behavior of young people.
“A powerful collapse in the birth rate is expected due to the birth of the second and third child. This will be facilitated by growing hidden unemployment, uncertainty or lack of prospects, as well as a noticeable delay in state family support programs with an attempt to translate them into the validity of targeting and neediness,” Alexey Raksha predicts. At the same time, all the benefits that grow targeted and with a means test do not exactly stimulate the growth of the birth rate, demographers are sure.
This is how people are called, smartphoneization changes the behavior of young people. They communicate less with each other and spend more time watching pornography and other sexual surrogates,” Aleksey Raksha reassured.
To stop the coming decline in the birth rate, the state needs to triple the amount of financial assistance to families with children. “The payment of one and a half million rubles for the third and a million for the majority will significantly improve the situation with the birth rate. Another measure is the payment of a living wage for a child until graduation from a university,” the demographer suggests.
But Russian officials have found ways to solve fertility problems. They simply crossed this figure out of the largest demographic project in terms of spending. “One of the tasks of the state is to create conditions for families, to ensure the possibility of fertility,” the national project passport states on the website of the Ministry of Labor. “Ensuring the growth of the population of the Russian Federation” is one of the goals of the national demographic project. But instead of a birth rate, officials wrote themselves as a key indicator of family support spending, as well as “the computability of families with children covered by social support measures.” “This is a direct manipulation and rejection of the use of target management, which is embedded in the very idea of using projects,” agrees Raksha. The curator of the demographic national project is Tatyana Golikova, and its head is the head of the Ministry of Labor Anton Kotyakov.
It is noteworthy that in recent years in Russia a direct statistical dependence of the birth rate on the income of the population and even on the level of oil prices, which are so different or determine the standard of living of the population of the Russian Federation, has been revealed. Scientific research related to oil prices on the world market. This is the importance of economic efficiency in the demographic situation in the country, a calculation from the Higher School of Economics (HSE).
“When we began to study the relationship between fertility and economic indicators, the question arose: what factors need to be collected to search for these correlations. It turned out that the models with the price of oil have a rare free force. There is a positive correlation with oil prices, especially in our analysis we took into account cohort effects, on demographers’ possession of power,” Elena Vakulenko, Associate Professor of the HSE Department of Economic Sciences.