The population of the former USSR at the time of its collapse amounted to 290 million people. By this measure, the country yielded only CHINA and India. In the mid-1990s, the population of Russia was only 158 million people, and ahead of the United States, were already Brazil and Indonesia.
However, the difficulties of the demographic situation in Russia is not associated with the total number of the population, and since emerging in the early 90s adverse trends in human reproduction, namely depopulation processes, especially in the European part of the country.
Demographic decline in Russia
Year, number of births and deaths, natural increase, number of births and deaths, natural increase of
thousand. persons per 1 thousand. population
1985 2375.1 1625.3 749.9 16.6 11.3 5.3
1986 2485.9 1498.0 987.9 17.2 10.4 6.8
1987 2500.0 1531.6 968.4 17.2 10.5 6.7
1988 2348.5 1569.1 599.4 16.0 10.7 5.3
1989 2160.6 1583.7 576.9 14.6 10.7 3.9
1990 1988.9 1656.0 332.9 13.4 11.2 2.2
1991 1984.6 1690.7 103.9 12.0 11.4 0.6
1992 1587.6 1807.4 219.8 10.6 12.2 1.6
1993 1361.5 2166.8 805.3 09.4 14.5 5.1
1994 1420.0 2300.0 880.0 09.6 15.6 6.0
Russia entered a period of rapid decline in the annual birth rate. It is obvious that if in the coming years will not be able to reverse these trends, the Russian expects a much larger demographic "failure" than in the 60s, with all the ensuing negative consequences: imbalances in the marriage "market", the decline in the labor force, and so on. h.
Unfortunately, the media were given a purely emotional, sometimes devoid of serious scientific arguments, assess the causes manifested in the country depopulation processes, when the death rate exceeded the birth rate dramatically. In this regard, we note the following:
1 It is impossible to underestimate the importance of the difficulties of the transition period, an unstable economic and political situation in the country, the effects of unforgivable mistakes of governments of Russia in the economic sphere. Decline in living standards really makes many young families to postpone having children for the future.
2 loomed in the country's fertility decline is probably associated with the first decline in the birth rate in the late 60s, due to the consequences of the low birth rate during the war years. In the 90s in the age group of the highest fertility (20-29 years), which accounted for more than one third of children born each year, entered a small contingent of women born in the second half of the 60s - early 70s (ie,. E. Daughters of those who was born during the war and the immediate postwar years). We are talking about the unique demographic waves.
3 In the scale of the federal state, how is Russia, the objectives and means of population policy should be determined by the specificity and nature of the regions. Every nation, living on the territory of our country, its ethnic characteristics, traditions (including family planning), cultural heritage, a way of life.
Of course, there is one common goal in conducting an active demographic policy, which should be inherent in the whole country: the development of the population, improving its "qualitative" characteristics. Any society is not much the number of inhabitants, namely qualitative (social) its parameters: education, culture, ownership of the economically active population of the modern techniques and technologies.
It is easy to see that the implementation of such a goal is well within the framework of the theory of demographic transition: improving the socio-economic conditions of the population (particularly women) in backward regions in their development can not but lead to the demographic optimum, which was discussed above.)