Russia's dismal demographic future?
Will economic sanctions and social stress affect Russia's population trends?
Russia is being hit with human and economic casualties as it continues its invasion of Ukraine. This week’s edition looks at what those penalties might mean for Russia’s demographic future.
Total fertility rate (the average number of children born to a woman in her lifetime) is around 1.5-1.6 in Russia but averages don’t say much about distribution. Only-child families are common in Russia, but not everywhere. In fact they’re rare in Italy and England. Families with 2 children were only 25% of Russian families in 2010.
It’s not necessarily the case that the more only-child families there are in a society the more casualty-averse its citizens will be, and in Russia’s case it doesn’t necessarily mean Russia will be more peaceful even if they are. Putin doesn’t exactly make his military decisions based on the will of the people. I’d love to see more research on the relationship between only-child prevalence and casualty aversion. If anyone comes across that, please comment below or email me.
For a great overview and the source of these data see: Valeriy Elizarov and Victoria Levin. Family Policies in Russia: Could Efforts to Raise Fertility Rates Slow Population Aging? World Bank Group (12 September 2015).
We don’t yet know how much widespread sanctions against Russia will hurt its economy but we know they won’t be painless. What does a grim economic future portend for Russia’s demographic trends? Here are a few thoughts about the three ingredients of demographic change: fertility, mortality, and migration:
Fertility
Fertility fell abruptly in Soviet bloc countries after the USSR began to collapse in 1989. Numerous demographic studies attribute a chunk of the fall to the economic, social, and political stress of the breakup. It seems likely that fertility could take a downward turn again for similar reasons, depending on the extent of stress the average Russian (woman) feels over the next few years. Plus, the number of women of childbearing ages is shrinking annually, so there are fewer potential mothers.
Mortality
Male life expectancy had been on a steady climb from its low of 58 years in the late 1990s/early 2000s to about 67 years today. But social stress is linked to higher mortality in Russia, in part due to increased alcohol consumption. The collapse of the USSR was one stressor that affected health and we should expect the blowback from sanctions, war, and emigration to have a significant effect as well. There are more details on Russia’s mortality nadir and recovery in my book (releasing next week!) 8 Billion and Counting: How Sex, Death, and Migration Shape Our World.
Migration
Migrants generally flow in the direction of opportunity, towards a more peaceful setting, a higher standard of living, numerous job openings. As Russia’s economy shrinks in the wake of wide-ranging sanctions, does that mean they’ll see fewer immigrants?
Russia has hosted one of the largest migrant populations in the world, with a stock of 12-13 million migrants. Net migration has been positive, but trending downward since 2005, according to UN data. All signs point to lower future migration and negative net migration as some Russians, including valuable tech workers, choose to leave. One report I found said emigration from Russia has increased ten-fold over the last decade (but it didn’t link to the stats and noted that even official data sources from Russia provide a huge range of estimates about migration). I buy that. And fewer people may want to go to Russia if the ruble keeps losing value and the quality of life drops. Certainly, Ukrainians aren’t likely to continue as a major source of Russian immigrants.
Leigh Senderowicz and Nicole Maloney have a new article in Population & Development Review on how we measure “need” for contraception. They summarize it best: “Designating those who lack demand for contraception as having an unmet need fails to recognize women's capacity for autonomous decision-making, as well as creates confusion for those who rely on this indicator for program planning and policymaking.” We already suffer from a lack of gender-disaggregated data so it’s doubly troubling when our gender-specific indicators are flawed, too. Check it out open access here.
Corina McCullough Vidal, @demography101, Tweets demographic fun facts, including the demographic breakdown of NFL teams, with colorful and effective data visualizations. Corina’s animated population pyramids are my favorite.