2023-06-01 15:47:14
Russian President Vladimir Putin receives large families on Thursday, June 1, at a time when Russia is experiencing a sharp demographic decline, accentuated by the war in Ukraine. A source of concern as the decline in population has consequences for the country’s economy and in fine on its power.
“Demographic tragedy”
“A demographic tragedy is at work in Russia”therefore The Economist described in March 2023 the massive population decline. The British weekly recalls that the country has lost two million more people in three years than demographers predicted, due to the coronavirus pandemic, the war in Ukraine and the exodus of a part Population.
“The life expectancy of 15-year-old Russians has dropped by five years and is now at the same level as in Haiti. The number of Russians born in April 2022 did not exceed those born during the Nazi occupation. Furthermore, while many men of fighting age are dead or exiled, women are ten million more than men.listed The Economist.
Between 1994 and 2021, Russia’s population has grown from 149 million to 143 million. From 2020 to 2023, between 1.2 and 1.6 million Russians died as a result of the Covid-19 pandemic.
According to the United Nations, if Russia continues this demographic trend, its population will fall to 120 million people by 2050. According to the most pessimistic forecasts of the UN, there could be only 83.7 million left. inhabitants at the end of the century.
Conflict in Ukraine
In addition, to the decline in births and the low life expectancy, new factors resulting from the conflict in Ukraine : the increase in the deaths of young men and the exodus of large sections of the population.
According to the American and European intelligence services, more than 150,000 Russian soldiers would have fallen on the battlefield. The Russian authorities give much lower estimates of the losses suffered.
The data is more reliable on the mobilisation. According to Moscow State University, more than 300,000 men were sent to the front. In addition, between 500,000 and one million Russians (often young and educated) left the country after February 24, 2022.
The declining population implies both a labor shortage and a smaller working population. This generates less revenue for the State and therefore less means to finance the pension and social protection systems.
A birth policy
To counter this decline, Russia implemented a pro-natalist policy. From 2008, the State established a “Parents’ Order of Glory”. Each family with seven or more children receives 700,000 rubles (€8,000 at the current rate).
President Vladimir Putin has made increasing the number of births a priority of his policy. He promises families with three or more children to grant them a plot of land belonging to the state so that they can build a house or cultivate it. In 2020, the Kremlin also announced tax exemptions and social welfare benefits for large families.
These measures did not allow the birth rate to rebound and Vladimir Putin relaunched the “Mother heroine” prize in 2022, a Soviet award created under Joseph Stalin. He promises one million rubles (€12,000) to all women who have given birth to more than ten children.
The immigration variable is also taken into account. It would be necessary to attract a million immigrants a year to maintain a constant number of inhabitants, according to a study by the School of Advanced Economic Studies in Moscow. The authors recognize, however, that reaching such figures is impossible and that Russia seems well and truly doomed to see its population decline.
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