Population Decline in Russia

The president called on parliament to provide incentives for couples to have a second child to increase the birth rate in order to stop the country's plummeting population.

Russia's population peaked in the early 1990s (at the time of the end of the Soviet Union) with about 148 million people in the country. Today, Russia's population is approximately 143 million. The United States Census Bureauestimates that Russia's population will decline from the current 143 million to a mere 111 million by 2050, a loss of more than 30 million people and a decrease of more than 20%.

The primary causes of Russia's population decrease and loss of about 700,000 to 800,000 citizens each year are a high death rate, low birth rate, high rate of abortions, and a low level of immigration.

High Death Rate

Russia has a very high death rate of 15 deaths per 1000 people per year. This is far higher than the world's average death rate of just under 9. The death rate in the U.S. is 8 per 1000 and for the United Kingdom it's 10 per 1000. Alcohol-related deaths in Russia are very high and alcohol-related emergencies represent the bulk of emergency room visits in the country.

With this high death rate, Russian life expectancy is low - the World Health Organizationestimates the life expectancy of Russian men at 59 years while women's life expectancy is considerably better at 72 years.

This difference is primarily a result of high rates of alcoholism among males.

Low Birth Rate

Understandably, due these high rates of alcoholism and economic hardship, women feel less than encouraged to have children in Russia.

Russia's total fertility rate is low at 1.3 births per woman. This number represents the number of children each Russian woman has during her lifetime.

A replacement total fertility rate to maintain a stable population is 2.1 births per woman. Obviously, with such a low total fertility rate Russian women are contributing to a declining population.

The birth rate in the country is also quite low; the crude birth rate is 10 births per 1000 people. The world average is just over 20 per 1000 and in the U.S. the rate is 14 per 1000.