Russia demographic profile

NEW YORK: So much attention is focused on the Russian Federation’s plummeting ruble, evaporating investments and looming recession, following its russia demographic profile grab in Crimea and intervention in Ukraine that most are overlooking the perfect storm brewing within Russia’s borders: its demography. The perfect demographic storm of comparatively high mortality, low fertility and emigration of well-educated professionals is increasingly burdening Russian society and its deteriorating economy.

In addition to a shrinking labor force, mounting costs for its aging population and troubling premature deaths, especially among men, Russia is facing difficulties in filling critical jobs with largely unskilled non-Russian migrants, many working illegally in the country. Throughout most of the second half of the 20th century, Russia’s population increased. Whereas the Russian population was slightly more than 100 million in 1950, it peaked at nearly 149 million by the early 1990s. Since then, the population has declined, and official reports put it at around 144 million. The shrinking population is the result of deaths outnumbering births for nearly two decades without sufficient immigration to compensate for the deficit. The increasing number of deaths reflects the persistence of comparatively high mortality. The decreasing number of births is due to the prevailing low fertility, which plummeted to 1.

2 births per woman in the late 1990s and now hovers at 1. That rate is still about 20 percent below 2. AIDS, tuberculosis, obesity, heart disease, violence, suicide and environmental pollution contribute to Russians’ poor health. Russia’s current male life expectancy at birth of 64 years is 15 years lower than male life expectancies in Germany, Italy and Sweden. 13 years, it is one of the widest sex differentials. Moreover, the life expectancy at birth of 74 years for Russian females compares unfavorably with other developed countries, such as 80 years for Polish females.