Case Study: Population decline – Russia
Population graphs for the G8 countries Population since 1990
Life expectancy at birth 1990
350
1990
2004
300
85
2020 (projected)
Years
250
Millions
2013
80
200
75 70
150
65
100
60
50 0 Canada
France
Germany
Italy
Japan
Russia
UK
USA
Cash for more babies (2006)
A second baby? Russia’s mothers aren’t persuaded President Vladimir Putin last week promised to spend some of the country’s oil profits on efforts to solve the population problem. He ordered parliament to more than double monthly child support payments to 1500 roubles (about US$55) and added that women who choose to have a second baby will receive 250,000 roubles (US$9200); a very large amount in a country where average monthly incomes are close to US$330.
Canada
France
Germany
Italy
Japan
Russia
UK
USA
Russia is one of the G8 countries – one of the world’s most powerful nations .
Putin hails Russian birth rate rise (2012) Vladimir Putin paused last week, in the midst of his most important speech of the year, to outline Russia’s new strategy for population growth. In 2012, for the first time since the fall of the Soviet Union, there were slightly more births than deaths in Russia. ‘The population had grown more than 200 000 from January to September; the population policies of the last decade are working,’ he said. Throughout more than a decade of his rule, Mr Putin followed a policy, known as ‘mother capital’, of paying women up to $10 000 to have second children.
On Monday, young women at the Family Planning Youth Centre in Moscow said they liked the sound of more money, but suggested that Mr Putin has no idea about their lives. ‘A child is not an easy project, and in this world a woman is expected to get an education, find a job, and make a career,’ says Svetlana Romanicheva, a student who says she won’t consider having a baby for at least five years.
In a speech last week, he proposed additional incentives in 50 low-birth regions for women to have three children. ‘The three-child family should become the norm in Russia,’ he said.
Others say Putin is right. ‘Russian women typically have one child ... but many of my patients would like a second if they felt they had enough support,’ says Galina Dedova, a doctor at Happy Families, a private Moscow clinic. ‘Most of my patients count their roubles ... If they could get more money, some might have more children.’
The last available long-term prediction by Goskomstat, the state statistics agency, shows Russia could soon be losing population at the rate of up to a million a year. Even under the most optimistic forecasts, the ‘natural’ rate of decline will be about 400 000 a year, though it will be made up for by immigration.
The Christian Science Monitor, 19 May 2006
TASK 3: Study Source a Describe how birth rates and death rates changed in Russia between 1950 and 2014. b Identify the years when the total population: ■ increased ■ remained the same ■ decreased. TASK 4: Study Source a Identify the main differences between Russia and the other G8 countries. Use figures and examples in your answer. b Suggest reasons for these differences.
Mr Krupnov, director of the Moscow-based Institute for Demography, Migration and Regional Development, estimates that soon the downward trend will resume, as the ‘tiny generation’ of the 1990s, when birth rates fell drastically, begin to reproduce.
Financial Times, 21 December 2012
TASK 5: Study Sources and a A Russian couple are trying to decide whether to have a second child. Write a conversation between them which includes information about the advantages and problems of having another child. b Suggest reasons why Vladimir Putin considers it important to increase birth rates in Russia.
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