An admission of failure? Despite a native policy defended by Vladimir Putin in the 2000s, Russian authorities no longer published the monthly demographic statistics detailed since March, according to Bloomberg. These data are now “only for official use,” says demographer Alexei Rakcha to US media.
However, Kremlin has never denied the “historical” demographic challenge that Russia has faced for years with a population that continues to decrease, from more than 148.4 million inhabitants in 1991 to 143.5 million in 2024, according to the World Bank.
“The fate of Russia and its historical perspectives depend on one thing: how much we are and how much we will be,” said Vladimir Putin in 2020. Last year, the manager confirmed “improve the demographic situation” and “support for the birth rate and large families” a “priority” national objective “.
An accelerated decrease by war
But nothing helps. Despite a recovery in the 2010, the trend has reversed once again and now seems impossible to stop, while the UN estimates that the world of the world’s largest country will decrease by 15% for 2100. Because Russia suffers according to experts of a “triple demographic pain”, namely a fall in the birth rate combined with an increase in mortality and an increase in emigration. First on the birth rate side, the country’s fertility index amounted to 1.4 children per woman, while Vladimir Putin had established the 1.7 lens. A lower level than that of France (1.6) but that is even higher than that of Italy (1.2), two countries also face a demographic crisis, such as most economies developed in addition.
In total, 1.22 million babies were born in 2024 in Russia, according to the Rostat of the Russian Statistical Institute. A lower figure since 1999. 195,432 births were also counted in January and February of this year, before the interruption of statistics publication, a 3% decrease compared to last year. This reflects the fears of the population towards the future, and in particular the “fears of economic perspectives,” says Tatiana Kastoueva-Jean.
But it is also the logical result of the demographic crisis of the 1990s marked “due to a sudden increase in adult mortality, particularly among men, duplicated by a strong fall in birth. (…) In this period, the Russian population lost annually more than 750,000 people for natural equilibrium.” However, these fewer generations born at the end of the 20th century reached the era of prosecution and mechanically make less children.
Deaths are more numerous than births: 1.82 million in 2024 (+3.3%), even according to Rostat. The figures to be taken with caution knowing that Kremlin does not communicate with military losses in Ukraine. However, Bloomberg ensures that “the rhythm of accelerated demographic decrease in about 20% compared to 2023, partly due to war.” Especially because between 500,000 and 1.5 million Russians would have fled the country in the months after the invasion of Ukraine.
Serious work shortage
The demographic collapse of Russia weakens the entire economy of the country, about to fall into the recession, by reducing the active population: “This limits Russia’s potential growth to constant productivity,” says Julien Vercueil. Especially since Moscow has been involved in parallel “in a war that mobilizes working age classes. The puncture is real: several hundred thousand young men,” continues the economist who also points out “brain flight.” So that “the quantity and quality of the workforce are affected.”
Most surveys also show that Russian companies have significant recruitment difficulties, especially in non -priority sectors for war effort. This lack of weapons “produces an exacerbated competition between companies and public organizations in the labor market to obtain skills that have become rare,” says Julien Vercueil. As a result, “companies offer growing salaries to attract them, which translates into inflation and impoverishment of the population. It is a vicious circle,” Tatiana Kastoueva-Jean completes. In June, Russian inflation was still 9.8%.
In this context, some Russian companies do not hesitate to resort to foreign labor that compensate for the lack of workers in the national territory. And sometimes taking deviated clues. In 2022, the Alabuga Start program promised on social networks an accelerated vocational and technical training in hotels, mainly for young women in Africa. With the key a well paid use. Except that once there, these young women were sent to the Alabuga industrial site to gather drones in particularly difficult conditions.
This foreign work Force but necessary for the Russian economy is not seen with a good eye by opinion:
“Foreign labor is traditionally recruited for work of strength and domestic work. But it is presented to the hostility of the Russian population, which sometimes degenerates into racist confrontations,” confirms Julien Vercueil. Finally, Vladimir Putin decided after Moscow’s attack in early 2024 hardens the immigration conditions of the national Asia and the Southern Caucasus, “which are the most numerous to work in Russia.”
Measures with limited efficiency
Place in the nurseries, family subsidy … Vladimir Putin did not remain crossed to try to relaunch the birth rate as soon as he came to power in 2000. In 2006, the establishment of “maternal capital” even allowed women to receive around 7,000 euros at the birth of their second child. More recently, several regions of Russia have implemented programs that grant a single allocation of more than 1,000 euros to pregnant students.
To these measures taken to try to stop the demographic fall, conservative laws have been added such as the one that prohibits the Promotion of life “without children” Voted at the end of 2024. A policy that in the end had never borne fruit completely: “We have witnessed shaking by power, which aimed to remedy the decline of the main demographic indicators, but (…) only lasted time and were generally followed by periods of Torpor where nothing serious was done,” they estimate Julien Vercueil.
For the economist, “there is no strictly speaking of a demographic policy coherent in Russia” despite the desire of Vladimir Putin to address this problem. But the Russian president “has never been interested in the conditions that could lead homes to consider the future in a broader family,” concludes the economist.
Source: BFM TV
