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Anxious demography of Russia
Leading Lev Roitman

Lev Roitman:

On September 1, the school year began in Russia - joy for first -graders. But demographers are in alarm: first -graders turned out to be about half a million less than last year, but a year ago there were 600 thousand less than in the year before last. What next? "Is Russia the death of the nation really ahead?" - Such a heading on August 18, British Gardian summarized the demographic situation in Russia. Is it really really, as the Paris Figaro recently predicted, Russia will become a country of widows in the 21st century, where is the plus to falling birth rate male mortality is strikingly exceeding the female? Indeed, according to all forecasts, the population of Russia will decrease, but, for example, more slowly than in Italy, the rate of reduction is equal to Japanese. Does this console, however? The program participates: Irina Zbarskaya, the Russian statistical agency; and Inga Grebysheva, the Russian Association of Family Planning.

Participants, more precisely, participants in our upcoming conversation, are in our Moscow edition. Irina Aleksandrovna Zbarskaya, I will present you somewhat more: you are the head of the Department for Statistics of the Population of the Russian Statistical Agency, naturally, the latest demographic data flows to you, so are there any comforting ones among these data?

Irina Zbarskaya:

Predicting the assessment of the current demographic situation, I would like to say right away that in the demography inertial, long-term trends are very strong, and the process, the situation that the current Russian and demographers, and specialists, and politicians, and public figures are evaluated as critical, was largely predicted and was largely laid in the whole course of the historical and demographic development of Russia in the 20th century. The revolution is one, the second, world war, civil war, industrialization, collectivization - all this laid out their mark on the age -foller structure of the population. If we see it, it is impossible to do this by radio by radio, but all those waves are visible, all those distortions are visible in the age-floor structure. If we take, for example, Sweden, prosperous in historical development, this age pyramid is an even Christmas tree with a wide base, tapering upwards. Russia, the age-sex structure of our population is rich in waves, and those cataclysms that have experienced and fell to the share of the older generation, they will also be reflected not only until the end of the 20th century, but also at the beginning of the 21st century and, probably, in subsequent years.

Lev Roitman:

I want to kill you with the question: is it worth in the current Russian demographic troubles, if these are troubles, and not the result of long -term development, to see a political lining?

Inga Grebysheva:

I think that in demographic troubles it is difficult to see a political lining that it has been done specifically, but the socio-economic problems that our society are shocked now, they naturally affect the fertility, because there is no confidence in the future in society, and they affect the age-sex structure of the population, because the mortality rate of men of working age is superior, such as during the war. This is mortality from injuries, first of all, poisoning, murders, which we are now famous. Therefore, of course, socio-economic problems have a very serious impact. Politicians only with their political speeches or attacks are not able to stop this process.

Lev Roitman:

You are talking about injuries. Here is the American demographer Eberstadt in the Los Angeles Times newspaper recently given what statistics, speaking of injuries, he leads data in the 96th year and we can imagine, unfortunately, that they hardly improved by this year, so in the 96th year he writes: more than 35 thousand Russians died from alcohol poisoning. For comparison, it gives America, which, of course, is not a sobriety reserve, the corresponding figure per year in America is approximately 300 people, while the population of America is 100 million more than the population of Russia, that is, these are absolutely incomparable orders. From alcoholization of the population there are injuries, murders are underway, other multiple troubles are underway. Be that as it may, the situation is what it is - the birth rate in Russia falls, the population is aging, there are more women than men disproportionate due to early male mortality. In this situation, Inga Ivanovna Grebesheva, I will present, by the way, you will also present you: you are the general director of the Russian family planning association, what makes the family planning, which mainly still aims to reduce the birth rate, and this planning of this nature is supported by the United Nations, but for countries with very high birth rate. What about your activity in Russia?

Inga Grebysheva:

With our activities in Russia, everything is normal, but difficult. I think this is a perversion of a concept: family planning is a reduction in birth rate, Russia has nowhere to reduce the birth rate. And by the way, the United Nations pursues this policy not without the consent of countries with high birth rate, because there is a very high mortality rate of birth children, the problems of hunger are there. I don’t want to talk about it now, but the United Nations have never pursued a policy of reducing birth rate in Europe. Furiable is regulated by the population of those countries where people live, and depends on how they live. I can say that family planning is not a medical question, this is a social issue, this is a much wider problem than taking contraceptives. In countries where the level of use of contraception by women is 70%, the birth rate is higher than in Russia, for example, in Sweden or in Norway, although it is also low. The tendency to reduce the birth rate of children in Western Europe is not at all because there the UN pursues some policy. Nowhere is a violent policy of reduction of birth rate. I think that in Russia the problem of family planning is primarily the problem of reproductive health protection and the preservation of the opportunity to give birth to the desired children when the situation is stabilized. In addition to such a low birth rate, we have up to 20% of barren couples, and half of them are barren men. The main reason is the transmitted diseases that are transmitted sexually. But the fact that the government should think about how to conduct a focused family policy, that still the economy should be with a human face are evidenced by such numbers that of the three women have already become pregnant, two women are abortion, this means that they are not sure of tomorrow, this means that they have some very serious reasons for refusing the birth of a child. The war, which essentially is now in Russia, also contributes to this. Therefore, it seems to me that people who say that the contraception and the family planning association are to blame for everything, they simply want to take people away and take people away who can make a decision, from the true problems of falling birth rate and changing the structure of the population in Russia.

Lev Roitman:

Thank you, Inga Ivanovna Grebesheva. Reviews about the activities of your association mutually exclusive in tonality. But, in the State Duma, we remember, almost compared your association with an institution planning genocide in Russia. More recently, an article has appeared in Novaya Gazeta in which your association is mentioned, the article has the heading "Planning of nothingness". At the same time, with the highest praise, the main obstetrician-gynecologist of the Russian Ministry of Health, academician of the Russian Academy of Medical Sciences Vladimir Serov spoke with its activities. So very contradictory data, thank you for the clarifications that you did. One thing can obviously say for sure that your activity led to a reduction in the number of abortion and to reduce female mortality. Irina Aleksandrovna Zbarskaya, from your point of view that in Russia in this situation, without expecting an economic revolution, can still contribute to the fact that in Russia desks for first-graders will at least not be empty?

Irina Zbarskaya:

Absolutely correctly Inga Ivanovna said that all countries, if you look at a long retrospective, moved from high birth rates to lower ones. And Russia is going on whether we want it or do not want it, it follows the path of Western countries: we cross the high levels of birth rate, which were noted at the beginning of the century. And there are countries in which the total birth rate is the number of children that falls on the same woman, lower than in Russia. If in Russia we now mark the value of this total birth coefficient of 1.24 in the 98th year, then in Italy, in Spain it is even lower. What can we expect and how menacingly pessimistic the forecasts and those headlines that you brought at the beginning of our program? Yes, unfortunately, the reduction in the population, which we celebrated since the 92nd year, according to our calculations, according to those forecasts that both independent experts and the UN make, will be reduced. But here, taking this opportunity, I would like to say right away that my predecessors in 1980, making forecasts of the development of the population of the Soviet Union, received that in the late 90s, at the turn of the century, the population of the Russian Federation will decrease. That is, they were mistaken for several years, it was difficult to suggest in the 80th year, you agree, and the collapse of the Soviet Union, and the change in socio-economic and political conditions, which, of course, I also completely agree with Inga Ivanovna, had their negative impact on the dynamics of demographic processes, and of course, the tendencies that were laid down, and at the beginning of the next century. And here we must say that, yes, the population of Russia will decrease, yes, the population of Russia will age. According to the calculations that we did, the share of older persons will increase from 20% to the 99-2000 year, to the 25th year. At the same time, the share of children and adolescents will be reduced in the same proportions. That is, of course, the situation is quite serious.

Lev Roitman:

Thank you, Irina Alexandrovna. Regarding what you said, Irina Alexandrovna, indeed, the reduction of the population will not only have Russia, judging by the serious international demographic forecasts. Naturally, I understand that this does not console anyone, for example, such that by the middle of the future century the population of united Europe, I mean 15 countries of the European Union, and this is by no means the poorest countries in this world, will be reduced by 44 million people. I don’t know if it will console someone in Italy, in Spain, Portugal, in Germany, where all these abbreviations of the population are predicted. Nevertheless, the problem in Russia is the problem of Russia, and in Russia today, according to the same statistics of the demographic, 19 deaths per thousand newborns. Inga Ivanovna Grebesheva, Family Planning Association, how do you explain this?

Inga Grebysheva:

It seems to me to consider the problem of population only from the point of view of the population, it should not be considered from the point of view of the quality of life of the population. You yourself gave an example, it is slightly lower in infant mortality, but quite high, higher than in developed countries. The fact is that infant mortality is associated with the condition of a pregnant woman, with the nutrition of a pregnant woman, with environmental problems, with the ability to treat diseases, and newborn pathology. The whole horror is that we have high mortality not only for children of the first year of life, when these factors are affected, but when they live the first year that it would seem influenced by the factors of the innate pathology, from which the children died, they died, but then they must live. We have the mortality rate of children of the first five years of life is also higher than in many developed developed countries. We have about four million bomb children, after all, we didn’t go to school, 500 thousand children did not count, but we have other children who turned 7 years old, but who did not go to school due to war, due to the fact that they have alcoholic parents, alcoholism is generally a terrible scourge for Russia, just from the fact that nobody needs them. And about injuries: we have a lot of injuries, but we still have a tremendous mortality from injuries, those men who could survive from the injury do not survive. This all suggests that the quality of life of our population is extremely low, we have fallen the level of medical care, we have fallen opportunities to receive free education and so on and so on. Therefore, I think that now we should talk about the demographic situation, but not only about it, we must talk about how we can save those lives that already have, those children who should live, and those men who also have to live in the name of their children.

Lev Roitman:

Thank you, Inga Ivanovna.

Irina Zbarskaya:

Inga Ivanovna has already brought numbers that characterize that we have a problem not only in reducing the birth rate, not only in reducing the number of children, but we already have the problem of children's neglect. And here, of course, is a social problem. And when in our press they appear now, conferences discuss the issue of increasing the birth rate, I immediately have the question: but now you don’t need to just put forward this slogan of increasing birth rate. After all, the health of pregnant women is now worsening, Inga Ivanovna has already said, I will not repeat myself, the health of the Russian population is deteriorating, the health of youth is worsening, that is, those who will have children in 5 years. And so it seems to me, speaking of the priority of those areas that should now be, we should now set the task, firstly, of course, an increase in life expectancy, increasing life expectancy in able-bodied men, as already mentioned here. After all, we have almost 40% of the deaths of men of working age, this is the so -called unnatural cause of death - this is alcoholism, these are injuries, accidents, murders and suicide. This group at working age is in the first place. Therefore, of course, we must fight for the life of already born children and an adult generation - this should be a priority. As for the increase in the birth rate, those artificial measures that were taken in different countries at different periods of development, because they do not give, from my point of view, a long -term effect. Here are those events that were carried out in the mid-80s, yes, they contributed to an increase in the birth rate at some short-term segment, that is, the family, as it were, knocked down their calendar of birth. If the family planned to have three children, then they timed this in time by the period when the benefits were paid. And thus, in the early 90s this sharp decline occurred in a decrease in the birth rate, it is as one of the reasons, maybe it was not the most important reason, but this also played a role. Of course, it will affect the improvement or even stabilization of socio-economic conditions, perhaps to a certain extent on increasing birth rate. But from my point of view, the priority problem should be the problem of improving the level of health of the nation.