Experts warned of the possible first to reduce the population of Russia for 10 years

In 2018, Russia can wait for a reduction in the population due to the fall of migration growth. This conclusion was reached by experts in the July monitoring of the economic situation of the RANEPA and the Gaidar Institute. If the forecasts of demographers come true, the population decline in the country will be recorded for the first time since 2009.

According to Rosstat, the natural decline of the population over the first five months of the year amounted to 147.2 thousand people, it accelerated in comparison with the same period last year (111.8 thousand people). The main reason experts call a decrease in the number of births due to the entry into the childbearing age of the small generation of women who were born in the 1990s. The number of born in January-May decreased by 28.1% compared to the same period last year.

It was assumed that migration can compensate for the natural reduction of the population, but, according to January-April, migration growth falls, RBC notes. In the first four months, he amounted to 57.1 thousand people (64.9 thousand last year and 71.2 thousand in 2016). Thus, the migration growth compensated only 47.1% of the natural population loss.

As the leading researchers of the Laboratory of Research of Demography and Migration of the Russian Academy of Sciences Nikita Mkrtchyan and Julia Florinskaya noted, while maintaining the trend this year, the Russian population may begin to contract.

Rosstat predicts the beginning of the reduction of the population of Russia since 2020, waiting in 2018 to the total population growth by 116 thousand people, and in 2019 - only 21.7 thousand.

According to the authors of the report, the main reason for the slowdown in migration growth was the reduction in the number of migrants from Ukraine with a weak restoration of migration from the countries of Central Asia. As noted in monitoring, Tajikistan, who was ahead of Ukraine, Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan, became the new main migration donor of Russia.

The migration growth due to the countries of the far abroad remains small - 2.2 thousand people in the first four months of the year. It is provided by India, Georgia, Türkiye, Vietnam and Afghanistan. The decline in migration with Western countries is preserved. There is a decline in migrants from the DPRK.

Recall that a year ago, Russian President Vladimir Putin said that the country again faced a drop in the birth rate. He noted that Russian demographers foresaw such a situation, warning that from 2015 to 2020 several negative demographic waves were resonated at once. A sharp decline in the birth rate during the Great Patriotic War led to a decrease in the number of born at the turn of the 70s. This generation gave birth to children in the complex 90s. Now small generations of the 90s are also beginning to create their own families.

In January 2017, the Ministry of Health of the Russian Federation adjusted the forecast for the indicators of the "general mortality" of the population by 2020. According to the department, it will grow by increasing the share of people older than working age and reduce the number of people of working age.

In the recently published report, the Department of Economic and Social Affairs of the UN predicts that the population of Russia will decrease to 132.7 million people by 2050. According to the last All -Russian census of 2010, the population of the Russian Federation was a little less than 143 million people.