Accounts Chamber: It is not possible to stop the reduction in the population in Russia even thanks to migrants

The Accounts Chamber of Russia warned of the risk not to achieve a national goal of sustainable natural growth in the country's population. This conclusion is contained in the report on the progress of the federal budget for January - September 2019, published on the website of the Accounts Chamber.

The document says that the population in Russia as of September 1, 2019 amounted to 146.7 million people. This is 52.5 thousand people less than the beginning of the year. At the same time, the migration growth of the population compensated for the natural decline by only 76%. From January to August, 994.3 thousand people were born, which is 83.8 thousand people (minus 7.8%) less than the same period last year. The number of dead during the same period (1,223.5 thousand people) compared to a year earlier decreased by 33.7 thousand people, or by 2.7%.

Auditors state that the natural population decline in January - August 2019 approached the value of the indicator as a whole for 2018. At the same time, natural growth was recorded only in 17 regions, while last year it was in 20 regions of Russia.

"The accelerating fourth year in a row the natural population decline creates significant risks for the implementation of the national goal to ensure sustainable natural growth in the population of the Russian Federation," the report said.

In early July of this year, the Deputy Prime Minister of the Russian Federation Tatyana Golikova said that the natural decline in the population in four months of 2019 amounted to 149 thousand people, which is essentially a catastrophe . According to her, many regions of Russia deliberately reduced mortality indicators from oncological and cardiovascular diseases, as well as external causes of mortality, such as an accident. However, at some point, understatement became impossible, because groups of other diseases and "groups of diseases that do not die" began to grow critically.

After the Ministry of Health and the social block of the government began to criticize the analyzed situation with mortality, the indicators began to grow. So, in the Voronezh region, mortality from cancer for 2018 increased by 1.2% compared to 2017, and in four months of 2019 - at once by 20%. In the Ivanovo region, over four months of 2019, mortality from cardiovascular diseases increased by 35.9%. According to the Deputy Prime Minister, the regions record both the lack of personnel, the lack of education, and federal medical organizations should take an active part in the analysis of the situation.

As the doctor of economic sciences Sergey Smirnov explained, the population of Russia becomes more age -related, which in turn leaves an imprint on the overall statistics of the population. The high percentage of mortality from diseases worsens: the policy of import substitution in healthcare does not bring the necessary results, but the government continues to put barriers to medical equipment, technologies and drugs from Europe and the USA. And it is difficult to talk about solving the problem of birth rate because of the “demographic pit”, an illiterate migration policy and the lack of a radical improvement in the standard of living of Russians.

According to the forecast of the Ministry of Economic Development, the natural population decline in Russia will remain until 2023 , including due to a decrease in the number of women in early and average reproductive age (20 years - 34 years) and a high level of mortality in economically active ages. An increase in the population in 2020-2023 will be observed only at the expense of migration growth. It is reported that the population of working age in the Russian Federation will be 82 million in 2019, in 2020 - 82.5 million people, increasing in 2024 to 85.3 million people.