"The population of both Ukraine and Russia is doomed to contract, just at different speeds"

Demographer Alexei Raksha - about the consequences of the war for two countries

To date, about 10 million people left Ukraine because of the war, more than six million have been registered as refugees. As a war in Ukraine will affect its population, how the wars, in principle, affect demography, what is happening with statistics during the war, in a joint interview for the "borders" and "cold" was told by the independent demographer Alexei Raksha, the former forecast of Rosstat.

Can we trust official data on the losses of military personnel who publish on both sides?

- Of course not. You can’t trust anything like that. I usually take the average geometric (I need to change the number and extract the root from their work. - Approx. “Cold” ) between estimates of the two sides and I think that I am approximately. This is my estimated judgment.

How then to count the losses?

-We need to monitor the calculations of the Mediazones , telegram channels “Seek your own” and “ Goryushko ”, for example, and other sources, including the military. I would even double their data, because in these calculations there is a verification that usually goes according to the name, and far from always the journalists become known not only the name, but the very fact of death, which can easily get into any social networks. In addition, most of the missing people actually died. I would also not forget that the main severity of losses came to the self -proclaimed DPR and LPR, which declared universal mobilization, as well as that in addition to the army, Russia has other power structures.

Of course, this is incomplete data, but you can extract a lot of important information from them. However, it is clear that for the demography of the Russian Federation this war is not so important as economic factors. For example, a program when 450 thousand for a mortgage is issued for those who have given birth to a third or subsequent child, or as a decrease in people's income.

That is, these losses are invisible in the scale of countries?

- On a Russian scale, the generalized statistics are still invisible. In Ukrainian, it should be noticeable, but in Ukraine now there can be no statistics - but, perhaps, it will never be. Because war is waged on its territory. In such circumstances, ordinary statistics are either not conducted, or it is very bad. In the Great Patriotic Statistics, it was also classified or not conducted, and we learned the whole truth only after decades, when demographers estimated general losses, including civilians. According to the results of the current war, it could have been the same, if not for the most important but - then international migration was minimal, and now it is huge, and against the backdrop of migration from Ukraine, estimated data on mortality can be “smeared”.

Are there any demographic patterns of wars of the twentieth century?

- In order for the war to seriously affect demography, it must be total - with universal mobilization and restructuring of the economy on military rails. The second condition - fighting should be carried out in the country, of which we consider the demography.

For example, the United States lost 300-400 thousand people during the Second World War, but the dump of an attentive eye will only see the schedules for the floor and age of the population after 1945. Because in comparison with the economic depression of the 1930s, birth rate increased in the country.

Another example is France, on the territory of which there were fights. On the sexual age pyramid of France, losses because of the Second World War, unlike the first (which was total for the country), are generally invisible, because there was almost no excess mortality of young men.

And since in the 21st century there were no total wars, we cannot say that the situation is different now?

- In countries with good statistics ( developed countries according to the UN classification. - approx. " Cold " ) of total wars since the Second World War.

The UN does not give data on countries with poor statistics?

- It is extremely difficult to give relatively accurate refugee data, migration that died as a result of wars in the third world countries. The UN and other organizations engaged in evaluations and forecasts of world population, such as the US Census Bureau, use the same sources that we can use. They spend much more time, they have competent and motivated specialists who catch news, indirect data, use advanced methods to assess the influence of wars, primarily on migration flows. Experts can also make mistakes, but this is the best that we have in underdeveloped countries. You can see the fresh grades of the UN for 2022 - a wave of migration from Ukraine, and the migration of mortality, and the failure of the birth rate are already visible there. I believe that they made plausible assessments, highly appreciate their work.

Something in how the war affects demography contradicts the philistine representations?

- Certainly. In the Second World War, the birth rate rose in many developed countries - in the Czech Republic, the USA, Australia, New Zealand, especially closer to the end of the war. This is not surprising. Because the war for these countries meant the end of economic depression, an increase in employment, a decrease in unemployment, an increase in income.

Because the economies were rebuilt to war, for example, more jobs appeared?

- Yes. This happened in English -speaking countries, as well as many Central European countries after they were captured by Hitler Germany. In the occupied territories, this is also, I think, was mainly due to economic factors.

Returning to modern wars, is there any data on which we can understand how they influenced the birth rate in Russia?

- The fertility of the first and second children during the first Chechen war fell. But the first Chechen war lasted only about a year and a half, and the economic decline continued then, so it is impossible to determine which factor affected the decrease in the birth rate: the birth rate was reduced both before this war and after. And in the second Chechen birth rate, it grew mainly due to the rise in the economy after the “bottom” related to the default, and even the 1999 terrorist attacks (a series of terrorist attacks in Buinaksk, Volgodonsk and Moscow in September 1999, in which more than 300 people were killed.-Note of the “cold”) only slowed this growth.

And what happened to the migration during the Chechen wars?

- A lot of people emigrated from Chechnya, but the vast majority of Chechens then returned back. Even before the war, the Russians were expelled from Chechnya, many of them left themselves, fleeing poverty and crime with an ethnic bias. This continued both during the first war, and between the two wars. By and large, there were almost no Russians in Chechnya, especially young people. The Chechens fled from Chechnya to Ingushetia, then returned. Some went to other regions and settled all over Russia and the world, but this is a maximum of several tens of thousands of people.

And how did the wars on the territory of the former USSR influence the demographic situation in these regions?

-It is clear that the wars in Moldova, Karabakh, Tajikistan, the Georgian-Abkhaz war reduced the birth rate, increased mortality and caused refugee flows. At the same time, the collapse of the economy took place throughout the post-Soviet space, which in many places continued until the end of the 1990s, when most of the wars had already ended. The demography, including birth rate, was influenced by many different factors, and almost all were negative. Here the wars, the economic crisis, and the collapse of the social support system, and the loss of ideology, and the cessation of the anti -alcohol campaign, and, as a result, alcoholization, the growth of suicides, and so on. We are unlikely to be able to understand exactly what factors and in what proportions influenced the growth of mortality, as well as to separate them from each other.

If we are talking about mortality, it is clear that we can distinguish her jump in peacetime from the jump in wartime. The increase in mortality in peacetime in the non -Muslim part of the post -Soviet space was largely due to excessive alcohol consumption - which causes a mortality rate to be the increase in men aged 30 to 60 years. Wars, if they are not waged on their territory, cause death growth in men aged 20 to 30-35, less often up to 40 years. It turns out partially overlapping subset. Detailed and reliable statistics are needed for deaths, and in countries like Moldova and Georgia, very poor statistics are often unreliable, if it is generally open or free.

Has the Afghan war somehow influenced the birth rate?

- I did not affect. In that war, about 15 thousand people died in 10 years - this is a little for the entire USSR. In the 1980s, we even had two consistent elections of the birth rate-in 1982–1983 and 1986-1987, which were due to completely different reasons. Against this background, the consequences of the war are invisible.

What are these other reasons?

- Since 1981, paid maternity leave for mothers began to introduce. In 1985, restructuring and anti -alcohol campaign began. They caused updates to the birth rate.

Did the demographic situation differ in Russia and Ukraine before the start of the war?

- The whole history of Russia and Ukraine has a very similar demography. In Ukraine, in general, several decades have been lower than decades and therefore a slightly more old population. In the Soviet Union, mortality was slightly larger in the RSFSR than in the Ukrainian SSR, but the decrease in mortality in Russia was so successful to Covid that, at the latest, in the second half of the 2010s, the Russian life expectancy overtook the Ukrainian one and continued to grow quickly-the Ukrainian grew much slower.

But it must also be borne in mind that the official population of Ukraine was overpriced than Russia, because there were no census for 20 years. An attempt to account for the population on SIM cards and registers is not bad, but this is still not a census (in December 2019, a population was carried out in Ukraine based on SIM cards.-Note) .

Among the demographers there is a consensus that all these years the migration balance of Ukraine was negative ( in the accounting department of the balance , this is the rest of the funds in the account; in relation to migration, a negative balance means that more people left the country than came to it. - approx. "Cold" ). And this means that life expectancy in Ukraine was actually lower than the official one.

Roughly speaking, life expectancy is a unit divided into mortality. If we talk about the growth of life expectancy, then this means a decrease in mortality, and vice versa. That is, in Ukraine, mortality decreased more slowly than in Russia, including infant. In terms of fertility, Russia was ahead primarily because of the uterus, although it was perhaps inspired by a more modest payment of payments by the Ukrainian program, which was introduced a year earlier-since 2006, and in 2008 it was significantly strengthened and differentiated by the next birth of the child, but did not reach the Russian uterus for the amount of payments. After the war of 2014–2015, the economic situation in Ukraine deteriorated sharply and the program was cut, ceasing to differentiate the amount of payments depending on the priority of the child’s birth in a woman. Therefore, due to the war, the birth rate in Ukraine fell stronger.

Has the economy have always influenced more than total wars?

- As I said, the second world world was the last total war for countries with good statistics. The decline in the birth rate was then the stronger the more men were called up to the front and died and the longer and more fiercely in the country there were battles. But the first was more important. The fertility fell most of all in the RSFSR, although the total relative losses of the population were greater, for example, in Poland and Belarus, including due to the Holocaust. The fertility also fell strongly in almost all republics of the USSR, including Transcaucasia and Central Asia.

As for hybrid or expeditionary wars without universal mobilization, they do not have a noticeable effect on the birth rate, and here, of course, the economic situation comes to the fore. Now in developed countries - and by others there is no statistics - the birth rate of second and third children is greatly affected by the incomes of the population and unemployment.

The birth rate of the first children in developed countries, as I think, is more affected by cultural and social factors: the level of inequality, social support, the housing market, the share of adult children living together with their parents, a smartphone revolution, the spread of streaming porn and other things. Longness, starting from the fourth or fifth child, is more religious, ethnic and worldview things. In developed countries, this is very rare .

If we talk about 2014, how did the fighting affect migration and birth rate in eastern Ukraine?

- We do not have detailed statistics of the birth rate or reliable statistics of migration according to the self -proclaimed DPR and LPR. We know that about a million people ran away from Donbass in both direction. After that, there are very few youth left there, because only this can explain that the number of people born there decreased several times, and not at all that women there supposedly have the lowest birth rate in the world.

By fertility, I mean the number of children for one woman, and not the absolute figures of those born. At first, the number of born dropped sharply because of the war (mainly due to the flight of pregnant women), but then it remained as low. And this means that a huge part of young women, probably even more than half, left from there forever, and therefore men too. And therefore, the Donbass became a demographically depressed region.

In general, the war in 2014 caused a small rise in mortality in both countries, but it can not even be close to the consequences of Covid. Apparently, I can’t say how much migration to the EU increased from Ukraine then, because the census in Ukraine, as I said, has not been since 2001. Emigration also began to grow from Russia in 2014, but it is much smaller per capita.

Will the number of those who left Russia somehow affect the demographic situation?

-It will somehow affect, but we do not know how much it left, and, most likely, we will not find out soon. This is a future huge job - the most difficult thing is to study migration. Now there are estimates of the number of unscheduled from 150 to 300 thousand people. Some of them returned. They talk about the second wave, but these are speculations - there are no reliable numbers, because the vast majority of those who left are not removed from the place of residence, and the FSB border service publishes only the statistics of border crossing by citizens of Russia and foreigners to Russia, but not reverse flows, while temporary tourist and business trips are lion's share.

Can we predict what will happen to the population of Ukraine and Russia in 10 or 30 years?

- The UN recently published such a forecast , but it is not clear what probability it will come true. For example, if there is a nuclear war, then nothing will come true at all, but the demographs do not do such forecasts-“black swans” are not laid into demographic forecasts (difficult and rare events that have significant consequences.-approx. “Cold”) and force majeure. Now there is a force majeure, a tragedy. However, in the UN Population department, they have already managed to assess the influence of the War of the War, and in the coming years it was great for Ukraine and refugee refunds.

In general, the population of both Ukraine and Russia is doomed to contract, simply at different speeds. The population of Ukraine is much faster than the population of Russia. Firstly, due to emigration from Ukraine. Even without taking into account the war, much more people from Ukraine - to the soul of its population - go abroad, because it is easier for them to do it.

Secondly, in Ukraine below the birth rate. The population of Ukraine will decrease to 20 with a small millions of people, according to the average version of the new UN forecast by the end of this century. According to the same forecast, the population of Russia will remain above 110 million, although I consider this forecast overestimated. In any case, the prospects of our two countries are bad, but Ukraine is worse, if nothing will change.

But do not forget that war can lead to unpredictable consequences. Will migration from Russia intensify? It is already colossal from Ukraine: almost 10 million people left, 3.9 million crossed the border to the country, six million Ukrainians were recorded as refugees, some of them returned back, and it is not clear whether the rest will return.

Ukraine suffered huge losses: if you transfer to the Russian population so that the same scale of the disaster occurs, 15-20 million people should not return from Russia at once. It is impossible to imagine this, the neighbors will not accept so much.