Russia’s population fell by more than 1 million people in 2021, Rosstat reported Friday, a historic decline not seen since the collapse of the Soviet Union.

The pandemic has exacerbated ongoing population problems, with more than 660,000 people dying from the coronavirus since health officials recorded the country’s first case, according to Rosstat.

The new figures continue to show a downward trend compared to last year, when Russia’s population fell by more than 500,000.

Rosstat’s monthly Covid-related death tolls are far higher than those posted by another government website dedicated to tracking the country’s pandemic.

The figures from these government websites only take into account the number of deaths where autopsies determined the virus was the leading cause of death, for a total of just 329,443 deaths.

The discrepancy has sparked criticism that the Russian government has been downplaying the severity of the pandemic in one of the world’s worst-hit countries by cases.

Russia has struggled to contain the epidemic due to slow vaccination campaigns, limited restrictions and rampant mask wearing in public.

The pandemic death toll exacerbates the demographic crisis Russia has faced over the past 30 years related to low birth rates and short life expectancy.

Birth rates have been falling because the current generation of parents was born in the 1990s, when birth rates plummeted due to economic uncertainty following the collapse of the Soviet Union.

The number of births per woman is about 1.5, well below the minimum 2.1 required for population renewal.

Economic issues

Russia’s shrinking population has been at the top of President Vladimir Putin’s domestic agenda since he came to power more than two decades ago.

Addressing the nation, Putin has often encouraged Russians to have more children and lead healthier lifestyles in order to boost life expectancy.

The government has introduced a range of financial incentives for parents of more than one child, such as cash bonuses and favorable mortgage rates.

Putin stressed at his annual press conference in December that 146 million people is not enough for the country from a “geopolitical point of view”, hence the labor shortage.

He added that it was important to show that “having a baby is a joy” and that “there is no greater happiness in life and in the world”.

“The population crisis is an absolute failure of state policy,” said Sergey Zakharov, a demographer at the Higher School of Economics in Moscow.

He told AFP that measures to boost the birth rate encouraged families to have children earlier, but would not change how many children they wanted in total.

He said the government’s impact on birth rates was “limited” and bringing births forward into the future would lead to a “demographic disparity”.

Complete News Source : Hindustan Times