PAPER The Expositor (Brantford) Friday, February 25, 2000

Russia population on decline due to poverty, disease, war

Analysts fear country will be unable to support itself

By Fred Weir

SOURCE Canadian Press MOSCOW

Russians are dying out so rapidly that by mid-century the country could be incapable of manning its industry, supporting its senior citizens or defending its vast and empty Siberian territories, analysts say.

``Russia is on the verge of a demographic crisis because we don't have very many children being born,'' says Valentin Pokrovsky, head of the Russian Academy of Medical Sciences.

``If this trend does not change within 20 years we will face very serious economic and social difficulties.''

Russia's population has been plummeting for almost a decade, due to a post-Soviet cocktail of bad news: spiralling poverty, disease, pollution, accidents, alcoholism, war and political instability.

As the former Soviet health care system collapsed, Russia was hit by new epidemics such as AIDS and drug-resistant tuberculosis, while old diseases like cholera, typhus and diphtheria came roaring back.

ALCOHOLISM BURGEONING

Alcoholism has burgeoned, particularly among stressed-out and demoralized men. According to one survey, the average Russian adult male consumes the equivalent of three bottles of vodka per week. Nearly 35,000 Russians die of alcohol poisoning every year, compared to 300 in the United States.

Two wars against the rebellious republic of Chechnya have cost an estimated 100,000 lives in the past six years, and the toll is still climbing.

``People are in a bad mood, and only thinking of survival,'' says Vladimir Petukhov, an analyst with the Institute of Social and National Problems in Moscow. ``Health indicators are dropping. Few want to bring children into this.''

The past year saw the biggest drop yet, according to a new report from the State Statistics Committee. Deaths outnumbered births in 1999 by 784,000, or 0.5 per cent.

LOST 2.8 MILLION

In the past eight years, Russia's population has shrunk by 2.8 million, or more than two per cent, and now stands at 145.6 million people.

Projections suggest there will be as few as 130 million Russians by 2020 if the trend continues.

Murray Feshbach, a demographic expert at Georgetown University in Washington, projects the country's population will be down by about half, to 80 million by the middle of the next century.

``The implications of this are catastrophic,'' says Yevgeny Zhilinsky, an expert with the Institute of Population Economics in Moscow. ``The population of Asia is growing rapidly, while Russia's huge territory is becoming depopulated.''

There are now three Russians of working age for each pensioner, but experts say that figure could be reversed within 50 years.

``Already there are labour shortages in some areas,'' says Zhilinsky.

``And this is happening in an economy that's in deep recession.''

Russian nationalists have been sounding the alarm for years, and warning that world's largest country may be unable to defend its vast empty spaces if it does not start raising new generations of soldiers.

Feshbach, one of the world's leading experts in Russian demography, told a recent conference that the population crisis might make Russians try to compensate for their losses by adopting a more aggressive posture in the world.

``They might follow a leader who would be more prone to use nuclear weapons to redress the lack of conventional resources,'' he said. ``Russians may feel they're all going to die anyway, so what's to lose?''

1.3 CHILDREN

The average Russian woman currently has just 1.3 children, far less than the 2.1 kids per woman that would be needed to maintain the present population. Six of every ten Russian marriages end in divorce, one of the world's highest rates.

In Soviet times, women were well-educated, were expected to work full time and were instilled with an ideology of social emancipation.

Analysts say this gave them an outlook similar to that of their Western sisters, who tend to put off childbirth in favour of careers, and then have fewer children.

Russian media also reported earlier this month that for every birth in the country, there are two abortions.

``We have this crushing paradox of First World family attitudes combined with Third World economic conditions, which is creating a terrible squeeze,'' says Petukhov.

``The population is shrinking and aging very fast, and no one has any idea how to manage the consequences.''