Demographic Development in Russia: Past, Present, and Future

Abstract

The article provides a brief analysis of the history of the demographic development of Russia, identifies three of its periods over the past four centuries: pre-Soviet, Soviet, and post-Soviet, and shows the key features of demographic dynamics in comparison with the growth of the world population. From the general object (demographic development), its components are distinguished as a subject. In particular, in contrast to the prerevolutionary period of demographic development, when the expansion of the state’s territory played a huge role in population growth, in the Soviet years the natural movement of the population was the main source of demographic dynamics in the USSR and RSFSR. In the post-Soviet period, its place was taken by the migration component. Based on the analysis of official demographic statistics, it is shown that the collapse of the Soviet Union and the subsequent socio-economic upheavals have become a factor in the deterioration of the reproduction of the Russian population even more significant than the trends of the 1980s in its demographic development. At the same time, the first factor influenced to a greater extent the dynamics and structure of the mortality of the population, and the second – on the decrease in the birth rate. The features of the post- Soviet period of demographic development are considered in more detail. Their essence is that this is the time of depopulation, the first stage of which was the result of a significant increase in mortality and of a decrease in the birth rate, while the onset of the second stage of depopulation was initiated exclusively by fertility decrease. Since 2020, the mortality component of the population began to play the same role in depopulation as at its first stage. The final part of the article shows, firstly, what Russia can expect in the ongoing downward demographic dynamics, exacerbated by the onset of the coronavirus pandemic, and secondly, what are the possible solutions for the recovery of the rising population dynamics.