Demographic implications of social deviations of Russian youth

Abstract

The article provides an assessment of the demographic losses among Russian youth due to social deviations – suicides, murders, alcohol and drug poisoning compared with the countries of the “old” (before May 2004) and the “new” (after May 2004) European Union. It has been shown that in Russia and in Europe over the past 30 years, the contribution of losses due to deviant behavior to the total mortality of young people has increased, but in Russia this undoubtedly preventable factor has been of special significance. Currently, this factor causes more than a third of the total mortality of young men in our country and almost a quarter of their contemporaries. The evolution of the structure of losses caused by social deviations testifies to multidirectional processes in Russia and Europe. If both in the "old" and in the "new" European Union the importance of suicides increases, in Russia there is damage with uncertain intentions. In essence, due to this vague diagnosis, underreporting of deaths from alcohol and drug poisoning, suicides and murders is masked – in general, from one third to 100% of cases. This means that the death rate from social deviations in Russia compared to the EU is even more than official statistics show.