The Russian Birth Rate: Blip or Trend?
Every time I (or a commentor) says something negative about Russia’s recent trajectory and future prospects, like night follows day a few (you know who you are!) say: But look at the rising birth rate! It’s the all purpose response.
This article from WindowOnEurasia presents some statements by Russians, including the first deputy chairman of the Duma health committee, the essence of which is that the recent uptick in the birth rate is not the harbinger of a demographic turnaround, or a sign that Russia’s demographic problems are behind it. A few choice quotes:
Another participant in the press conference, Nikolay Gerasimenko, the first deputy chairman of the Duma health committee, said bluntly that “the birthrate will fall whatever we do,” despite the uptick that has been observed in the last four years as an echo of higher births in 1985-1990 (slon.ru/articles/344217/).
The Duma official said that he “expects high birthrates to continue for two more years, [but] unfortunately since December [2009], there has been a slowing of the birthrate.” As a result, since that time, officials have concluded that “mortality has exceeded berths by 22,000, driving the population down.
. . . .
“Unfortunately,” he continued, “the birthrate will fall [in Russia] whatever we do.” Fertility rates are unlikely to go up beyond 1.5 to 1.6 children per woman, a rate that does not guarantee replacement. And because so many of the mothers are ill, “they give birth to ill children,” whose life expectancies are less.
. . . .
In a comment on these issues, Anatoly Vishnevsky of the Higher School of Economics tells “Kommersant” . . . . “despite the positive tendencies of birth and death rates which have been noted in recent years, ‘the levels achieved are all the same far from what is wanted.’” Moreover, they are short term, and “the euphoria connected with [them] is unjustified.”
Vishnevsky says his pessimism reflects long term trends. Since 1910, “not a single generation of Russians has reproduced itself.” Since 2004, the number of women of reproductive age has fallen, and since 2007, “for the first time in a long period began the contraction of the number of people of working age.” He added that these trends will “rapidly accelerate.”
Consequently, the Moscow scholar concludes, “the single real resource for preventing the decline of the population is immigration. “There is no other,” he told “Kommersant,” and “if Russia does not want to lose its competitive position, it must find its place” in a world where “large-scale international migration” is the norm rather than the exception.
I would be interested to read data-driven, empirical responses to these claims. In particular, to the statements that the rise in the birth rate is a temporary blip, and that the “euphoria” regarding this uptick is unwarranted.
How much better or worse than some other European countries?
If it’s not so much worse than a number of other European countries, than chalk up another example of selective highlighting.
Comment by Mr. Y — April 6, 2010 @ 6:10 pm
1. “But look at the rising birth rate! It’s the all purpose response.” – I don’t do that.
2. Love how Paul Goble the Propagandist flip-flops from “Muslims will take over Russia!” in 2006 to “Muslims are no longer a demographic reserve” in 2010 (an obvious point that was made well before Goble observed it). Either way, however, Russia is doomed according to Goble the Propagandist’s narrative.
3. No-one seriously disputes that birth rates will start sliding down from around 2015 (barring fast compensatory rises in total fertility rates). However, if mortality rates continue on their downward trajectory (and there’s no reason they shouldn’t) and if migration remains at current rates, then the overall population will remain roughly stable.
4.
Russia’s births tend to rise during summer, and deaths tend to rise during winter. So the population decline for Jan-Feb is hardly surprising. Extrapolating results from the first 2 months to the entire year is idiotic or mendacious.
5.
This statement is nonsensical on so many levels, one does not even know where to begin.
6.
Well as usual I would refer to 10 Myths about Russia’s Demography (#9).
If however the fertility rate rises to around 1.7-1.8, which I believe is more likely than 1.5-1.6, then the population will exhibit slow growth. (See #3).
Comment by Sublime Oblivion — April 6, 2010 @ 6:20 pm
“How much better or worse than some other European countries?”
Russia’s birth rate is one of the highest of the major European countries. It vastly exceeds Austria’s, Germany’s, and Italy’s, and is significantly higher than in Belarus, Belgium, Hungary, The Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Ukraine, and the UK. Of the major European countries, only France has a higher birth rate than Russia.
“If it’s not so much worse than a number of other European countries, than chalk up another example of selective highlighting.”
Since Russia’s birth rate is actually higher than most major European countries, this is a real example of people like Goble and SWP being irrationally determined to denigrate Russia in any way they can think of under every possible circumstance.
Now they know the facts, watch ’em turn on a dime and start bleating about how the high Russian birth rate shows that Putin has a cunning plan for a Russian invasion of Europe in ~18 years, and that the Mistral sale shows that France, the other demographic “threat” is in on it! Imagine a Europe demographically dominated by France and Russia – a total nightmare to the likes of SWP!
Comment by rkka — April 7, 2010 @ 4:24 am
The myth of declining birthrates during the 90s was debunked by Russian demographers; the myth of the increasing birthrates during the first decade of the 21st century has also been debunked by Russian demographers. In fact, the whole birthrate issue is a red herring. It essentially reflects the tendencies of all European countries during urbanization. There are some factors that could be improved. For various technical reasons, it’s hard to determine the infertility rate — in Russia the leading cause of secondary infertility among women is abortion; in men it’s untreated or mistreated STI — but estimates are between 15 and 20 percent of couples, which is higher than the world average. Contraception and timely treatment would improve that. Prenatal care is pretty good, but infant mortality is still higher than the European average; there are improvements there in the past few years (thanks largely to US and international funding, but now thanks to the Ministry implementing new protocols), so that might help. It is not clear how much the economic situation plays a role. There is anecdotal evidence and some statistical evidence (looking at incomes of families with more than one child) that if couples can actually buy an apartment or house, they have more than one child. But that is not clear.
In any case, the real problem is the mortality rates, not the birth rates. This whole birth rate discussion was just encouraged to contrast the supposedly dreadful 90s with the supposedly fabulous oughts. In fact, to repeat, the fall and rise and fall of birth rates is LARGELY not related to economics and social policies at all.
SO, your “myths” and supposed “debunking” are useless. Sorry to be blunt, but you don’t know sh*t about demographics, AIDS, fertility, etc. Cherry-picking sources and misinterpreting the analyses — not to mention creating straw men in your myths — may convince the ignorant, but not anyone who actually knows something about this.
Comment by mossy — April 7, 2010 @ 4:40 am
Need I really say anything more?
Comment by Sublime Oblivion — April 7, 2010 @ 5:01 am
It’s good to have the intuition to know what needs to be addressed, when not having an immediate answer. Such inquiring separates the thinkers from the stinkers.
😉
Comment by Mr. Y — April 7, 2010 @ 5:11 am
Yes, SO, you actually do need to say something more. You need to give a citation. You need to actually read some of the Russian demographers’ works to understand the “echoes” of WWII in rises and falls in the birthrate, as well as the blips related to the increased birth rate in the mid-80s. That is, you need to actually know something about demography. It wouldn’t hurt you to study epidemiology, too, if you’re planning on writing about AIDS and fertility in Russia. I mean, honestly: you’re some history undergrad and you think you know more about this than the world’s demographers, and AIDS epidemiologists, and statisticians? And that’s because… why?
Comment by mossy — April 7, 2010 @ 8:25 am
@mossy,
No, actually I don’t need to say anything more because you’ve made yourself sound like an idiot without my help. Your inane statements about the “myth of declining birthrates during the 90s” and the “myth of the increasing birthrates during the first decade of the 21st century” because, defining birth rates as the number of births per 1000 population, is simply factually wrong. I don’t need a citation for basic facts like that. (Of course, you could make a far more sophisticated argument, such as that the average birth sequence remained flat from the 90’s to 00’s, and hence the dip followed by the recovery was merely a result of birth postponement – and you’d be largely correct. But you don’t do that).
Second, believe it or not, but I couldn’t care less what a random commentator on a blog, who doesn’t know the definition of the most basic demographic terms yet is presumptuous enough to assume what I have or haven’t read, thinks about my knowledge of demography (or lack thereof). As a matter of fact, the “echos” that you speak of are explicitly mentioned in my demographic article (I wonder if you even read it), and are inherently accounted for in the demographic model for Russia I constructed to make my projections – which, incidentally, happen to be in line with Rosstat’s most recent? Or would you say Rosstat doesn’t know anything about Russia’s demography? (I’m now wondering if you’ll bring up the Rosstat-is-under-the-control-of-the-totalitarian-FSB state card).
Your last sentence says it all really. What I major in (or don’t – no, it’s not history) is entirely irrelevant to the validity of my demographic work. Your assertion that I claim to know more than the “world’s demographers, and AIDS epidemiologists, and statisticians” (whoever they are) is a pure strawman. You are someone who unconditionally believes a certain sub-set of “experts”, and anyone who doesn’t share or challenges those views is a rake or an ignorant fool. Anyhow, I’ve wasted enough time on this, so unless you come up with something serious – something more serious than a string of logical fallacies and insults, that is – I will not be obliged to reply seriously myself.
Comment by Sublime Oblivion — April 7, 2010 @ 12:17 pm
“Another participant in the press conference, Nikolay Gerasimenko, the first deputy chairman of the Duma health committee, said bluntly that “the birthrate will fall whatever we do,” despite the uptick that has been observed in the last four years as an echo of higher births in 1985-1990.”
So let’s see now. The FIRST DEPUTY CHAIRMAN OF THE DUMA HEALTH COMMITTEE says that birthrates will fall WHATEVER THEY DO. And yet the smelly little cockroaches of Russohpile dementia STILL argue that birthrates prove the brilliant success of the Putin regime? Even we at LR find this extent of open psychosis surprising.
And meanwhile, of course, the ONLY data on birthrates is from A PROUD KGB SPY who these same cockroaches tell us we can trust not to lie.
Awesome post, SWP, you’ve exposed these pathetic wretches as utterly and finally as can be. Bravo!
Comment by La Russophobe — April 7, 2010 @ 5:31 pm
Okay, SO. Here’s something factual. Let’s take a look at your bit on HIV-AIDs:
“MYTH: The ruling elite’s criminal neglect of Russia’s growing AIDS crisis will soon result in hundreds of thousands of annual deaths, further accelerating its demographic collapse.”
This is a strawman. Cite sources that say exactly this.
You write: “Institutions like the World Bank were predicting hundreds of thousands of deaths by 2010, yet the death roll for 2008 was only 12,800.”
This has a citation to a 2004 article in the Washington Post. At that time there were 280,000 registered PLWHA and “barely 2,000 Russians are receiving antiretroviral medication, and many of those get something less than the full treatment known as a triple cocktail.” Hence, the article states: “But by 2010, under the most optimistic World Bank forecast, 250,000 Russians will be dying as a result of AIDS each year; under the most pessimistic scenario, the annual toll will reach 650,000.”
Note that you’ve changed the quote. Note also that in 2004, when so few people were getting ART therapy, and when the real number of AIDS cases is estimated to be far higher, the World Bank forecast makes sense.
You write: “Further, the percentage of pregnant women testing HIV positive plateaued in 2002, suggesting the epidemic remains essentially contained among injecting drug users.”
From the Russian governmental report on AIDS published in the spring of 2009:
Over the last five years, the infection is more frequently spread through sexual contact from the vulnerable groups into the general population. The main path of infection in Russia remains use of non-sterile instruments for intravenous drug injection. At the end of 2007, 83 percent of all people that had a known history of infection had been infected with HIV through injecting drug use. In 2007, 34.1 percent of newly infected people contracted HIV through heterosexual contact and 64.5 percent through injecting drug use. In 2007, the main route of HIV infection for women was sexual contact (63 percent). For men, it was the parenteral route through injecting drug use.
Since 2002, there has been an increase of the involvement of young women in the epidemic, indicating that the epidemic is breaking out into the general heterosexual population. The share of women among the newly HIV-infected people in 2006-2007 amounted to 44 percent.
From 2002 to 2007, more people became infected through heterosexual contact. Both the absolute and relative numbers of infection through heterosexual contacts have grown in the last six years. In 2002, the total number of infections through heterosexual contacts was 17.8 percent, while in 2007 it was 34.1 percent. It should be noted that the main transmission route for women (63 percent) is sexual contact, while for men it is injecting drug use.
The increased share of women in the HIV-positive population indicates growing numbers of heterosexuals in the epidemic. There are more than 135,000 HIV-positive women in Russia. Based on data collected for 2007, these women have given birth to more than 42,000 children, including 8,000 in 2007. … After a significant increase in new HIV cases among pregnant women in 2001-2002, the number of new cases stabilized between 2003 and 2007 and the number of pregnant women tested increased.
You write: “The problem with the “doomer” models used to predict apocalypse (Eberstadt, NIC, Ruhl et al, etc) is that their projections of imminent mass deaths from AIDS unrealistically assume heterosexual, sub-Saharan Africa transmission patterns, which is unbacked by sociological analysis or surveillance data. A more rigorous model by the Knowledge for Action in HIV/AIDS in Russia research program predicts a peak HIV prevalence rate of under 1% of the total Russian population by around 2020. Thus far, it correlates with reality.”
If you read the official Russian report on AIDS carefully – ie stop cherry-picking what you like — you’ll see that the epidemic has broken out into the heterosexual population. It is not clear if it can be considered a “concentrated epidemic” (largely in one group) or a more “generalized epidemic” (in the population at large). It is most likely the former, but given the increasing numbers of people who contract HIV through heterosexual sex, it’s not just the “doomers” who are worried.
If you read a variety of documents on HIV/AIDS, you will see that people use a wide variety of prediction methods and that those predictions change as the situation changes. Some written 5 years ago, based on the situation then, are now no longer applicable. So citing them and (mis)quoting them is just making a strawman.
You write: “Finally, following a period of real neglect of the problem until 2005, the Russian state has since ramped up spending on AIDS to an annual 0.5bn $. One can no longer speak of official negligence.”
Yes, they have ramped up spending, and yes, some of it is being well-spent. But according to the official Russian govt report, in 2007 only “33.7 percent of young women and men aged 15–24 both correctly identify ways of preventing the sexual transmission of HIV and reject major misconceptions about HIV transmission.”
The thing that really drives me nuts is this whole idiotic notion of rusophile and rusophobe. If you are a rusophile, you only believe the good things about Russia? Tell me how believing that the HIV-AIDS epidemic is under control helps Russia? How do you solve the problems if you don’t acknowledge them? How do you save kids lives if you don’t put funding into public education programs that actually work?
The Professor quotes Russian officials and politicians worrying about the demographic crisis, but that doesn’t faze you? They’re just wrong to worry? Or are they rusophobes too?
(Sorry this is so long, Professor.)
Comment by mossy — April 8, 2010 @ 7:14 am
No need to apologize, Mossy. This is the kind of back-and-forth I was looking/hoping for when I asked for “data-driven, empirical responses to these claims.”
I would also say this: there have been dozens if not hundreds of surveys, focus groups, and in-depth interviews done with Russian women in various oblasts on questions of pregnancy, childbirth, contraception and abortion. What comes out of this research is a kind of portrait of Russian women(meaning women-who-live-in-Russia, not ethnos). They take motherhood seriously. They want to be good mothers, give their children their time and attention, provide for them, make sure they can give them educations, etc. Given that, it’s not surprising that there is an upward blip in birthrate. I have not seen a demographic breakdown, but I’d guess it’s among the rich (who have socked away their millions and can send their kids to school abroad; certainly the only new large — more than 3 children — families I know are among the rich and super-rich); the poor (who want the maternity money); and to some extent the middle class (who have good enough salaries to support two kids, who probably inherited their parents’ apartments — which couldn’t happen in the Soviet days — so they know that at least their kids will have some guaranteed housing). If the place doesn’t come crashing down and if the economy somehow manages to improve, we can expect that more and more families will have 2 kids. But that’s not a replacement birthrate. Because of the high mortality rates, families would have to start having three and four kids. I don’t think that is realistic, at least not among the urban population. I don’t think that Russians are going to be any different than other urban population in the world. So the problem remains the mortality rates. And almost nothing is being done to bring down the rates of early deaths among men. This is why Russian officials are not “euphoric” about the uptick in births.
Comment by mossy — April 8, 2010 @ 1:48 pm
I won’t be able to reply until Monday – real life etc.
Comment by Sublime Oblivion — April 9, 2010 @ 10:47 am
OK, I’m freed up sooner than expected. Mossy, I believe your main complaint here is not actually on demographic technicalities, but on my motivations and “character” – so I might as well address that first.
That, however, is a complete misinterpretation of my views and work. Had you actually read my post, I mentioned alcoholism and low middle-aged male life expectancies as a major problem. (Of course I also mentioned that for a number of reasons the apocalyptic consequences often attributed to this are overstated). So I do acknowledge problems; I just don’t exaggerate them, like the people predicting hundreds of thousands of AIDS deaths a few years back. Why? Because unlike them, I am not an advocate for any public policies, I do not hold any relevant positions, and as such “solving problems” or “saving’s kid’s lives” are none of my direct concern. (Of course, how on earth blogging exaggerated stories about how bad things are under Tsar Putin can in any way contribute to solving said problems or saving kid’s lives must remain a mystery).
Now about the AIDS discussion.
I didn’t change the quote, I paraphrased. You confirm the WP quote as “But by 2010, under the most optimistic World Bank forecast, 250,000 Russians will be dying as a result of AIDS each year; under the most pessimistic scenario, the annual toll will reach 650,000”. I write “Institutions like the World Bank were predicting hundreds of thousands of deaths by 2010, yet the death toll for 2008 was only 12,800.” How exactly are the two contradictory? I’m afraid your second sentence doesn’t make sense for me at all.
Yes, I’ve read that report (and wrote about it). It is consistent with the view that the epidemic is largely contained, since the percentage of new infected from heterosexual contact has been at around 30-40% since 2003. The basic picture seems to be that IDU’s get infected and have sex with women; since the pool of IDU’s infected with AIDS has been mostly saturated, nowadays an increasing percentage of new infections accrue to women and via heterosexual contact. So what you have is a very slow-spreading epidemic largely driven by the sexual activities of Russian IDU’s. Now according to this model, the future of Russia’s epidemic would probably look something like this:
http://www.sublimeoblivion.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/03/future1.png (from http://www.sublimeoblivion.com/2009/03/01/myth-of-russian-aids-apocalypse/).
I agree that you can debate on the finer points of Russia’s AID situation – which I’ve covered at http://www.sublimeoblivion.com/2009/03/01/myth-of-russian-aids-apocalypse/ in far more detail. However, one thing is absolutely clear. There is and will be no sub-Saharan like scenario, which so many people had been predicting at around 2005-06.
Not a strawman because (apparently) serious people treated the apocalyptic scenarios as real. Here’s a sample:
The prediction methods pretty much HAD to change, because they turned out to be so incredibly out of sync with reality by the late 2000’s as the hundreds of thousands of deaths failed to materialize. Not my fault, that.
For the same reason I try not to take any pronouncements, especially political ones, at face value. Russia’s politicians have an incentive to exaggerate the demographic problem since stabilizing and increasing the population is one of their current top priorities (even the #1 one according to Putin).
Finally,
Russia’s high mortality rates are concentrated amongst middle-aged men. The mortality rates of women from infancy to their 40’s is statistically almost negligible. That is the only thing that matters for the replacement level birth rate. In practice, the only countries where you need a TFR of much above 2.1 to maintain a stable population are in the poorest Third World nations (like Afghanistan, Niger) or historically in pre-industrial nations, where obstetric’s, women’s health, sanitation, etc, are poorly or not at all developed. In practice, if Russia’s TFR rose to 3.0 (it will not of course), its population will start rising by more than 1% a year.
Comment by Sublime Oblivion — April 11, 2010 @ 7:28 pm
Does this debate and data take into account the impact of Chernobyl? I understand that a serious rise in miscarriages and still births would be expected for many years to come in that region? I’m curious about how that nuclear accident correlates with present levels of infant mortality and low birthrates in Russia. Thanks!
Comment by Sherry — June 5, 2011 @ 7:24 pm