NewsWire
from Demography
Russia's Demographics Are Anomalous
Data from Russia’s statistics agency indicate that there were over 100,000 more deaths than births in the country during the first 10 months of 2017. These data are indicative of a historical anomaly: a falling absolute number of births (due to unfavorable demographics) combined with rising fertility rates.
Ah, Russia: A riddle wrapped in a mystery inside a demographic anomaly! Putin is deploying more pronatalist policies to get fertility moving again. But, as he correctly noted, the current birth dearth is "predictable" given the cataclysmic drop off in births back in the early 1990s, which today presents itself as a very small cohort of childbearing-age women. The anomaly is that the fertility rate among this age bracket of women has actually been rising pretty dramatically, pushing the Russian total fertility rate (TFR) back up to 1.8 (about where the United States now is). If Russia can stay at 1.8 or higher over the next decade or so, they will experience a sizable birth resurgence.