The Problem of Depopulation in Russia and Its Frightening Potential

Hello from Russia! As I told previously, I want to use this blog as my English writing skills practice. Please, feel free to correct any major mistakes in comments and note if some parts of content are not clear. Thank you and enjoy!

Today I want to talk about the problem of depopulation in Russia. As a starting point I would like to choose this article.

Vladivostok 2016

Summary of the Article:

Vladimir Putin, the president of Russian Federation, during his meeting with students in Vladivostok was naming the top priority concerns of today’s Russian government. A special attention was dedicated to the problem of depopulation in general and population outflow from the Asian part of Russia to the European. Putin has stated that preventing this outflow is a key challenge in terms of creating the stable economic growth.

population density

Initial Reaction:

There is a significant problem of depopulation in Russia, which has appeared after the collapse of USSR. The lost of trust and confidence in government shown by population has resulted in a huge decrease of the growth rate. For decades after World War II the population of USSR (Russian part) was showing a constant growth of the population together with the equal distribution of the population all over the country. However, after the crush of communism population had to take care of themselves in lots of new aspects because the system of social services was not existing anymore. People have decided to have less children and move to the regions with higher wages.

age structure

Analysis:

The population crisis, discussed by Putin, was there for more than 20 years. There is more than just a patriotic issue behind this phenomenon. The depopulation and population outflow already has created negative outcomes in the ministries of economics, education, armed forces, and social services. Speaking about economics, the result is a high percentage of old non-working people compared to the working population. This was not a problem until 2010 because Russia was on the second stage of population redistribution, when the amount of working people is maxed out and reflects the highest part of the population. After that Russia has entered the third stage, where the big amount of workers was replaced with grown up children. Because the amount of children was relatively low, the amount of working places exceeded the amount of potential workers. This has resulted in a quality decrease of workers together with the luck of high-qualified specialists. The same situation has happened with the educational systems: universities became less selective because there are less candidates to choose from. The ministry of armed forces today is reviewing the policy of mandatory army in Russia for the reason of the low population. The policy was there for decades and already has become a significant part or the infrastructure. However, the biggest potential negative output is related to societal sphere: possible reformation of traditional views on family together with high amount of working immigrants to Russia might result in the fast cultural change. As soon as Russian Federation has no experience in maintaining different religions, cultures, and races in terms of the capitalism system, this might result in decentralization of the country and huge territory losses.

Looks like Putin knows what's going on :)

Thank you for your time! Please feel free to comment on this and express your opinion! Also subscribe for more content related to economics, agriculture, and environment.