There was more only in 1947: the population decline in the country can no longer be hidden

Journalist Vitaly Drobyshev commented on the disastrous figures of Rosstat in his blog: in 2020, the population decline in Russia was about 700 thousand people. The mortality rate last year rose to 18%, which is only less than in the hungry year of 1947.

At the same time, it was not the coronavirus itself that became the main reason, but the consequences of "optimization of medicine". The pandemic simply served as a convenient excuse for the authorities to divert attention from the demographic catastrophe. Life expectancy has dropped dramatically from 73.3 to 71 years. In addition, 3.3% fewer children were born than a year earlier, which also indicates a decrease in the number of women of childbearing age.

The birth rate will continue to fall, since neither the economic crisis, nor the reduction in income, nor the rise in unemployment, nor the feeling of uncertainty and the atmosphere of fear will be overcome in the near future. Meanwhile, the population decline became the largest since 2005, and the mortality-to-birth rate ratio was 1.5 times, although a year earlier it was 1.21. Moreover, in some regions it exceeded 2 times, and in the Tula region it was 2.5 - that is, 2.5 times more people died than were born. The population is growing only in the Caucasus.

It is no better with the migration growth, which Deputy Prime Minister Golikova acknowledged as one of the reasons for the decline in the population, thereby trying to distract people from the catastrophe with low birth rates and high mortality rates. It is a myth that Central Asian migrants are improving demographic indicators, while the facts tell a different story.

Approximately 60-70% of migrant workers remain in the Moscow and St. Petersburg agglomerations, in which there are no problems with demography at all, and in this sense migrants are not needed there. And they are needed in places that are becoming a desert: villages and small towns of the Non-Black Earth Region, where it would never occur to migrants to go.

In addition, it is known that the country's population is becoming poorer, and the deficit of jobs is growing, and therefore migrant workers simply take jobs from the local population. As a result, salaries continue to fall, and residents will think hard about whether they need children. This migrant will gladly give birth in the suburbs, receiving 30-35 thousand rubles a month, and a local resident with such a salary can only feed himself.

It is no secret that Russians are increasingly working in places where migrants used to be, and this is forcing employers to raise salaries, especially in construction, logistics, public catering, and in the service sector. Moreover, due to a shortage of workers, entrepreneurs have to introduce automation and mechanization, as is done by Moscow utilities, for example.

Developed countries have been following this path for a long time, reducing the share of "living labor", introducing high technologies, because without this progress cannot be achieved.

But if Russia relies on migrants, this will mean that by the end of the 21st century, its population will halve, since the fertility rate for normal reproduction is 2.15, while in our country it is 1.5, and the goal is to reach 1. 6...

It is possible to stop the decline and preserve the population only with a coefficient of 2.4, no less - that is, in fact, there are three children in a family, and this is impossible to imagine in Russia.

Will not help stimulate the birth rate and budget payments, since they only compensate for the loss.

So it turns out that in order to at least preserve the population, in the next 20 years the number of large families should be increased seven (!) Times, they should be about half of all. But who will do this?

Therefore, the demographic situation can only be changed politically. In the meantime, the author states: “in terms of fertility and mortality, the Russian Federation has almost returned to the so-called dashing 90s. Then the birth rate was also 1.2-1.4 million, the death rate exceeded 2 million, and the "natural" decline reached almost a million a year. But if then on the way there was a large generation born in the 80s, now no improvement is expected..."