MOSCOW (Realist English). According to regular measurements of Rosstat, the natural decline of the population of the Russian Federation in 2022 (599.6 thousand people) decreased by 42.5% compared to 2021. It is reported that the number of deaths over the past year decreased by 22.1% – to 1 million 905 778 people compared to the year before last (covid), when 2 million 445 509 people died.
To draw happy conclusions from this is pure madness. The Titanic continues to sink steadily. It’s just that the angle of lifting the stern above the water has changed by 42.5%. (By the way, when the Titanic was really sinking, its hull also rose at an angle of 40 degrees and it first plunged into the water through the third chimney). There is a catastrophe in the engine room of the Russian demography, we are witnessing a gradual stop of the historical engine.
According to Rosstat, the number of births in 2022 decreased by 6.9% – to 1 million 306,162 children from 1 million 402,834 children in 2021. It is this figure that is informative. But the ship has not yet broken into two parts, so hypothetical chances to pull out remain. This requires a shock program to increase the birth rate. Many times more new families should be created, while three-childedness should become the minimum threshold. In the meantime, the process of extinction pulls to a logicalbottom.
“If nothing radically changes, and a one–and–a-half-child family remains the norm for the country, then by the end of the century the population of Russia will be halved,” demographer Yuri Krupnov is sure. – 70 million people on the territory of 1/7 of the land, surrounded by civilizations of billions, is a figure incompatible with life. To admit that this is a natural and logicalprocess is equivalent to waving a handkerchief, sending Russia to the geopolitical cemetery.”
Not only China, India, and Pakistan will dominate in terms of population, but also the Anglo-Saxon world, which is replenished by migration and the melting pot. There will be 3 civilizations counting billions in Africa by the end of the century.
It turns out there still is someone on the captain’s bridge, and he adequately assesses the situation. Here is a recent statement by Vladimir Putin: “We have managed to overcome the consequences of the coronavirus pandemic, reduce mortality, but a sharp decline in the birth rate has actually nullified these achievements.”
For reference, in 2021, the number of deaths in Russia exceeded the number of births by more than a million, there was no such a decrease in any country after 1950.
What is to be done? Several rescue methods are offered: 1) traditional – strengthening of state support, benefits, allowances; 2) alternative – a new spatial strategy of Russia, landscape urbanization – zero mortgage on suburban housing for families giving birth.
All of these are very necessary and correct. However, in our opinion, all well-wishers miss the most important format of stimulating fertility. We need a free or, at least, a preferential health restoration program for women giving birth. Let’s call it the maternity rescue program.
It is desirable that this program also raises the social status of the mother in the society. It would be a response to the massive harassment of motherhood and childhood that has unfolded in Russia in recent years. But the most important thing is the answer to the suicidal attitude of “living for oneself”. “Live for yourself” is the dominant logic for all countries that have stepped into the post-industrial way. Therefore, the “plague of childlessness”, about which Krupnov speaks, is the misfortune of all mankind. As iron mathematics says, humanity will stop reproducing in 10 years. However, the “plague of childlessness” has a root cause – it is the inability of the society to understand childbirth as a conscious sacrifice on the part of the mother. Sacrificing health, time, personal efforts. To cure the plague of childlessness, it is necessary to treat not the symptoms, but the root cause of the disease. To acknowledge the fact of self-sacrifice. And already on this basis, to include means of motivation, compensation and support. It is necessary to start with the rehabilitation of motherhood.
