The decades since the collapse of the USSR are the longest period of depopulation in Russian history, and the first peacetime loss of that scale anywhere in the world. Booze, violence, obesity, and poor standard of living alone don’t account for the mortality either.
What about accidents, given things like the notorious nature of Russian roadways? What about climate change? With so much of Russia being so far north, could more severe winters be degrading public health? What about environmental pollution leftover from the Soviet Era - not only industrial, but even radioactive?
What about factors that don’t involve death at all, like emmigration?
Exactly. Russians are everywhere in the US particularly in technical fields. You could say that they are the new Jews, except if you talk to them, a lot of them are actual Jews besides being Russian.
It says population decline…but focus on death rate, not birth rate.
With wealth and access to birth control most populations have lower birth rates.
Well, as they mention in the article, life expectancy in Russia dropped rather precipitously. There was a somewhat lowered birth rate, but it wasn’t due to wealth (quite the opposite) or increased access to birth control.
I think this has something to do with it.
Death rates are down and birth rates are up. What the hell is this article talking about?
Quite right, in fact I think the population of the earth as a whole is projected to peak in the next century. Peak people - what an odd idea.
Personally I think all the missing Russians were sent to infiltrate the Ukraine, and now they need protecting with columns of tanks.
“Booze, violence, obesity, and poor standard of living…”
My kind of people!
The world’s population has already reached peak births, apparently; the world birthrate is in decline and the population is scheduled to reach a maximum about fifty years from now, barring catastrophic accidents like plagues, medium-sized meteorites, or invasion by aliens.
That same article notes that mortality rates still haven’t fully recovered, which is the point of the NYRB article. It’s not surprising that the birth rate has recovered, given the country’s largely oil-and-gas-export-driven prosperity, but why are so many people still dying?
I think the article makes it pretty clear why people are dying. In a nutshell: capitalism.
In 1995 two professors of sociology saw Russian population decline happening and so invited Allan Carlson to come to Moscow to discuss his work on demographic changes in the United States — work that claimed feminism and homosexuality had led to population decline.
From that meeting was born the World Congress of Families, an American organization that exports hate.
“WCF takes full credit for the rise of anti-choice and anti-LGBT
sentiment and legislation in Russia.”
They were dying excessively under communism as well, just not as much as the 90s.
According to the documentaries my Dad watches on youtube, the answer is usually, “Aliens!”
True (except for the 1950s, when life expectancy was about the same as the US), but there was indeed a precipitous drop-off that began with the fall of the Soviet Union.
And yet according to everyone on Fox News, Russia currently has the best leadership in the WORLD!
It’s not about evil, it’s about serving your own interests!
