The Russians Aren’t Coming
Despite the fabled sexual exploits of Russian Women, it isn’t resulting in a whole heap of babies.
At least every couple of weeks you will read some news story about Russia’s demographic meltdown. Yet another article I came across only yesterday: ‘Russia’s Depopulation Time Bomb‘.
Yes, likely there will be millions fewer Russians in 2050 than now.
Many theories are advanced, citing everything from the lack of suitable partners to the idea that skinny culture has Darwinistically removed childbearing hips from Russia’s dyevs.
There’s plenty of free advice for Russia too. In the Hindu Times, a leading feminist, believes that Indian men are the answer.
Maria Arbatova, writer and TV moderator, has proposed a radical solution to the falling birth rate — importing Indian bridegrooms for Russian girls. Maria married an Indian businessman a few years ago ‘after 25 years of marrying Russians’ and discovered that Indian men make ideal husbands.
‘They are crazy about family and children,’ she said. ‘What is more, Indian bridegrooms can help ward off a Chinese demographic invasion in Russia. If we do not balance off the Chinese with Indians, Africans or aliens, by 2050 China will annex Russia’s Siberia up to the Ural Mountains.’
She could have a point, because the BBC reports that international size condoms are too big for an Indian-sized penis. Ergo, a chance of an accidental boost to the Russian population is greater with Indian lovers. I guess it’s just unfortunate that most Russians aren’t too comfortable around ‘tinted folk’.
A common cliche is that russophobes always single out Russia’s declining population as a bad thing, or certainly a reflection on Vlad the Bad. Yet all European families are downsizing. And thank goodness, say countries with armies of jobless.
Preston Saks, however, insists that the US will be stronger than Russia because it is still pumping out babies, while Russia, fast approaching just 100 million people, soon won’t have any young leaders at all. I wonder if this guy has ever heard of Holland, pop. just 14 million, where there’s some political activist at every tram stop. A lot of these arguments hold as much water as a paper bag.
The Time Bomb article puts drink at the heart of the problem. But the facts suggest quite another conclusion.
Between 1976 and 1991, the last sixteen years of Soviet power, the country recorded 36 million births. In the sixteen post-Communist years of 1992–2007, there were just 22.3 million, a drop in childbearing of nearly 40 percent from one era to the next.
On the other side of the life cycle, a total of 24.6 million deaths were recorded between 1976 and 1991, while in the first sixteen years of the post-Communist period the Russian Federation tallied 34.7 million deaths, a rise of just over 40 percent.
The symmetry is striking: in the last sixteen years of the Communist era, births exceeded deaths in Russia by 11.4 million; in the first sixteen years of the post-Soviet era, deaths exceeded births by 12.4 million.
Well, that’s pretty clear. Capitalism is bad for your health.
Drink certainly is the problem. The excess deaths are overwhelmingly middle-aged men. Not infants. Not old people. Not women of any age. Middle-aged men dying of cardiovascular problems. That’s alcohol.
The reason that it follows on the heels of 1991 is because alcohol became much cheaper after the Soviet collapse. You could not afford to drink a bottle of vodka every day in the Soviet era.
Enjoying your blog, Copydude.
Chris wrote: You could not afford to drink a bottle of vodka every day in the Soviet era.
No, which is why they drank stuff like samogon (moonshine), DDT and brake fluid, which arguably should have caused many more deaths.
It is the social climate that causes alcoholism as much as stable, child rearing families. In my humble opinion, of course.
Well, if it were caused by the switch to a form of capitalism simply (by collapsing health care system or some such), then you would expect the main victims to be the young and elderly, but they’re not. It’s middle-aged men dying of heart failure. Male life expectancy dropped about 10 years, and female about 2. In addition, life expectancy is much higher in Muslim regions (Chechnya has the highest) than in Orthodox (or Buddhist) ones.
It’s a common misconception that Russian Muslims ‘don’t drink’. It is why the Kamaz truck factory was set up in Tatarstan. People assumed that sober Muslims would put the wheels on straight. Ha!
You are correct in many points. But don’t forget that things like the conditions of the IMF loans threw millions into poverty and cut away all kinds of healthcare and safety nets.
It is too convenient and facile to say that it is all down to drink.
I’ve lived in Russia for almost 10 years. I know that Russian Muslims often drink.
They do not do so as much, and it is not as socially acceptable, however.
If the IMF loans and so forth were the primary cause, you have to explain why the excess deaths (I love that expression) are striking middle-aged men in Orthodox areas and not Dagestanis, say, or children or old people or women in general.
Doesn’t this news actually make the Russians look as if they are behaving responsibly (even if it is arguably consciously ‘involuntary’)? If both India and China can recognize that pumping out babies is unsustainable (in almost all the senses), then why does it make sense for the US to continue to pump out babies?
Does this not mean that in future the US will be even more dependent on foreign trade, materials etc. at a time when all we are hearing (due to the current filip(!) in capitalism) that its goal is to make it less dependent on other nations? Sure, you can switch to nuclear from Gulf oil etc. and genetically modified crops (as have the chinese), but continuing to consume at a monstrous rate???
More people = more consumption or is mathematics irrelevant?
Very good point, Aleks.
The ‘declining population’ thing is always used by journos to point to Russia’s doom. Even though Western nations are similarly downsizing in terms of families.
The arguments for a monster population go quite a way back - before automation and budget crippling social benefits schemes cost Governments dearly.
You may remember from history that Mussolini held ‘Most Prolific Mothers’ contests and awarded medals to mamas with 17 plus children.
The equation now is higher wages=more consumption, something no Government wants to recognise.
@Chris
Thanks for your comments. There is a lot of chicken and egg in this argument.
You are right that drink is a direct cause of deaths. But surely economic situations are a direct cause of drink? The stats quoted show quite clearly that there were more births and fewer deaths in times of economic and social stability.
Another point. It takes two to make a baby and Russian women tend to stay off the hard stuff . . certainly the brake fluid. That’s where the drink argument versus economics doesn’t stack up. The life expectancy of 59 or whatever statistics say doesn’t physically stop millions of Russian men giving women babies up to that time does it?
My small sample of the one provincial town I know well . . . men and women stopped having babies or families for almost seven years . . . you just never saw a pram on the streets . . all down to the economy.
Thanks copyperson,
With the prams, you’re talking about birthrate, not deathrate.
Of course the economic collapse had a lot of major effects. I’m just not sure that the increased death rate was one of them, except in the roundabout way that stress encourages people to get drunk.