Currently writing an article on Pussy Riot, but in the meantime, data on the demographic situation as of mid-2011.
|
Jan-Jul |
|
||||||
|
thousands |
/ 1000 people |
||||||
|
2012 |
2011 |
increase |
2012 |
2011 |
2012 relative to 2011 (%) |
||
| Births |
905,7 |
842,6 |
+63,1 |
12,7 |
11,9 |
106,7 |
12,6 |
| Deaths |
962,7 |
981,4 |
-18,7 |
13,5 |
13,9 |
97,1 |
13,5 |
| Of which children <1 years of age |
7,8 |
6,3 |
+1,5 |
8,5 |
7,1 |
119,7 |
7,4 |
| Natural decrease |
-57,0 |
-138,8 |
-0,8 |
-2,0 |
40,0 |
-0,9 |
|
In short, strong improvements all round. There is however one problem, and those are migration trends.
In particular, emigration has been rising fast from very low levels since December 2011, and has since plateaued at a monthly 10,000 by March 2012 (when Putin was reelected). The narrative of massive Russian emigration was a myth but perhaps that is no longer the case? Doubt it. Most of the increase in emigrants accrued to the Near Abroad, from 9,000 in 2011 to 44,000 in 2012. I doubt Uzbeks are going back to Karimov in protest against Putin. 🙂 The number of emigrants to the Far Abroad increased much more modestly from 6,000 to 11,000 during the first six months of 2011 and 2012, respectively. The number of emigrants to the US and Canada increased only modestly, while the outflow to Germany and Israel actually fell. In fact in that category most of the increase accrued to China and Georgia who have long provided Russia with net migrants. So hard to make a case that it is ethnic Russian professionals are are now fleeing Putin in massively greater numbers. For the most part, I think the figures now just better reflect cross-border population flows.
That’s a remarkable increase in the birth rate. It happened, moreover, during a time period when American and most European birth rates fell on account of economic troubles.
August 2012 will be outstanding good and by far the best month sincemore than 2 decades…mark my words.
Just for fun I googled “рождаемость” and “август” for the last week and what showed up looked extremely promising.
http://pkgo.ru/cocial_sphere/medicine/19978-byebi-bum-v-petropavlovske-kamchatskom.html
20-year record with 213 births in hospital No. 1 (June: 135, July 165 births)
http://www.alaniatv.ru/home/45-mainnews/13914-2012-09-04-12-44-14
Vladikavkaz (North Ossetia) : all-time record with 781 births not even in Soviet times? Personnel shortage, September looks also very good.
http://sib.fm/news/2012/09/05/rozhdaemost-v-novosibirskoj-oblasti-prevysit-smertnost
Novosibirsk Oblast turns into positive for the 1st time in 20 years
http://zags.kurganobl.ru/informaciya_o_rozhdaemosti_20120906.html
Kurgan (city only): 23% more births than in August 2011
http://zags.mos.ru/presscenter/news/606125/
Moscow with 88.700 births (almost 7K more) vs. 76.300 deaths
http://smolensk.rfn.ru/rnews.html?id=29219
Smolensk City: Births (391) almost doubled (!!!) compared with August 2011 ( 203 which was not a bad month as we all know)
http://www.astrakhan.net/?ai=30266
Akhsharumovskiy Hospital in Astrakhan: 850 births in August (June: 561, July: 708)
190.000 births for August seems rather conservative for me…and the 43.000 birth deficit will almost vanish. Positive population growth for 2012 is now almost sure.