Demographic situation in rural locality of Ukraine: trends and regional features

Abstract

Ukrainian rural locality marks of negative demographic trends, which began to appear in most areas from the 1970-80s and primarily connected with depopulation processes. Forced industrialization and urbanization caused a migratory outflow of rural residents that was additionally predetermined by liquidation policy of hamlets and “unpromising villages”. It led to the exhaustion of the demographic potential, reduction in reproductive cohorts and to the aging population. Most acutely these trends were detected in Chernihiv, Sumy, Poltava, Zhytomyr and Kyiv regions, where natural geography factors also didn’t promote the expansion of rural settlement network. Large negative impact on the reproduction of human potential was famine in 1932-1933. Depopulation of village people in Ukraine has taken place under the influence of unbalanced in spatial aspect social development. Namely, though stable underfunding there was a steady decline in health and education sector and in the other branches of social service completely did not meet the needs of modern society, which has lowered among young people the attractiveness of the villages as place permanent residence. Significant migration losses and lowering of the birth rate defined trends of rural population aging, faster than urban areas. Natural reproduction of rural population has a narrowed nature and is noted by a gradual decline in the birth rate, which remains higher than in urban areas, mainly due to high mortality too distorted age structure. Natural and migration movement of the rural population defined the dynamics of the rural settlement network: reduced the number of settlements in almost all regions of Ukraine except Lviv, Ternopil, Ivano-Frankivsk, Chernivtsi, Volyn, Kherson and Zakarpattia region. The greatest reduction in the number of villages – in Poltava, Sumy, Chernihiv and Kirovohrad regions. Stabilization of depopulation processes in rural areas is possible implementation of social policies and activation of the processing industries related to the agricultural sector. Key words: rural population, rural settlement, depopulation aging, natural reproduction, migration outflow.