Depopulation in the regions of Russia: results for 1992–2022 and components

Abstract

The article presents the results of the author’s regularly conducted general analysis of depopulation in the regions of Russia in the post-Soviet period. The results of population reproduction for the period from the beginning of 1992 to the end of 2022 are summed up. For all regions, a ranking was carried out according to the relative level of depopulation for the period, that is, by the share of population losses due to natural decline relative to the population at the beginning of depopulation in the country (1992). For each of the selected groups of territories, the contribution of structural and non-structural components of fertility and mortality to the formation of the final natural decline of a particular region is indicated. Similarly, those few territories of Russia in which there was no depopulation for 31 years (in total) were investigated. The role of demographic structural waves in the formation of the current scale of depopulation in most of the country’s territories is emphasized. It is concluded that the depopulation is not only the result of a low fertility and high mortality of the population of the regions of Russia, but also a consequence of the negative age structure of the population, and in some periods of time — and the downward demographic structural wave. To get out of the depopulation, the demographic policy should be carried out differentially in time and territorially. The active phase of the pronatalist demographic policy should begin at the descent of the demographic structural wave, and not on the rise, as it has already happened in the history of Russia twice since 1980, which only increased the wave-like age structure of the country’s population.