Population Projections for Russia

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The subject of the work is population forecasting against the background of changes in the demographic situation in Russia. The topic is an overview of the country’s population projections. Special attention is paid to the forecasts of the size and composition of the population of the Russian Federation in the period from 1991 to 2022. The source data are statistical collections and databases of Rosstat and the Population Division of the UN Department of Economic and Social Affairs. The purpose and objectives of the work are to overcome the attitude to previously developed forecasts as to the material that “does not matter” in comparison with current forecasts. The retrospective of forecasts not only provides grounds for reasoning about the demographic losses of the country in certain historical periods, but also allows us to anticipate possible prospects for the development of the population and to improve the conceptual basis of its forecasting. Verification of officially published forecasts, comparison of prognostic developments from different sources, allows us to develop their methodology and clarify the requirements for them on the part of users– government agencies, science, the expert community, the education system. The paper describes the process of compiling a “library” of predictive sources, suggests tabular and graphical methods of its formalization and subsequent analysis. The article provides conclusions that may be useful for developers and users of demographic forecasts.