Where did all the men go? The changing sex composition of the Russian North in the post-Soviet period, 1989–2010

Abstract

Abstract Like the northern periphery regions of other Arctic countries, the Russian North had a higher male–female sex ratio than the rest of the country. During the two decades following the breakup of the Soviet Union, the male sex ratio in the Russian North declined considerably, from 101 males per 100 females in 1989 to 92 in 2010. The regions and population of the Russian North were greatly impacted by the shift in northern development approaches from the centrally planned system of the Soviet Union to the market-oriented system of Russia. This paper examines the decline in the male population in the Russian North based on data from the 1989, 2002 and 2010 population censuses. The paper finds that only one quarter of the decline in the male sex ratio in the Russian North can be attributed to higher male outmigration and that three quarters are the result of significantly higher and widening gaps between females and males in life expectancy. The conclusion is that men in the Russian North coped with the social and economic upheavals by dying prematurely not by migrating. The leading causes of death for men were cardiovascular diseases and external causes such as murder, suicide and accidents.