Russian First Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev
Photo: Dmitry Azarov
| Other Photos |
 |
|
 |
Russians Will Be 12% Fewer by 2025
The population of Russia will be reduced by 12 percent in the next two decades, announced World Bank senior economist Paloma Anos-Casero. The population will also continue to age, with every fifth Russian being over 65 by that date and the workforce will shrink by 3 percent (about 11 million people). The shrinking population presents two main economic challenges: supporting economic growth by increasing labor productivity and managing budget expenses to carry out pension reform and restructuring of the medical system.
Immigration could also ease the labor shortage facing Russia, which will need 2.8 million immigrants to maintain its current level of population and workforce.
The Russian Ministry of Economic Development and Trade has predicted that the population of Russia will shrink by 5 million by 2020, as compared to 2005, to 138.1 million. The UN has predicted that the population will shrink by 20 percent by that time. Its research emphasized that raising the birthrate in Russia will not solve the problem alone, since the high mortality rate in Russia was the main cause of the population decline.
Russian Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev announced in September that the birthrate in the first six months of the year had been the highest in the last 15 years, with 142,000 births – “the highest number since the collapse of the USSR.”
www.kommersant.com
|
|
|
