cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/29962667
Russia has moved to classify key demographic statistics following a dramatic collapse in its birth rate, which has plunged to levels not seen since the late 18th or early 19th century, according to a leading Russian demographer.
For decades, Russia has been experiencing a plunging birth rate and population decline, which appears to have worsened amid its ongoing invasion of Ukraine—with high casualty rates and men fleeing the country to avoid being conscripted to fight.
Projections estimate that Russia’s population will fall to about 132 million in the next two decades. The United Nations has predicted that in a worst-case scenario, by the start of the next century, Russia’s population could almost halve to 83 million.
The population pyramid for Russia is terrifying from a societal stability perspective: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_Russia#/media/File:Russia_Population_Pyramid.svg The cliff of a drop for the under-30’s (of both genders) is an echo of a dip in the 50-60’s group, which is a carry over of the 78-82-ish group. Each generation grows a larger hole in the population and that hole is growing with each generation.
Add in a combination of destructive wars, emigration (mostly due to people not wanting to die in said wars), and alcohol consumption and it’s not going to get better. No amount of money or medals awarded to women having children will really change this. It’s a region dying generation by generation to dictators’ abuses.
The next big nail in the coffin is that complete collapse of the pyramid in the 7 and under group. There’s just no children to replace the 33-50-ish group. That older group is essentially the bulk of the Russian workforce right now and as soon as they start to age out shit’s going to get real bad real fast. There’s literally no one to replace them across the entire country.
Authoritarians create environments hostile to growth rates. Anywhere the birth rate is cratered to sub-sustainable levels is infected with neoliberal oligarchy.
The key to leveling off birth rates to sustainable, non explosive levels is keeping people happy, which is impossible under authoritarians.
Can’t have kids if you’re fighting on the front lines. Men leaving because of conscription. Women not wanting their future sons to die. All kinds of reasons.
The Earth loves to see this. Give her a damn breather from the humanity cancer.
Projections estimate that Russia’s population will fall to about 132 million in the next two decades.
That’s still a lot of cannon fodder
How many of those 132 million will be fighting age men though? If nobody is born, it will take around 80 years for the population to go to zero, but only 40 years until there is no one below 40 left.
By all means, they’ll still have plenty of cannon fodder 20 years from now, but far less than what they currently have.
Fighting age, men, healthy or at least not late stage alcoholics or other drug addicts. And you need somebody to stay behind and work in the factories. And then even ruzzians have to maintain tooth-to-tail ratio, even if it’s as low as 1:3.
I think the work case scenario for the start of next century is probably a population of near zero, but maybe I just have more imagination about how bad things could get.
From an European POV, that would be the best case scenario
