Russian population dropped this year

Calibre ^ | December 29, 2007

[joan]

Released : Saturday, December 29, 2007 6:04 PM

Russia lost more than 200,000 people this year, the statistics service said Saturday.

The population decline of 0.15 percent was slightly smaller than in 2006, RIA Novosti reported. The country's population was estimated at 142 million as of Nov. 1, the Russian news agency said.

While the death rate continued to exceed the birth rate, the number of immigrants was up 87 percent. Most newcomers were from former Soviet republics.

The working age population was 75.1 million in November, or about 53 percent of the total population.

United Nations demographers say if current trends continue, Russia's population will be one-third smaller than it is now in 2050. President Vladimir Putin has pushed for policies to push the birth rate up, including increased maternity benefits and additional benefits for families with children, especially for those with a second child.

Real income grew by 10.1 percent in the first 11 months of 2007, with the top 10 percent of the population receiving more than 30 percent of all income. More than 15 percent of the population had incomes below the subsistence level.

[Rembrandt]

Mark Steyn recently laid all the data out in his 2006 book, “America Alone.” A great read; try it, you’ll like it.

[From many - one.]

I doubt it. We have something like a 300 million population, so an annual rate of 40 million abortions would be pretty hard to attain.

[Centurion2000]

Good! The “Black Russians” (as known in the trade) are ruining the jewelry industry...well them & the Chinese. I know, we own a small jewelry store here in NW NJ.

And how exactly are they doing that?

[Centurion2000]

Don’t forget Ralph Peters, whom I consider to be the best analyst on Russia’s future.

War in 2020 ? Could still become true but the ultimate bad guys are not going to be Japanese.

[Scotswife]

Give it time.
When was that Putin-sponsored day of “love”?

Has it been 9 months yet?

[AU72]

Russian male life expectancy is 3rd worldish at under 59.

[TChris]

Mark Steyn covers this subject nicely in America Alone. He points out that demographic trends around the world point to most of the population declining, except for Muslims. The USA is treading water, as far as births go.

Russia is in an unrecoverable downward spiral. Decades of antagonism toward the sanctity of life have come home to roost.

[Scotswife]

“It’s really too bad. There’s much to admire about Russian literature, science, music, technology, even religious teachings (they have more experience with killer Islam than most of us). Russians have a centuries-old rich cultural heritage and they’re aborting and drinking it down the drain.”

Whenever our local school sponsors an exchange student from Russia, the kid - without exception - winds up in the most advanced math class and often winds up challenging the teacher’s expertise.

If we recruited Russians to teach math to our kids - you’d see a big improvement in our scores.

Doesn’t Russia have the highest abortion rate?
That might partially explain the vodka.

[chilepepper]

God smiles upon the moral and picks exquisitely apropriate punishment for the immoral, or in the case of the Russians indoctrinated by 80 years of Communist relativism, the amoral.

Death-spiral demographics seem to me the perfectly chosen result for a society that condones abortion as a casual form of contraception, and has done so for the past 50+ years...

[Edward Watson]

Geez, I loved that book - I think I’ll read it tomorrow when I get finished with Orson Scott Card’s latest.

Saw Ralph Peters on O’Reilly yesterday - bang on as usual.