Page 27 - RusRPTAug19

official has said. Deputy Prime Minister Tatyana Golikova said on June 6,that death rates are declining “not as fast as we’d like.” “We’re catastrophically losing the population,” she stressed. Golikova blamed the authorities of “many” regions for lowballing mortality figures “in pursuit of good indicators.” The Voronezh region, she said, had submitted cancer death rate figures for 2018 that showed a minuscule growth of 1 percent. By 2019, the increase has ballooned to 20 percent, Golikova was quoted as saying. Last month, the UN forecast that Russia’s population could halve by 2100.
Russia's population will fall from the current 146mn to over 135mn by 2050, according to the latest UN population forecast. The forecast extends to the end of the century, but the margin of error in long-term forecasts is considerable. At the end of the century, the forecast estimates that 126mn people will be Russia's population.
In 2010–2018, 2.2mn more people moved to Russia than out of the country. Russia's current demographic dependency ratio of 63 means that there are 63 underage children and over 65 years of age per 72 working age population, while the average for Western Europe is 72. 83 and 94. At the same time, the Russian population is increasingly concentrated in cities.
The population of small Russian cities has decreased over the past 15 years by 1.5 million people, the main outflow was recorded in the Volga, Ural, Siberian and Far Eastern districts. This was announced on Thursday by Deputy Prime Minister Tatyana Golikova during a speech at the Moscow Urban Forum. Golikova noted that currently there are almost 2 thousand small cities in Russia, where more than 23 million people live.
More than half of Russians (58%) think now is a bad time for large purchases, according to the results of a poll by the state owned pollster, the Russian Public Opinion Research Centre (VTsIOM). The opposite position is held by 25% of respondents. Three quarters of respondents also believe that today is a bad time to take loans. According to 13% of Russians, now is a good time for loans.
The upcoming mayoral elections for Moscow are like to have a low turnout as Muscovites are unenthusiastic about a election that is almost certain to be won by the Kremlin-backed incumbent Sergey Sobyanin. Nine out of ten (89%) of Muscovites are not interested in the upcoming elections to the Moscow City Duma; only 7% of the respondents are ready to support the candidates or contribute their signature to the petition candidates need to enter the race, according to the state owned pollster, the Russian Public Opinion Research Centre (VTsIOM). Only one in ten (11%) of respondents are interested in the topic of elections to the Moscow City Duma, according to the results of the survey. “Most often, respondents admit that they will sign up in support of a pro-government candidate (29% of respondents), whereas 18% will support a representative of a parliamentary party, and 6% will support an oppositional candidate in their constituency,” VCIOM said. According to the survey, 44% of respondents are ready to come to the polls on election day, 28% of them said they would definitely come, 16% of the respondents were likely to come, but were not sure, and 29% of Muscovites were undecided.
The majority of voters (63%) do not know for whom they will vote: only 8% of respondents have chosen a specific candidate, while another 12% of respondents will choose one several candidates.
27 RUSSIA Country Report August 2019 www.intellinews.com