Page 10 - RusRPTAug21

Pyramids
It is hard to over-emphasise the catastrophe that the 1990s was. Russia’s demographics look like those of a country that was fighting a full-scale war. Male life expectancy fell to a low of 57.4 years in 1994, while female life expectancy that year was 71 years – the widest gap between the genders in the world.
Russia’s population had been growing strongly since the 1950s and boomed in the Soviet period, rising from under 100mn after WWII to peak at 148.5mn in 1992. However, problems were already apparent before the end of the Soviet Union, as the birth rates had already begun to decline in 1986 as economic stagnation that eventually brought the house of cards down set in.
The pyramid shows the birth rate falling from 1986 onwards and the base rapidly contracts in the 90s, introducing the demographic dent that then starts to work its way upwards. However, the dramatic effect of Putin’s reforms in 2008 is also visible as the base starts to expand rapid from that year. However, a decade later the demographic dent has arrived in the age band of the working population, which is why the economy is likely to stagnate from here. The dent will take more than a decade to work its way through and into retirement ages.
10 RUSSIA Country Report August 2021 www.intellinews.com