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with the Agency by demographer Alexei Raksha, 106,662 children were born in Russia in October against 118,537 children in October 2021 and 123,773 children in October 2020 (the last two figures are Rosstat data ).
In annual terms, the rate of decline has doubled: according to Rosstat, in October 2021, the number of births was 4.2% lower than in the same month of 2020. At the same time, in October 2022 and 2021 there were the same number of working days, and this is an important factor for counting newborns, which are almost not registered on weekends.
Raksha's colleague, deputy director of the Institute of Demography at the Higher School of Economics Sergey Zakharov, agrees with Raksha's estimates of births in October. “Over the past January-September, the estimated decline in the number of births compared to last year over the same period was more than 6%, and in September (compared to September 2021) the decline accelerated to 7.5%. So we can expect the continuation of the accelerated trend. Whether there will be 10-12% - the future will show. So far, I see no reason to slow down this decline,” Zakharov told the Agency.
The number of births in Russia grew from the late 1990s to 2014 inclusive, after which it began to fall. The most disastrous year was 2017 - a decline of 10.5%, in 2018 - by 5.4%, in 2019 - by 7.5%. Then the rate of decline decreased: in 2020 - by 3.2%, in 2021 - by 2.3%.
Until the end of the second quarter of 2022, the decrease in the number of births fell almost exclusively due to the refusal to have a second child after maternity capital began to be given for the first child, says Raksha. And although this happened back in 2020, the factor began to appear only in 2022, the demographer explains. The expert believes that the decline is deepening, and it can no longer be explained only by maternity capital. “Judging by the dates of conception, at the end of 2021 - the beginning of 2022, a new factor could appear - the fear of war. Perhaps, in its first months, part of the pregnant women left in the first trimester, when trips and flights are in no way limited to doctors, and this could begin to affect in October, ”the demographer notes.
The levels of anxiety amongst regular Russians spiked to 69% during Putin’s mobilisation in September, but now the draft has officially ended they have fallen (orange line) back to normal levels according to a recent FOM survey.
32 RUSSIA Country Report December 2022 www.intellinews.com