Russian Birth Rate Soars-For Now

Russia was during the 1990s considered a dying nation because of its low birth rate, but as Mark Adomanis points out its birth rate has soared, even as the U.S. birth rate has gone down, so it now actually has a somewhat higher birth rate:

Last year alone, the number of births increased 5.6% in Russia, while the number of births in the U.S. was unchanged after falling for several years. For the first time in recorded history, the number of deaths now exceeds births among White Americans.

Putin of course wants to take credit for the baby boom in Russia and claims it is a result of his pro-natalist policies, that include verbal calls to Russians to have more children and increased financial support for families with children. These policies have probably had some effect, but what is probably more important is the fact that women born during the baby boom of the 1980s have increasingly reached the age span, 25-34, when the fertility rate is at its highest.

When a few years from now the “baby bust” generation born in the 1990s (as you can see in the chart, Russia’s birth rate fell dramatically in the 1990s) replace the “baby boom” generation of the 1990s in the age span 25-34, it seems very likely that the birth rate will fall again in Russia, unless Putin comes up with new pro-natalist policies a lot more effective than the current ones.