Russia Faces Population Crisis

In the article,“ Russia Faces Population Crisis” by Anya Ardayeva, she says that the Russia government is making an effort to stop the population decline. First, she says that although the Russia economy is booming because of the revenue of the sale of oil, the Russian population is reduced by less than half a million people. Next, she mentioned that experts warn that the number of the Russians will shrink from 142 million to 20 million by the year 2030. She points out that average life expectancy in Russia is low, especially for men with bad lifestyle habits such as smoking and drinking, and they don’t care about their health that creates serious problem. In addition, because of financial reasons it is hard for Russians to get married and make a family. Finally, she discusses how the demographic crisis will affect Russia’s economy and immigration will help in such situation. However, the critics believe that will help Russia in the long term. The population declines for three reasons, average life expectancy, making family and migration.

First of all, the average life expectancy, especially for men, is 15-85 years, which means the crude death rate is high; as a result the population will go down if the average number of births do not rise because of bad life habits. For example, excessive drinking and smoking leads to low life expectancy, because it causes lung cancer. people who are smoking or drinking are less likely to live longer than, health experts say, so that life expectancy is low, and death rate is high and most of the Russians don’t go to the doctor to check up regularly and they don’t care about health, either. The government should find a solution such as health advertisement or heath program to help the people in order to be healthy.

Moreover, the second reason for the population decline is people do not start to make a family or if so, they prefer to have small family rather than a big family because of financial problem. For example, the cost of raising children is high, so the person who does not have enough money will not get married. In some Arabic countries, in order to get married, it costs more than $30,000 U.S; that makes many single people not get married and even think about it. In addition, because the job opportunity for woman, the couple likes to have a small family, two or three kids. For example, sometimes the work time is long. Therefore, the couple cannot take care of children. Also, in order to send the their children to school and bring them foods and clothes, it costs a lot of money. The government should encourage the parents to have many children by helping them with school or health care being free in order to have a big family.

Finally, countries control the population change for a specific area by movement of people in and out of the area. For example, the number of immigrants into the U.S is high even though the crude birth rate is ,leading low led it to be one of the world’s growing countries rate is low leading of Russia. The population is rapid growth, but the emigrants from Russia who were looking for a job and better life were one of the cause of the population decline. Most countries can control their rate of the population growth by restricting immigration.

In conclusion, the average life expectancy, cost of making a family and migration play big roles in the population. The population in Russia has declined despite the economic boom. In fact, the death rate is increasing because the dangerous things that people use such as smoking cigarettes or hookah and alcoholism, the cost of raising the children and starting a family prevent people from rushing to get married and migration within or outside of a country leads to the population changing. We should help the government to increase the population to help out the country and the generation in the future.

by Fuad

Ardayeva, A. (2006, March 8). Russia Faces Population Crisis. The Voice of America Retrieved July 11, 2007, from Lexis Nexis database.