The number of people living in Russia increased for the first time in 14 years, offering a glimmer of hope that it can avert a catastrophic slump in population.
Tayana Golikova, the Health Minister, said that the population rose by between 15,000 and 25,000 to more than 141.9 million, ending 14 years of successive declines since the social and economic upheavals that followed the collapse of the Soviet Union.
Ms Golikova told President Medvedev in a televised meeting that the population growth had been aided by a 4 per cent decline in mortality rates and a rise in immigration from neighbouring republics of the former Soviet Union.
She did not give statistics but, in a sign that Russia’s demographic crisis remained unsolved, the minister indicated that the number of births was still below the total of deaths last year. She told Mr Medvedev: “The difference between birth rates and mortality rates will be covered by a rise in migration.”
She added that officials would also concentrate on reducing Russia’s abortion rate, which she said was “comparable to birth rates”. Russia recorded 1.7million births in 2009 and 1.2 million abortions.
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Russia has shrunk by 7million people since 1992 and is forecast to lose another 30 per cent of its population by the middle of this century unless demographic trends are reversed, with disastrous consequences for its economy as labour shortages take hold.
The population decline is a major factor in predictions of slower economic growth in Russia compared to other major emerging economies such as India and China. A study by Goldman Sachs bank concluded that Russia could grow annually by between 1.5 per cent and 4.4 per cent from 2011 to 2050, compared to as much as 7.9 per cent in China and 6.6 per cent in India.
Vladimir Putin, the Prime Minister, has called the population crisis “the gravest problem facing Russia” and has sought to encourage a baby boom by offering to pay mothers £5,000 to have a second child and for every child after that.
Some experts say that the policy is beginning to have an effect, although others suggest that Russia’s improved prosperity in recent years has encouraged more couples to have children anyway and that the current economic crisis may undermine that progress.
Alcoholism, particularly among men, and Russia’s notoriously high rate of traffic accidents are seen as key factors in the demographic crisis that threatens to depopulate entire areas of the country. Up to 50,000 people a year die from alcohol-related illnesses and another 30,000 are killed on the roads.
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Mr Putin set out an ambitious programme last week to halve alcohol consumption by 2020 but Kremlin authorities have tried for decades to wean Russians away from their devotion to vodka with little success.
A recent World Health Organisation study found that a 15-year-old boy in Russia had only a one in two chance of living until the age of 60. Average male life expectancy has dropped to around 60 compared with 72 for women.
The Kremlin instituted a new national celebration of family life in 2008 under the patronage of the President’s wife Svetlana as part of its efforts to promote childbirth. The Day of Family Love and Fidelity coincided with the Orthodox Church’s celebration of saints Pyotr and Fevronia in July, whose 13th Century love story is revered as an ideal of marital devotion.