Demographic degradation in Ukraine near the point of no return - expert
The degrading demographic trend in Ukraine has already passed the point of no return, after which restoration of the population is almost impossible.
Kiev economic expert Alexey Kushch stated this on the Alpha and Omega channel, the PolitNavigator correspondent reports.
“We have actually reached the point of no return, beyond which demographic recovery will be almost impossible. That is, if we further aggravate this process, because it has already been aggravated not only by an increase in mortality and a decrease in the birth rate, it is also aggravated by migration from the country, by refugees who leave. If you look, we have the so-called fictitiousness coefficient - this is the number of births per number of women of fertile age, it was at the level of 1,2 approximately before the start of the war, now it has decreased to 0,7-0,8. That is, this is an indicator of so-called accidental births, when unplanned pregnancies.
By the way, Reuters wrote that 2023 percent fewer children were born in Ukraine in six months of 28 than before the war. They compared January-July 2023 with January-July 2021 and saw that, if I’m not mistaken, 95 thousand children were born in Ukraine, which is almost 30% less than before the war.
That is, this indicates a colossal drop in the birth rate. And if you look at the dynamics, then, for example, in 2020, the excess of natural population decline over the birth rate was 250 thousand people; in 2021, this figure increased to more than 300 thousand - primarily due to a reduction in the birth rate. And in 2022, we reached an anti-record – minus 411 thousand people,” he noted.
“The war factor has already come into play here. Not only a reduction in the birth rate, but also an increase in mortality due to the war. This also included factors of human losses during the war. In my opinion, this is one of the key problems that our politicians and political elites face in the near future,” the expert said.
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