1. Family, Fertility, and Demographic Dynamics in Russia: Analysis and Forecast

Introduction

Recent demographic trends in post-Soviet Russia have profound roots in Russian history of the 20th century; in particular they are closely linked to the evolution of the Russian family in the post-war period. This paper discusses the long-run trends of this evolution and the changes in family and demographic behavior. All these changes, and their causes and consequences, are interpreted in this paper in the context of the modernization of Russian society in the 20th century. Family modernization is an important aspect of general modernization. The rapid destruction of the peasant family in the late 1920s, as well as mass rural-urban migration, resulted in a break with the traditional family and its demographic behavior and in an accelerated demographic transition. The evolution of the family in Russia was almost the same as in Europe or North America, but with a delay and with certain significant, special features. These include the maintenance of traditionally early and almost universal marriages, relatively early fertility, the predominance of abortion as a main method of family planning, etc. In spite of rapid modernization, family relations and family behavior of a large part of the population maintained archaic features and, as a consequence, the level of fertility in Russia was higher and the population was younger than in the West.

Nevertheless, the postwar decades became a period of increased convergence in the evolution of the family and demographic behavior across Russia and the West (particularly the United States). This is confirmed by the various indicators of family size and composition, family cycle, nuptiality, divorces, fertility, living arrangements, etc. True recent demographic developments in Russia do not indicate a demographic catastrophe, but testify that, in her demographic evolution, Russia follows all developed countries, though she does not always find adequate responses to the challenges she meets on the way.

Modernization of the Family

SOURCES: Naselenie Rossii 1993. (Popuation of Russia 1993). Annual Demographic Report of the Center for Demography and Human Ecology, A. Vishnevsky and S. Zakharov, eds, Moscow, Eurasia, 1993. p. 16; Narodonaselenie. Enciklopedicheskij slovar' (Population: An Encyclopedic Dictionary). Moscow, Bol'shaja Rossijskaja Encyklopedia, 1994, p. 404.

SOURCE: Source: Evolucia sem'i i semejnaia politika v SSSR (Family evolution and family policy in the USSR). Ed. by A. Vishnevsky. Moscow, Nauka, 1992, p. 45.

SOURCE: Osnovnye itogi microperepisi naselenia 1994 (The main results of the microcensus 1994). Moscow, Goscomstat, 1994, p. 71.

Size and Composition of the Family and the Household

SOURCE: Naselenie Rossii 1994. (Popuation of Russia 1994). The second annual demographic report of the Center for Demography and Human Ecology. Ed. by A. Vishnevsky. Moscow, Eurasia, 1994. p. 52.

SOURCE: Narodonaselenie. Enciklopedicheskij slovar', Moscow, 1992, p. 429, 328.

SOURCE: Osnovnye itogi microperepisi naselenia 1994, p. 10.

SOURCES: Vassilieva E.K. Sem'ja i jejo funkcii (Family and Its Functions). Moscow, Statistika, 1975, p. 44; Narodonaselenie. Enciklopedicheskij slovar', p. 429.
*Other families: two or more married couples with or without children, with or without parents; sisters and brothers without spouses and without children, etc.

Marital Status and Living Arrangements

First marriages have not changed much. In contrast to most Western countries, early and almost universal marriages have always been typical for Russia. Now as before, almost all men and women in each generation get married eventually. According to the 1979 Census, only 1.9 percent of men and 4 percent of women aged 45-49 were never married. According to the 1989 Census, the respective figures were 3.7 and 3.5 percent--even lower than at the beginning of the century.

Contrary to what has been observed in recent years in the majority of developed countries, in Russia the proportion of people getting married at young ages has been growing. In the cohort born in 1925-1929, 12.9 percent of women married before age 20, and 24.2 percent of men married before age 23. The proportions for the cohort born in 1955-1959 were 31.9 percent and 48.9 percent, respectively. The average age at marriage (if we disregard the perturbations provoked by the wars and other social cataclysms, whose effects have basically disappeared by now) has remained practically unchanged since the late 19th century: 24.2 years for men and 21.4 for women in 1897; 24.4 and 21.8 respectively in 1989.

In the period between 1959 and 1979, the proportion of men and women aged 20-24 years who were married increased significantly (see Table 1.8). However, the proportion of both men and women who were currently married was decreasing over the entire 1959-94 period in almost every other age group. The differences between proportions of married men and women, which become more distinct with age, are due to a higher probability of remarriage for men, as well as to an important difference between life expectancies of men and women, resulting in a large number of widows.

¹16-19; ²40-49; ³50-59; ⁴60-69
SOURCES: Naselenie Rossii 1994, p. 51; Osnovnye itogi microperepisi naselenia 1994, p.38.

The 1994 micro-census has made it possible for the first time to estimate (although these rates may be underreported in the survey) the proportion of persons living in cohabitation (Table 1.9). In the aggregate, this proportion is higher for men than for women; however, below age 25, women are more likely to cohabit than men. The difference between men and women at these younger ages is especially marked for the rural population.

SOURCE: Osnovnye itogimicroperepisi naselenia 1994, p. 38.

SOURCES: Naselenie SSSR 1987 (Population of the USSR 1987). Statistical yearbook. Moscow, Finansy i Statistika, 1988, p. 190; Demograficheskij ezhegodnik Rossijskoj Federacii 1993 (The Demographic Yearbook of the Russian Federation 1993). Moscow, Goskomstat of Russia, 1994, p. 97.

NOTE: Sources: Sem'ia v Rossijskoj Federacii (Family in the Russian Federation). Goskomstat Rossii, Moscow, 1994, p 88.

According to evidence compiled by Volkov regarding the early 1980s, 35.1 percent of men and 35.6 percent of women who lived with their parents prior to marriage moved away from their parents immediately after marriage (the corresponding figures for 1989 were 37.1 percent and 38.3 percent respectively).[11] Furthermore, Volkov estimates that, based on the results of the 1989 census, 59 percent of young families separated from their parents during the first 10 years of marriage. Since another 16 percent of such families broke up over this period, only 25 percent of young families are still intact and living with the husband's or wife's parents after 10 years of marriage.[12] These data apply to the entire ex-USSR. In Russia, as in the other European republics of the ex-USSR, the process of separation was more pronounced, especially among the urban population. The frequency of separation from the parental family in the nuptial cohort is particularly high during the first year of marriage, decreases later on and flattens out at a level of 4-5 percent per year during the second decade of married life.[13]

According to the results of a sample survey of young families carried out in 1992,[14] 51 percent of the young couples who were surveyed lived independently from their parents; the rest were living together with the husband's or wife's parents or other relatives. It should be noted that 61 percent of young families living with their relatives had an independent or a partly independent budget, and 31 percent had a common budget.

Fertility and Family Planning

Nevertheless, the decline in fertility, being a natural consequence of the demographic transition, persisted. The dynamics of the total fertility rate (TFR)[16] gives an idea of the size of this reduction. In 1959-1960, the total fertility rate in Russia was 2.6 (the level of France at that time; in the United States it was 3.7). In the next decade it quickly fell, and then stabilized. From the mid-1960s, the TFR stayed close to 2.0. Its fluctuations in the 1980s were more dramatic. In 1979-1980, the TFR was at its lowest point of the postwar years (1.89). In 1986-1987, it jumped 2.20, the highest level since 1961. In 1990, it fell again to 1.89, and then plummeted to 1.73 in 1991, 1.55 in 1992, and 1.39 in 1993 (see Table 1.13 and Figure 1.1). Similar patterns are seen in both urban and rural areas, though urban fertility rates are always considerably lower than rural rates.

NOTE: Naselenie Rossii 1994, p. 62; Demograficheskij ezhegodnik Rossijskoj Federacii 1993, p. 74; unpublished data of Goskomstat.

Figure 1.1--Age-Specific Fertility Rates and Total Fertility Rate in Russia, 1959-1994

Figure 1.2a--Total Fertility Rate in Russia and Selected Western Countries, 1950-1993, Russia and Countries of Earlier Demographic Transition

Figure 1.2b--Total Fertility Rate in Russia and Selected Western Countries, 1950-1993, Russia and Countries of More Recent Demographic Transition

The fertility decline of recent years (after 1987) is due in part to factors that were not connected with the long-run transition, but which are not necessarily connected to the short-term crisis, either. Among other factors, the fertility decline is due to the timing effects which revealed themselves in the 1980s. In this period, cross-sectional fertility indices increased due to the policy measures of the early 1980s (discussed in the paper by Zakharov and Ivanova in this volume), but it did not lead to a corresponding increase in the cohort indices. The age at which women gave birth to "planned" children decreased, but this did not lead to an increase in the average number of births per woman in different cohorts. Consequently, the increase in the total fertility rate was bound to be followed by a decline. In all likelihood, this was indeed the case in the late 1980s and early 1990s. Moreover, the timing effects were accompanied by other factors that existed before but became more visible under the influence of reforms carried out in Russia. The paternalistic-state mechanisms regulating people's economic, social, and demographic behavior have weakened and given way to market mechanisms. This means that great numbers of families have had to adapt their current plans to the new conditions, while extending their material and ideological capabilities for such adaptation. In terms of demographic behavior, Russia is drawing closer to the countries with market economies.

At the same time, the Russian model of procreative behavior still differs from the Western one in important features. For example, in contrast to recent developments in most Western countries, the decrease in TFR in Russia was accompanied by a simultaneous decrease in the age at marriage and at birth. The average age at first marriage decreased, and the average age at birth, after an increase in the late 1980s, resumed its decline (Figure 1.3). The proportion of children born by women under 18 has increased from 1.8 percent in 1980 to 2.0 percent in 1988 and to 4.2 percent in 1992. Recently, evidence for abandonment of this model of procreative behavior has appeared, leading some experts to suggest that Russia is involved in a "second demographic transition."[17]

Figure 1.3--Fertility Decline and Evolution of Mean Age of Mother

NOTE: Naselenie Rossii 1994, p. 73; unpublished data of Goskomstat.
*Mini-abortions are abortions by aspiration.

Fertility Decline and Slower Population Growth

NOTE: Naselenie SSSR 1973 (Population of the USSR 1973). Statistical yearbook. Moscow, Statistika, 1975, p. 70; Demograficheskij ezhegodnik Rossijskoj Federacii 1993, p. 10; unpublished data of Goskomstat.

Figure 1.4--Population Increase By Components in Russia, 1950-1993

Figure 1.5--Net Reproduction Rate in Russia, 1959-1994

The effective influence of immigration on the total population increase in Russia was quite small for a long time. From 1955 to 1975, the population increase due to external migration was negative, but this decrease was more than offset by natural population increase (Table 1.15). Beginning in the middle of the 1970s, the increase due to net immigration became positive but, as a rule, never exceeded 25 percent of the total increase and usually was considerably smaller. Since 1990, the absolute annual population increase due to immigration was smaller than in the late 1980s but, owing to the drop in natural increase, its proportion to the total increase has grown. When, in 1992, the natural increase changed into natural decrease, net immigration was unable to make up for it (Table 1.15 and Figure 1.4). The total rate of population growth, as well as the rate of natural increase, became negative and the population size in Russia began to decrease.

Looking Into the Future

Fertility. Even though the estimates given in the considered forecasts are very different, none of them predicts an increase in the total fertility rate from the 1993 level (1.39) that will be large enough for the TFR to reach the replacement level over the next 20 years (Table 1.16). Nevertheless, the number of births should have significantly increased already beginning in 1995, since in this period the number of women in the age group with the highest fertility (20-34 years) will grow rapidly. Later, a decrease in the number of births will occur again as a consequence of cyclic dynamics of the size of female generations due to an "echo" from World War II ( Figures 1.6 and 1.7).[23]

NOTE: For abbreviations and sources, see footnote 25.

Figure 1.6--Number of Births and Number of Women of Selected Age Groups, Russia, 1994-2015, Forecast of the Center for Demography and Human Ecology, Medium Variant

Figure 1.7--Number of Births in Russia, Real Evolution in 1959-1993 and Forecast of the Center for Demography and Human Ecology for 1992-2015, Medium Variant

NOTE: For abbreviations and sources, see footnote 25.

NOTE: For abbreviations and sources, see footnote 25.

According to estimates of the Center for Demography and Human Ecology (CDHE) of the Institute of Economic Forecasting, assuming the most realistically optimistic scenarios for fertility and mortality along with moderate net immigration,[26] by 2010 the Russian population will reach the level of the early 1990s, after a twenty-year period of decline. For the population size to exceed the 1990 level by the middle of the first decade of the 21st century and continue to grow, one needs to assume high net immigration, constantly maintained at a level of about half a million persons per year (Figure 1.9), in combination with the optimistic scenarios of fertility and mortality. Thus, for the stage of development that Russia has entered, the current high level of immigration cannot be considered a crisis, but as normal and even desirable from the point of view of overall demographic dynamics.

Figure 1.9--Net Immigration to Russia, Real Evolution in 1959-1993 and Forecast of the Center for Demography and Human Ecology for 1994-2015, High and Medium Variants

NOTE: ^a2002; ^b2007; ^c2017; ^d2010; ^e2020. For abbreviations and sources, see footnote 25.

Figure 1.10--Various Estimates of the Population of Russia, 1994-2015, Forecast of the Center for Demography and Human Ecology, Scenarios With Medium and High Migration

Figure 1.11--Various Estimates of the Population of Russia, 1959-2015, Real Evolution in 1959-1993 and Forecast of the Center for Demography and Human Ecology for 1994-2015, Scenarios With Medium and High Migration

Conclusion

Though the current situation is a result of a long-run and, by and large, normal evolution, under actual political circumstances public opinion has interpreted it as something disastrous. Warnings of "the family crisis," a "demographic catastrophe," a "demographic tragedy," the "extinction of the Russian people," and so on, are often heard. The negative opinions concerning the changes in demographic and family spheres are being exploited by anti-reformists who consider these changes to be nothing but unfavorable consequences of unneeded or unsuccessful reforms. If some crisis features are present in the demographic development of Russia, they are likely to be due precisely to a delay in implementing reforms, for example, reform of the health care system. This delay hampers adaptation of social institutions to the new realities of demographic and family behavior. But these realities themselves are the natural consequence of a contradictory, catch-up, Russian and Soviet style of modernization.

This modernization has constantly created and still is creating an inner resistance, but in the end it steadily advances. As this takes place, existing problems are solved, but new ones arise. While the new demographic realities make their way in Russia, the country faces the same challenges as most industrial nations (danger of depopulation, population aging, fragility of families, etc.). Since it is not possible to avoid them, we need to find adequate answers to these challenges.

Discussants' Comments

The discussants also noted the similarities of many Russian demographic patterns and trends to those in the United States (e.g., high rates of female labor force participation, long-term increases in divorce, increases in cohabitation, and relatively high rates of immigration). They also commented that demographic research in Russia could probably benefit from U.S. research on such issues as teenage pregnancy, the effect of women's labor force participation and divorce on the well-being of children, and the effects of immigration on the economy and society.

[2]The Soviet censuses did not permit one to distinguish one-person households. They provided three choices: "living together with family"; "living separately with family but linked with it by a common budget"; and "singles"; that is those who do not have a family or do not maintain economic relations with it. Those who opted for the second or third choice were sometimes lumped together as "singles" in reports of census results. See, for example, A. G. Volkov, Sem'ja - objekt demografii (Family as a Subject Matter of Demography), Moscow, 1986, p. 27, 49.

[3]Vassilieva, E. K., Sem'ja i jeje funkcii (Family and Its Functions), Moscow, 1975, pp. 34-35.

[4]The main results of the 1994 micro-census of the population. Moscow, Goskomstat, 1994, p. 71. The census was conducted on February 14-23, 1994, in all regions of the Russian Federation, except Chechnya, and covered 5 percent of the population (7.3 million people).

[5]For example, see review in Julie DaVanzo and M. Oman Rahman, American Families: Trends and Policy Issues, Santa Monica, Calif.: RAND, P-7859, 1993.

[6]"The family in a mirror of public opinion." A representative poll, conducted in 1989 by the National (former All-Union) Public Opinion Center (VTSIOM) in 51 cities of the ex-USSR, covering 3,014 persons over age 16.

[7]M. Matskovksi and V. Bodrova, Cenost' sem'ji v soznanii razlichnykh slojov naseleniya. (Value of the Family as Perceived by Various Strata of the Population). In: Sem'ja v predstavlenijakh sovremennogo cheloveka (Family in Perception of a Modern Man). Institute of Sociology of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR, Moscow, 1990, p. 163.

[8]Ibid., pp. 157, 165.

[9]DaVanzo and Rahman, op. cit.

[10]Volkov, Sem'ja - objekt demografii, p. 219.

[11]Volkov, Sem'ja - objekt demografii, p. 202; Volkov A.G. Nuklearizacija sem'ji v Sovetskom Soyuze i otdelenie molodykh sem'jej ot roditeljej (Nuclearization of the family in the USSR and separation of the young families from their parents). In: Vosproizvodstvo naselenija i razvitije sem'ji. (Population Reproduction and Family Evolution), Moscow, 1992, p. 27.

[12]Volkov, Sem'ja - objekt demografii, p. 203, 216.

[13]Volkov, Nuklearizacija sem'ji v Sovetskom Soyuze, p. 29.

[14]The survey, "Perspectives of Developments of the Young Family," was carried out by the State Committee of the Russian Federation for Statistics (Goskomstat) in December 1992. It covered 14,000 persons in young families (first marriages contracted under age 25 which lasted from 1 to 5 years) in Moscow, Saint Petersburg, and in 21 regions and autonomous republics of the Russian Federation.

[15]Religious and moral proscriptions against the use of abortion and contraception were rapidly disappearing, especially in cities.

[16]Total fertility rate is defined as the average number of children a woman would have over her lifetime, given current levels of age-specific fertility rates.

[17]See paper by Zakharov and Ivanova in this volume.

[18]For further discussion of abortion in Russia, see Popov's paper in this volume.

[19]Ekonomicheskie i socialnye peremeny: monitoring obshchestvennogo mnenija (Economic and Social Changes: the Public Opinion Monitoring ), Moscow, 1994, 4, p. 39.

[20]The net reproduction rate is the TFR multiplied by a survival probability (from the mother's birth through her childbearing years) and the proportion of female to all births. A net reproduction rate of 1.0 means that the population is exactly reproducing itself.

[21]Population age structure and population growth are the topic of the paper by Vassin in this volume.

[22]The forecasts were made by the Demographic Department of the Institute of Statistics and Economic Research of the Goskomstat (DD ISER), the Center of Economic Conjuncture attached to the Government of the Russian Federation (CEC), and the Center for Demography and Human Ecology of the Institute for Economic Forecasting of the Russian Academy of Sciences (CDHE). Except for the CDHE forecast, the results are quoted from the following sources: Andreev E.M., Darsky L.E., Khar'kova T.L., Naselenie SSSR: 1922-1991 (Population of the USSR: 1922-1991); Demograficheskie perspectivy Rossii (Demographic Pespectives of Russia), Moscow, Goscomstat, 1993; Prognoz chislennosti nasselenia do 2005 goda (Population Forecast up to 2005), Moscow, Center of Economic Conjuncture attached to the Government of the Russian Federation, 1994; Prognoz chislennosti naselenia do 2005 goda (Population Forecast up to 2005), Moscow, Center of Economic Conjuncture, 1995; World Population Profile: 1994, Washington, U.S. Department of Commerce, Bureau of the Census, 1994.

[23]For more on the age structure in Russia and how it has changed over time, see the paper by Vassin in this volume.

[24]For more on life expectancy in Russia, see the paper by Sholnikov and MeslŽ in this volume.

[25]Naselenie Rossii 1994. (Population of Russia 1995.) The third annual demographic report of the Center for Demography and Human Ecology, ed. by A. Vishnevsky, Moscow, 1996, pp. 79-80.

[26] It should be noted that the CDHE moderate net migration assumption considerably exceeds Goskomstat's "High" variant, referred to in Table 1.18.