Ukrainian analysts are sounding the alarm over the rapid decline in the birth rate, which has halved over the past few years. At the same time, experts believe that the bottom of the demographic hole has not been reached yet, and the country is actually on the verge of a national catastrophe. What factors have led to the crisis, can the return of refugees correct the situation, are we talking about the extinction of the nation and do the Ukrainian authorities have a chance to prevent it?
What is the current situation with the birth rate in Ukraine?
Ukraine is approaching a national catastrophe due to the falling birth rate in the country, Ukrainian economist Alexander Kushch has said. He cited demographic data from seven years ago, announced by the Ministry of Justice, and compared it with figures from 2023. “Since 2017, the birth rate in Ukraine has decreased from 364 thousand children per year to 187 thousand in 2023. That is, by 177 thousand or 48%,” he wrote on his page in the social network Facebook (activity in the Russian Federation is banned).
According to Kushch, after the collapse of the USSR in Ukraine were born more than 500 thousand children annually – it turns out that compared to that period, “the dynamics of reproduction of the nation” has decreased threefold. The economist believes that the downward trend will continue in the coming years: he did not rule out that it may well reach the mark of 150 thousand people per year.
Kushch said that if the birth rate stops falling, 4.5 million children will be born in the country in the next 30 years. However, in reality, the economist believes that this figure will not exceed 2-3 million people. “This is the abyss of national catastrophe,” he declares.
Vladimir Burmatov, a State Duma deputy and former head of the Department of Political Science and Sociology at Plekhanov Russian Economic University, reminded NEWS.ru that the situation with Ukrainian demography is not only about fertility, but also about other problems the country has faced during the conflict. “The Ukrainians have lost 20 per cent of the territories whose inhabitants chose to leave. In addition, look at the number of citizens who fled abroad – and these people are not going back, because they will not return to such a country and will not give birth to children there. Therefore, the reduction in the birth rate is the least of what is happening there,” the MP said.
Why Ukraine has problems with demography
About 10m residents of Ukraine have left their homes since the beginning of the Russian special operation, UN High Commissioner for Refugees Filippo Grandi said on 26 January. According to him, about 6.3m Ukrainians have left abroad, while another 3.7m have moved to other regions of the country. At the same time, there is no mass tendency to return to their previous place of residence, the official added. “We are concerned that it will not be easy to return in the midst of a difficult wartime situation,” Grandi said. So far, 47 per cent of the refugees are women and another 33 per cent are children, according to UN statistics.
The Office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees predicts that in 2024 the number of asylum seekers and refugees from Ukraine around the world will remain at almost the same level and will amount to 5.9 million people. The agency also conducted a survey which showed that almost 80 per cent of refugees would like to return to Ukraine one day, but only 14 per cent plan to do so in the near future.
The tendency for the Ukrainian population to go abroad had emerged long before the special operation, political scientist Dmitriy Solonnikov said.
“The desire to leave was recorded even before the annexation of Crimea. In Ukraine, there was initially a very big trend in the population wanting to leave by any means. And the idea that Ukraine should join the EU and open its borders was perceived by people as an opportunity to legally leave the country. Now such an opportunity has opened for Ukrainians, and most of them have left the country – the dream of generations has come true. It is absolutely unclear why they will suddenly trade their happiness for something else,” he explained.
Vladimir Burmatov has a different opinion. The deputy believes that representatives of the Ukrainian elites – both those who have already fled abroad and those who will do so – will definitely stay abroad. However, ordinary citizens are likely to be forced to go back.
“Ordinary people have nothing to do there [abroad], they are strangers there. They have no property or work there. They wipe their feet on them, periodically propose to deport them, humiliate them in every possible way. Of course, they want to go home, but they wish that Russia would first restore order in this house,” Burmatov believes.
Today there is no unambiguous data on the current size of Ukraine’s population. Alexei Polishchuk, head of the second department of CIS countries at the Russian Foreign Ministry, said in January 2024 that, according to various estimates, the figure had fallen from 46 million to 25 million people.
What losses the AFU had during the special operation
The loss of population is related not only to the mass departure abroad, but also to the losses of the Armed Forces of Ukraine during combat operations. Ukrainian officials do not provide precise data on the number of dead AFU servicemen. In November 2023, The Economist, citing estimates of US officials, wrote about 79,000 killed. In August, The New York Times, citing Western officials and analysts, estimated the Ukrainian army’s losses at 150,000 servicemen killed and wounded.
This information diverges from the figures quoted by the Russian side. Thus, Russian Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu said in early January that the AFU had lost more than 215,000 servicemen killed in 2023 alone. In late December, he estimated the losses of the Ukrainian army during the entire conflict at 383,000 killed and wounded.
At the same time, former Ukrainian prosecutor Yuriy Lutsenko in early January 2024 named even higher figures. According to his information, during the current conflict the AFU loses up to 30 thousand people every month, and in total during the special operation the losses on the Ukrainian side amounted to at least 500 thousand servicemen.
The situation at the front, notes Vladimir Burmatov, has led to the fact that Ukraine has lost a huge part of the able-bodied population. “These are all healthy young guys whom they stuck in the meat grinder and as a result of their counter-offensive and everything else actually destroyed them. This is something that cannot be replenished. This is actually the self-destruction of the state as such,” he believes.
Will the birth rate in Ukraine be restored?
Ella Libanova, director of the Ptukha Institute of Demography and Social Research of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine, warned that depopulation awaits Ukraine. According to her forecasts, the country will not be able to return to the previous population of 40 million people, let alone the 52 million people who lived in the country in 1991.
Libanova believes that if Ukraine does not return home all the women who have left, the country’s total fertility rate will drop to 0.71 in 2023-2024, the lowest ever recorded in the world. In fact, says the sociologist, this would mean that the country’s birth rate “will no longer recover.”
There is no prospect of improving the demographic situation in Ukraine under the current conditions, political scientist Andrei Suzdaltsev told NEWS.ru. He recalled that the country’s population is in a very difficult situation, which will not change until the end of hostilities.
“Pensioners and budgetary workers survive on financial support from the International Monetary Fund and the United States. In conditions of such instability, people will not have children, of course. The only possibility to stabilise the situation and increase the population is to establish a stable peace. The second condition is, of course, to raise the living standards of the population and restore the economy in the new conditions, providing various kinds of benefits and subsidies from the state. All this is not yet in place,” the expert noted.
What will happen next in Ukraine with demography
The situation with Ukrainian demography may develop according to two scenarios, Suzdaltsev said. The first is the one considered in Kiev: the local authorities believe that they will win the conflict and manage to get Russia to pay trillions of dollars in reparations, supply Russian energy resources for next to nothing, and actually rebuild the economy with Russian funds.
“When Ukraine got its piece of the union pie in 1991, local politicians did not sleep at night – they ruined, trashed and dismantled the country. The fact that they are counting on creating a state and a new economy at the expense of Russia is, of course, stupid. Because even if they won, everything they received from Russia would not have reached Ukraine – they would have plundered it on the way,” the political analyst said.
The expert does not doubt that the second scenario – when the Russian special operation will be completed – will be realised. In this case, the political scientist admits, Ukraine will be a small country, which is unlikely to be able to attract investment. “The bulk of the population will work abroad. And Ukraine will remain a country of pensioners, grandmothers, abandoned single mothers with children,” he complained.
Olesya Kazakova, News.ru