"Russian cross"; the black curve reflects the death rate dynamics, the red one corresponds to the birth rate (per thousand)
A Russian cross, also known as a death cross, is the name of a demographic trend that occurred in Russia and many other countries of the former Warsaw Pact.[1][2][3][4][5] In Russia, starting in 1988, birth rates among native Russians (as well as most other ethnic groups of the European part of the former Soviet Union) were declining, while from 1991 (when Soviet Union collapsed) the death rates started climbing.[6]
In 1992, the number of deaths exceeded the number of births and continued to do so to a greater or lesser degree until 2013.[7][8][9] When this trend is plotted on a line graph starting from the mid-1980s, the lines cross in 1992, hence the name.[10][11][12]
Natural population growth of Ukraine since 1950. The Russian cross is not limited to Russia.
Birth rate
Death rate
Natural growth rate
Scientists have tried to connect the causative link between the two trends through the catastrophic growth of alcohol consumption that took place in Russia since the end of the Soviet Union and the subsequent deregulation of the Russian alcohol market.[13]
It has been demonstrated that this is connected with the fact that post-Soviet Russia experiences one of the world's highest prevalences of alcohol-related diseases, contributing to high mortality rates in this region. Reduction in alcohol-related problems in Russia could have strong effects on mortality decline. Andrey Korotayev and Daria Khaltourina have analyzed the plausibility of the application of general principles of alcohol policy to the Russian Federation.[14]
They have shown that alcohol policy approaches could be implemented in the same ways as in other countries. In addition, according to Korotayev, there should be special attention to decreasing distilled spirits consumption,[15] illegal alcohol production, non-beverage alcohol consumption, and enforcement of current governmental regulations.[14]
Other factors explaining the Russian cross include:
Dramatically low fertility, especially around 2000, when it bottomed out at just above one child per woman or half of replacement,
A fall in births during the 1960s, which reduced the number of women of childbearing age in the 1990s,
A very high birth rate between the end of the Russian Civil War (1920) and the beginning of Russia's involvement in World War II (1941), which produced a large cohort of now elderly people, to die off during the 1990s and the first decade of the 2000s, and
A sluggish birth rate between 1945 and 1990, which was mostly at about replacement level, especially after the early 1960s.
Leon D. A., Chenet L., Shkolnikov V. M., Zakharov S., Shapiro J., Rakhmanova G., Vassin S., McKee M. 1997. Huge Variation in Russian Federation Mortality Rates 1984–1994: Artefact, Alcohol or What? // Lancet 350(9075): 383–388.
As of the 2021 census, the population of Russia was 147.2 million. It is the most populous country in Europe, and the ninth-most populous country in the world, with a population density of 8.5 inhabitants per square kilometre. As of 2020, the overall life expectancy in Russia at birth was 71.54 years.
According to the United Nations, Ukraine has a population of 37.9 million as of 2024.
Vodka is a clear distilled alcoholic beverage. Different varieties originated in Poland, Russia, and Sweden. Vodka is composed mainly of water and ethanol but sometimes with traces of impurities and flavourings. Traditionally, it is made by distilling liquid from fermented cereal grains and potatoes since the latter was introduced in Europe in the 18th century. Some modern brands use maize, sugar cane, fruit, honey, and maple sap as the base.
Demography is the statistical study of human populations: their size, composition, and how they change through the interplay of fertility (births), mortality (deaths), and migration.
Infant mortality is the death of an infant before the infant's first birthday. The occurrence of infant mortality in a population can be described by the infant mortality rate (IMR), which is the number of deaths of infants under one year of age per 1,000 live births. Similarly, the child mortality rate, also known as the under-five mortality rate, compares the death rate of children up to the age of five.
According to data from the 1989 Soviet census, the population of the USSR was made up of 70% East Slavs and 17% Turkic peoples, with no other single ethnic group making up more than 2%.
Since the beginning of the 1990s, social and demographic changes in the Russian Federation, stemming from under the Soviet Union, led the country towards an aging population, often described in media as a "demographic crisis".
In demography, demographic transition is a phenomenon and theory which refers to the historical shift from high birth rates and high death rates to low birth rates and low death rates, as societies attain more technology, education and economic development. The demographic transition has occurred in most of the world over the past two centuries, bringing the unprecedented population growth of the post-Malthusian period, then reducing birth rates and population growth significantly in all regions of the world. The demographic transition strengthens economic growth process by three changes: (i) reduced dilution of capital and land stock, (ii) increased investment in human capital, and (iii) increased size of the labor force relative to the total population and changed age population distribution. Although this shift has occurred in many industrialized countries, the theory and model are frequently imprecise when applied to individual countries due to specific social, political and economic factors affecting particular populations.
A baby boom is a period marked by a significant increase of births. This demographic phenomenon is usually ascribed within certain geographical bounds of defined national and cultural populations. The cause of baby booms involves various fertility factors. The best-known baby boom occurred in the mid-twentieth century, sometimes considered to have started in the Aftermath of World War II, sometimes from the late 1945s, and ending in the 1960s. People born during this period are often called baby boomers.
Population decline, also known as depopulation, is a reduction in a human population size. Throughout history, Earth's total human population has continued to grow; however, current projections suggest that this long-term trend of steady population growth may be coming to an end.
Malthusianism is a theory that population growth is potentially exponential, according to the Malthusian growth model, while the growth of the food supply or other resources is linear, which eventually reduces living standards to the point of triggering a population decline. This event, called a Malthusian catastrophe has been predicted to occur if population growth outpaces agricultural production, thereby causing famine or war. According to this theory, poverty and inequality will increase as the price of assets and scarce commodities goes up due to fierce competition for these dwindling resources. This increased level of poverty eventually causes depopulation by decreasing birth rates. If asset prices keep increasing, social unrest would occur, which would likely cause a major war, revolution, or a famine. Societal collapse is an extreme but possible outcome from this process. The theory posits that such a catastrophe would force the population to "correct" back to a lower, more easily sustainable level. Malthusianism has been linked to a variety of political and social movements, but almost always refers to advocates of population control.
When a quantity grows towards a singularity under a finite variation it is said to undergo hyperbolic growth. More precisely, the reciprocal function has a hyperbola as a graph, and has a singularity at 0, meaning that the limit as is infinite: any similar graph is said to exhibit hyperbolic growth.
Andrey Vitalievich Korotayev is a Russian anthropologist, economic historian, comparative political scientist, demographer and sociologist, with major contributions to world-systems theory, cross-cultural studies, Near Eastern history, Big History, and mathematical modelling of social and economic macrodynamics.
The 1989 Soviet census, conducted between 12 and 19 January of that year, was the final census carried out in the Soviet Union. The census found the total population to be 286,730,819 inhabitants. In 1989, the Soviet Union ranked as the third most populous in the world, above the United States, although it was well below China and India.
The ageing of Europe, also known as the greying of Europe, is a demographic phenomenon in Europe characterised by a decrease in fertility, a decrease in mortality rate, and a higher life expectancy among European populations. Low birth rates and higher life expectancy contribute to the transformation of Europe's population pyramid shape. The most significant change is the transition towards a much older population structure, resulting in a decrease in the proportion of the working age while the number of the retired population increases. The total number of the older population is projected to increase greatly within the coming decades, with rising proportions of the post-war baby-boom generations reaching retirement. This will cause a high burden on the working age population as they provide for the increasing number of the older population.
The impact of alcohol on aging is multifaceted. Evidence shows that alcoholism or alcohol abuse can cause both accelerated (or premature) aging – in which symptoms of aging appear earlier than normal – and exaggerated aging, in which the symptoms appear at the appropriate time but in a more exaggerated form. The effects of alcohol use disorder on the aging process include hypertension, cardiac dysrhythmia, cancers, gastrointestinal disorders, neurocognitive deficits, bone loss, and emotional disturbances especially depression. On the other hand, research also shows that drinking moderate amounts of alcohol may protect healthy adults from developing coronary heart disease. The American Heart Association cautions people not to start drinking, if you are not already drinking.
In Ukraine, the Human Rights Measurement Initiative finds that country is fulfilling 79.4% of what they should be fulfilling for the right to health, based on their level on income.
Alcohol consumption in Russia remains among the highest in the world. According to a 2011 report by the World Health Organization, annual per capita consumption of alcohol in Russia was about 15.76 litres of pure alcohol, the fourth-highest volume in Europe. It dropped to 11.7 litres in 2016, dropping further to about 10.5 litres in 2019. Another general trait of Russian alcohol consumption pattern was the high volume of spirits compared with other alcoholic drinks.
Health in Russia deteriorated rapidly following the dissolution of the Soviet Union, and particularly for men, as a result of social and economic changes.
Daria Andreyevna Khaltourina is a Russian sociologist, anthropologist, demographer, and a public figure. She is the head of the Group of the Monitoring of Global and Regional Risks of the Russian Academy of Sciences, co-chairperson of the Russian Coalition for Alcohol Control, as well as the Russian Coalition for Tobacco Control. She is a laureate of the Russian Science Support Foundation Award in "The Best Economists of the Russian Academy of Sciences" nomination (2006).
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