When a subject is as bleak as Ukraine’s current demographic predicament any good news is welcome, so there was much cheering when results for the third quarter of 2007 appeared to show a regional reversal of the trend of few births and many deaths that is devastating Ukraine’s population figures.
Orange oblasts’ demographic dividends
Several western regions as well as the capital Kyiv all recorded a growth in births that surpassed the corresponding number of deaths for the third quarter of 2007. According to these latest statistics, in the past few months birth rates have exceeded mortality by 19% in Zakarpattya, by 17% in Rivno oblast, by 10% in Volyn oblast, by 0.7% in Lviv oblast and by 8% in Kyiv.
This does not mean that actual birth rates in these regions top those for all Ukraine, however. Except for Kyiv, they all have far lower birthrates than those registered in eastern Ukraine. However, while the heavily industrialised Donbass region and its neighbouring oblasts boast birthrates that are often double those of their western Ukrainian counterparts, death rates are also far higher, creating an overall demographic negative.
The crisis is sharpest in Chernihiv and Chernivtsi oblasts, which have among the fewest new babies and are suffering from mortality rates of close to three times the regional birth rate.
Justice Minister Oleksandr Lavrinovych was buoyed by the encouraging trends identified in these latest quarterly figures, commenting: “We are witnessing a positive change for the first time since the beginning of the 1990s.”
Ukraine’s demographic situation has been worsening for the past sixteen years and threatens to create huge headaches for future generations. Since the collapse of the USSR the population has plummeted from an estimated 52 million down to approximately 46.3 million today. As well as the mass exodus of Ukrainians looking for work abroad, the plummeting population is also the result of poor healthcare and diet, chronic alcohol abuse and an economic environment that has forced many ordinary couples to postpone indefinitely their dreams of starting a family.
The hopelessness of many middle-aged men’s lives in the early post-Soviet years also led to a huge drop in male life expectancy, as former breadwinners were reduced to a meager existence and plunged into often terminal despair which had devastating health consequences for an entire generation.
The country’s current crisis is thought to be one of the most dramatic peacetime population falls in European history. It has been likened to the demographic devastation wrought in Ukraine by the Second World War when an estimated eight million Ukrainians died. This has created a contemporary environment that shares much with a classical immediate post-war society, with fewer young people, a depleted generation of people entering middle age and an impoverished senior generation that the state can barely support.
The politics of population decline
Politicians have increasingly latched onto the demographic danger hovering over the country in the past few years, beginning with the Tymoshenko government of 2005 being the first to introduce relatively large cash incentives to parents of new born babies. That initial social policy was accompanied by an eye-catching social advertising campaign that featured posters encouraging Ukrainians to make love alongside slogans such as, “the country needs more cosmonauts”.
This policy position has now been adopted by all the major Ukrainian political parties, and the recent parliamentary election campaign saw rivals competing to see who could offer the most money to prospective parents amid sordid scenes that often had the feel of a public auction for the affections of the electorate.
With the social package on offer for a single child rising well into the thousands of US dollars, there have been fears that this policy could encourage those on the lowest rungs of society to produce offspring purely for the financial benefits they bring, and social workers have complained of a rise in the number of abandoned children.
While politicians seek to make political capital out of the demographic crisis, sociologists and healthcare professionals are also focusing on the issue, and they are not convinced that the politicians can take the credit for having arrested the demographic decline. Olena Voznesenska, a psychology expert from the Institute for Social and Political Psychology, does not credit relatively recent government cash incentives with having achieved even the minor gains evident in recent figures. “The birth rate actually started to grow from 2001. It is directly connected to the country’s general economic growth. The relative economic stability that dates from around 2001 is the key factor influencing the national birth rate,” she says.
Svitlana Aksyonova, a senior expert from the Institute of Demography and Social Research, argues that while a government handout of USD 1,600 can make a major difference to a low income family, it will not be decisive in persuading people to start or extend their families. “If a couple is not planning on having two children they are hardly likely to change their mind because of the promise of a short time financial boost,” she states.
The role of regional differences
Sociologists have also been at pains to explain the drastic differences in the demographic situation that are evident across Ukraine. Many experts point to the higher proportion of the population in western regions living in a relatively healthy countryside environment, with a preponderance of more traditional family values also serving to increase the chances of elderly family members living longer. “Mortality rates are connected to the cultural specifics of any given region, specifically in terms of attitudes to parents and the aged. Psychological and social support for old people in western Ukraine is greater than in the east because of stronger family traditions. In practice this means fewer economic problems for old people,” Voznesenska states.
Sociologist Aksyonova argues that women in Ukraine’s western oblasts tend to be more family-oriented. “The eastern part of the country offers greater opportunities for a woman to build a career because of its high industrial development,” she explains.
No long term solution
National statistics for the first half of 2007 suggest that birth rates are indeed on an upward trajectory, but experts argue that this is only a short term phenomenon which will not last longer than three or four years and will nevertheless prove insufficient to reverse the general demographic decline.
As well as the relatively encouraging economic climate, Aksyonova explains that many of today’s births are the result of factors such as couples having the child they felt they could not have supported five or ten years ago.
This, she argues, has created a temporary rise in birth rates that is not sustainable and will correct itself in due course, while the depleted ranks of young women of child-bearing age mean that the population demographic is destined to get more and more top heavy over the coming decades. In general terms, the Ukrainian nation continues to age every year, and by the start of 2006 just 19% of the overall population was under eighteen. This percentage looks set to decrease for the foreseeable future.
Most Western countries are facing a similar demographic scenario, with low birth rates creating an ever-rising percentage of pension age citizens among a dwindling population. This has led to calls for private pension schemes to take on the burden from over-stretched government coffers that cannot hope to bear the burden of so many state pensions.
Ukraine’s social security services will also be placed under enormous strain as a result of the country’s changing demographics, and sociologists are scathing over the chances of cash incentives making a long lasting impression on the situation.
With inflation cutting away at the value of state handouts for newborn babies and the closure of schools and kindergartens, Ukraine needs to adopt a more systematic approach that focuses on the reasons why people feel ready to start families: security, prosperity and the promise of long-term well-being. Until progress is made on these fronts, any successes in the battle to boost Ukraine’s flagging population will be strictly localised.
