Fostering the qualitative potential of demographic policy in the russian federation: Risks and areas for effective implementation

Abstract

Amid the latest economic and political challenges, as a major factor influencing the dynamics of development in countries around the world, the issue of having in place an effective demographic policy is increasingly gaining in strategic significance, especially for the Russian Federation. Relevant today as never before is the need to investigate the area of regulation of processes related to the nation’s population dynamics. Most of the key trends identified by scholars and experts in the literature tend to be expressive of the fact that the serious problem is still there, with very little revealed in the way of positive outcomes from the fulfillment of central tenets of the Concept on Russia’s Demographic Policy through to 2025. The latest dry statistical figures indicate that, even if we are projecting high numbers for the dynamics of natural population increase, the indicator will still have negative values, which means that the only potential factor for the increase is external migration. Of relevance in this respect are the dynamics of migration from Africa and the Middle East to the EU. In the case of Russia, prior to 2014 the bulk of migrants would come in from the former Soviet republics of Central Asia, whilst today it is now Ukraine, which is quite understandable. The paper shares the findings from the authors’ analysis of key indicators for demographic policy in present-day Russia.