Russia is dying off

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An oversimplification perhaps but not inaccurate, if this brief report has the basics right. It does raise interesting questions about how such a vast country could be able to hold together should this accelerate even more.

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Thursday, 23 June 2005 18:47 (twenty years ago)

isn't western europe as well (albeit at a slower rate)?

and that (russia) is with AIDS still yet to really explode.

― mookieproof (mookieproof), Thursday, 23 June 2005 18:51 (twenty years ago)

Many solutions to the problem have been proposed, ranging from family-friendly tax breaks to legalising polygamy.!!!

― Huk-L, Thursday, 23 June 2005 18:54 (twenty years ago)

and that (russia) is with AIDS still yet to really explode.

Many Eastern Europeans have an immunity to AIDS; I dunno if this applies to many Russians though.

― Curt1s St3ph3ns, Thursday, 23 June 2005 18:54 (twenty years ago)

― s1ocki (slutsky), Thursday, 23 June 2005 19:03 (twenty years ago)

wait, what?

― caitlin oh no (caitxa1), Thursday, 23 June 2005 19:06 (twenty years ago)

No one with Blue Eyes ever got AIDS. It's a fact.

― Huk-L, Thursday, 23 June 2005 19:09 (twenty years ago)

yay!

― caitlin oh no (caitxa1), Thursday, 23 June 2005 19:10 (twenty years ago)

Statistically, a baby boy born in Russia today is unlikely to see his 16th birthday.

This would mean that the life expectancy of boys born today in Russia is under 16?!? That doesn't seem right. Zambia currently has the lowest life expectancy in the world at 37 years.

― Brian Miller (Brian Miller), Thursday, 23 June 2005 19:11 (twenty years ago)

yeah, that quote threw me off too

― Uncledoj, Thursday, 23 June 2005 19:23 (twenty years ago)

Maybe they're statistically unlikely to have 16th birthday parties.

― Brian Miller (Brian Miller), Thursday, 23 June 2005 19:28 (twenty years ago)

Maybe they all go blind at 15.

― Allyzay knows a little German (allyzay), Thursday, 23 June 2005 19:28 (twenty years ago)

In Russia, we can only afford 15 candles!

xpost

― Huk-L, Thursday, 23 June 2005 19:29 (twenty years ago)

Maybe, unbeknownst to the rest of the world, Russia has switched from the popular 12-month calendar of the Western World, to a new, futuristic calendar wherein a year consists of 40 months.

― n/a (Nick A.), Thursday, 23 June 2005 19:33 (twenty years ago)

Children are only born on Feb. 29!

― Huk-L, Thursday, 23 June 2005 19:34 (twenty years ago)

They just said: "Lifestyle-related diseases" I think this also applies to alcoholism and drug use.
I know that the rate of suicide in Siberia and Eastern Russia is an unbearable problem that the government refuses to address.

― jocelyn (Jocelyn), Thursday, 23 June 2005 19:37 (twenty years ago)

Current WHO figures on Russia:

Total population: 143,246,000

GDP per capita (Intl $, 2002): 8,588

Life expectancy at birth m/f (years): 58.0/72.0

Healthy life expectancy at birth m/f (years, 2002): 52.8/64.3

Child mortality m/f (per 1000): 18/14

Adult mortality m/f (per 1000): 480/182

Total health expenditure per capita (Intl $, 2002): 535

Total health expenditure as % of GDP (2002): 6.2

Figures are for 2003 unless indicated.

The BBC report indicates that their figures are drawn from the Russian gov'ts own stat reports of recent years. Also, wot Jocelyn said.

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Thursday, 23 June 2005 19:38 (twenty years ago)

FWIW, the official Russian gov't site, but navigating from there is rather beyond my limited linguistic skills.

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Thursday, 23 June 2005 19:41 (twenty years ago)

hmm i doubt that the russian gov't's stats are terribly reliable

― mookieproof (mookieproof), Thursday, 23 June 2005 19:41 (twenty years ago)

I wonder why!

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Thursday, 23 June 2005 19:42 (twenty years ago)

Plus, mandatory army service for men aged 18 where a lot of them die in mysterious "training accidents".

― jocelyn (Jocelyn), Thursday, 23 June 2005 19:42 (twenty years ago)

now which thriller did i read that involved china invading siberia due to population pressures?

― mookieproof (mookieproof), Thursday, 23 June 2005 19:48 (twenty years ago)

14-year age gap for m/f death rates?!

― Curt1s St3ph3ns, Thursday, 23 June 2005 19:51 (twenty years ago)

who knew m's were so vulnerable

― Curt1s St3ph3ns, Thursday, 23 June 2005 19:51 (twenty years ago)

A joke once told by my psych/anthro professor..

What's the most dangerous place in the world to be?

A russian mother's womb!

This is apparently because the rate of abortion is absurdly high amongst pregnant women there. Every first world country is dying off, except the USA btw. We have so few children these days that more people are passing away than are being born to replace them..Japan's population is going way down in the next generation or so, as they have so many elderly people. The US is still growing so much only due to the large number of immigrants we get.

― Aramyr, Thursday, 23 June 2005 20:51 (twenty years ago)

Seatbelts and polygamy are the best solutions that experts can come up with?

― Earl Nash (earlnash), Friday, 24 June 2005 03:35 (twenty years ago)

So is the United States. They call it the "graying" of America, which is a nice word for through-the-roof infant mortality.

― Tracer Hand (tracerhand), Friday, 24 June 2005 06:20 (twenty years ago)

this is really sad.

― Amateur(ist) (Amateur(ist)), Friday, 24 June 2005 07:04 (twenty years ago)

china's population is falling too, i believe. so where is the population rising the quickest? india? indonesia?

― Amateur(ist) (Amateur(ist)), Friday, 24 June 2005 07:05 (twenty years ago)

yeah russias death rate is pretty absurd tho. the gov really really dont give a shit. the scale of young people on heroin and corresponding levels of aids are frightening. in kazan, which someone described to me as the aids capital of europe, i think 1 in 5 of people 18 -25 had aids or something. maybe thats bullshit. theres very little debate about it publically. in krasnoyarsk i saw a poster about aids, like a information/warning type thing, but the tone of it was still really belligerent, and not helpful generally.

the children of russia are just so so fucked. in between 8yrs olds sniffing glue and living in sewers, and uni students being pulled out of uni to be sent to the "meat grinder" of Chechnya, or recruits being abused by "dedy"

heres some more depressing facts: http://www.nationmaster.com/red/country/rs/Health&b_cite=1

i think the gross difference between male and female life expectancies is due to alcholism.

i know that bad shit happens all over the place, but it just depresses, infuriates and makes me feel miserable, the fatal combination of indolence, poverty, ignorance, predjudice and arrogance on the part of variously, russian power structres, the russian people, and all onlookers.

the psychic wounds of this transition period will be very deep indeed i believe.

― ambrose (ambrose), Friday, 24 June 2005 11:39 (twenty years ago)

A Uzbek woman I know used to live in Siberia where she worked as a doctor, and she said that so many of her male patients used to commit suicide just so that their widows could collect their pension to have something to live on. (Not just elderly patients either) The ones who didn't kill themselves drank themselves to death.

― jocelyn (Jocelyn), Friday, 24 June 2005 12:48 (twenty years ago)

this all may be very true, but somehow i'm made uncomfortable by the way such stories and statistics corroborate longstanding stereotypes of russians (drunk, morbidly depressed, etc.).

― Amateur(ist) (Amateur(ist)), Friday, 24 June 2005 17:20 (twenty years ago)

I don't think of Russians as being stereotypically depressed, I tend to stereotype them as being jolly! I'm more of a Gogol man than a Tolstoy man though.

― n/a (Nick A.), Friday, 24 June 2005 17:31 (twenty years ago)

I'm not trying to perpetrate any stereotypes, but rather point out that the government needs to do something quickly instead of being so greedy and persecuting minorities. (Most of the people I know aren't depressed at all, but they are very happy to have been granted asylum or visas in America)

― jocelyn (Jocelyn), Friday, 24 June 2005 17:37 (twenty years ago)

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