Fewer babies in Ukraine

Unfavorable demographic forecasts for Ukraine from European researchers are nothing new. Europe’s leading demographic institutions say our country’s population will fall to 30 million by 2050, and that we are facing a gradual ageing of the nation and an inflow of labor migrants from Asia and Africa. Ukrainian experts agree. The latest UN report on the fertility rate, reproductive health and development also points to another demographic trend. The report, now being discussed in New York by the UN Commission on Population and Development, shows a drastic fall in child births. While in 1950 there was an average of 4.9 children per woman, in 2005-10 the figure was 2.5. In Ukraine, this index is now at 1.46.

“Both the rapid reduction in fertility in developing countries that started in the late 1960s and the persistence of low fertility in developed countries since the 1970s are unprecedented in human history,” the UN Secretary General’s report reads. It also draws attention to the fact that all these events occurred in conditions of social change and improving access to effective contraception.

According to the State Statistics Committee of Ukraine, in 2010 the country’s birthrate declined for the first time in five years. A total of 456,000 babies were born in the first 11 months of last year — 14,000 less than two years ago. In addition to common European factors, Ukrainian experts also name other causes.

“Ukraine saw a very slow and a very fast decline in fertility from 1987 and from 1993 onwards, respectively,” says Svitlana Aksionova, Candidate of Sciences (Economy) and senior research associate at the Ptukha Institute of Demography and Social Studies. “This continued until 2011, when the lowest amount of births was recorded. These indices grew until 2009, and 2010 was the first year that showed a small drop in fertility. In the 1990s the rates fell due to a large-scale economic crisis, the worsened financial condition of many families, unemployment, and increased poverty. This caused many families, which had already had children, to decide not to have more, and some other families put off having a baby for better times. Some chose to confine themselves to raising only one child. What influenced the second drop of birthrate in 2010 was the 2008 financial crisis.”

Demographic processes are characterized by a certain inertia. The decision to have a child, made by families in the first half of 2008, well before the crisis, began to produce results a year later – this explains a surge of births in 2009. Another factor that contributed to low rates last year was tougher demands on the family environment. While a secure job and more or less acceptable wages could be a factor for having a baby in the 1990s, this no longer holds in modern conditions. People want much more.

Demographers forecast that Ukraine is in for a stabilization of the birthrate. As Aksionova notes, after a certain period of panic and crisis, society brings into play the adaptation mechanism — when each family adjusts itself to the existing conditions and reexamines the decision to have a baby. Thus, at present demographers expect neither a growth nor a fall in the number of newborns.

“Very many factors, not only economic ones, are at play here. The most important thing now is the age structure of the population. The spike in births was caused by the increase in the number of people aged 20-29, the most active reproductive group (the children born in the 1990s are now entering the most active childbearing age). As we have seen a decline in birthrates over the past 10 to 15 years, there will be a rather smaller amount of reproductive-age women in the next few years, so we can hardly expect an increase in the number of children. Yet a different trend has been in evidence in the past few years – the ageing of mothers, when women have been giving birth at the age of 30 to 39. This group has shown a twofold rise in fertility.”

Child benefits, which the state has raised again this year, are widely seen as a solution to this problem. Yet experts say that the populace regards these benefits as assistance to the family in the first years of the baby’s life rather than an incentive to have a new child. This is also confirmed by surveys conducted by the Ptukha Institute of Demography and Social Studies. The results show that only 12 percent of women link the decision to have a child with being eligible for social benefits.