New Year Update: Russophile Predictions

13 Responses to New Year Update: Russophile Predictions

1. colleen says:

   January 1, 2009 at 12:05 pm

   The birth rate rose to 12.1/1000 from 11.3/1000 in 2007

   These are the only countries in Europe that have a higher birth rate:

   Turkey, Albania, Ireland, Iceland, the Faroe Islands, France, and Cyprus

   Azerbaijan and Armenia are also higher, but I’m not sure if they’re considered Europe.

   “Birth rates” is one of issues that Russophobes liked to bring up and Russia’s now in a position to turn the argument completely around. Because, compared to Russia, Europe’s is far worse.

   AK responds: Unfortunately it’s not quite as rosy, as I cover below. However, the situation in this regard as measured by TFR has become better than the average for Europe. But using birth rates to criticize countries is retarded in almost all cases.

   Reply

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3. Kolya says:

   January 3, 2009 at 10:04 pm

   It’s not only the birth rate that is important. It’s both, the birth rate and the immigration rate. Europe and the US gets by (not without problems) because of the combination of those two. In other words: immigration makes a difference. Does that mean that the United States circa 2060 will not look like the US of 2009. Yes, that’s what it means. But then the US of 1920 looked quite different from the US of 1870.

   For interesting remarks on this, watch the following interview of Anatoli Vishnevsky, the Russian demographer:

   http://rutube.ru/tracks/657625.html?v=bfda8daefd5716a2bcc8fab75bd41030

   I wonder what you, Da Russophile, think of what he says. I’m asking because I find Vishnevsky persuasive, but I’m not a demographer.

   Some of his points (and I hope I’m not misinterpreting Vishnevsky):

   1. The demographic crisis in Russia has been brewing for several generations, but it will be felt by all only in the coming years (about 15 years from now). That’s when the burden of the shrinking working population will become especially onerous.
   2. There are ways to ameliorate the crisis, but it’s too late to avoid it. Simply put, there are not enough women either now or in the coming generation (those who are now minors)–even if women start procreating more.
   3. There are not enough ethnic Russians. Immigration is key, but for that Russia should change its attitude toward immigration and immigrants.
   4. Just like the US takes it for granted that in a couple of generations white Americans will simply be one minority among many, ethnic Russians should accept that they will be a minority in future Russia.
   5. Ethnicities that were traditional Islamic (even if only nominally) is the main growing block and that’s where most immigrants will probably come from. Assimilation is key.

   Reply
4. AK says:

   January 5, 2009 at 1:01 am

   @Kolya,

   Although you have asked me about my opinion on Vishnevsky before, over at SRB, I was not aware of him and all I could find by Googling were some dry, very technical papers. So thank you for the video, which gives us a succinct and understandable outline of his views.

   My first general impressions, before I go off on a numbered list of caveats. He does know what he’s talking about, e.g. the vital role of cohorts in demography, and most of his assumptions and forecasts rest on a sound bedding. That said, it should be remembered that he is addressing a Russian audience with perhaps overoptimistic perceptions of their country’s future success. Academics and intellectuals like to contradict the masses, even when pure objectivity does not really warrant it.

   (On a more personal note, I too suffer from this problem. Believe it or not, when in the company of Russians too besotted of Putin or Russia’s greatness or whatever, I am often compelled to contradict them by pointing out some of their failures and cynicism or even just for the sake of argument instead of agreement. The main reason I am “Da Russophile” in the English language is because far too many Westerners perceive Russia to be some special class of benighted murderous wasteland, whereas in fact I see it as essentially a ‘normal country’ with some admittedly pretty big problems. And since I don’t think a petty thief should be blamed for a murder with no evidence, nor do I think one can be neutral on a moving train (to borrow from Zinn), so I defend misaligned Russia and Putin (and at times Chavez’ Venezuela, and other people Western elites really don’t like but which in reality aren’t that bad, or good). Especially since the presiding judges, juries and executioners – the West – are themselves a bunch of petty crooks. Not that it wins any favors from either side…anyhow, rant over, back to demography).

   1. Vishnevsky mentions the UN forecast, and how it rose from a population of 102mn to 108mn by 2050, in the past four years. This illustrates the fundamental problem with forecasts by organizations like the UN, CIA, Census Bureau, etc. They have pretty rigid and sometimes unrealistic assumptions, e.g. no improvement in age-specific mortality rates, continuing low fertility, etc. That rise of 6mn mentioned above was no doubt made after taking into account the rise in the TFR from around 1.2-1.3 in the early 2000′s, to 1.4-1.5 by 2007-08. He’s right in pointing out that these pessimistic predictions are NOT made because of nefarious Western attempts to undermine Russia, but doesn’t mention this real problem with them. No doubt he knows about it but including it would have made him even more difficult to understand to the average Russian with minimal demography knowledge whose bubble he was trying to prick in the interview.

   2. He makes the rather interesting and bizarre claim that no Russian generation reproduced itself after 1910. That is simply…not true. If that were the case then Russia’s population today would be lower than the 80mn or so it was at in 1910. The ‘net female replacement ratio’ was well above the key figure of 1.0 until 1965, and from about then to 1990 fluctuated between 0.9 and 1.0. It only fell to well below replacement, around 0.6-0.7, from around 1990-today.

   3. He says that the crude birth rate will fall from now because the cohort of women in their childbearing range will fall. This is true. Because it will fall by the 2030′s by around 40% (when most mothers will be from the ‘new Russia’ generation), even a rise in the TFR from 1.3 in the early 2000′s to near replacement levels of 2.0 then, will still result in a small reduction in the number of absolute births. This is going to be a gradual, not cataclysmic, process. My own scenarios in Faces of the Future have the birth rate peaking in 2010-15, and troughing in 2030-35. My own best educated guess is that in the medium term TFR is going to rise, thus moderating the decline in young women, and so the birth rate will go from around 13/1000 in 2010-15, to 10/1000 in 2030-35 (after which it will rise again, and fall again, but with a dampened magnitude – unless there are new and unforeseen fertility shocks which are quite possible).

   Also, the decline is going to be further moderated by the rise in average childbearing age – as I wrote in Russia’s Fertility Future, a) the average age of birth of Russian mothers is trending up and still low by European standards and b) there is evidence of a lot of ‘birth postponement’ in the 1992-present era – the establishment of good and stable conditions could, based on prior history, produce a TFR surge of 1.8-2.0 for more than a decade, even discounting any fundamental shift upwards in fertility expectations. Accounting for all the above might even make my forecast in the last paragraph conservative.

   4. Vishnevsky says that the mortality rate is going to increase, even if the life expectancy rises, because the ‘post-war baby boom’ is going to start dying. This is actually a very flawed and perhaps even dishonest argument, and I will explain why.

   In 1920-1940, Russia’s TFR remained above 4.0, excepting a slight dip below that in the early 1930′s due to the collectivization famine. Although the TFR fell below replacement during WW2 for obvious reasons, the post-war babyboom should not be overstated – for all but one or two years, it remained below 3.0 (see graph). Russia’s first demographic transition, from around 6.5 in 1925 to less than 3.0 by the 1950′s, was one of the fastest and earliest in the world. Since fertility was interrupted from 1915-25 by the destruction of WW1 and the Civil War, and the earlier cohorts were decimated by Civil War, famine, political repression and the Great Patriotic War, the 1925-40 cohort was a relatively huge component of Russia’s population structure.

   Now the age group with the biggest absolute contribution to mortality in low-infant-mortality societies, of which Russia is a part, is the one whose age correlated with (average life expectancy + 5 to 15 years = 65 + 5 to 15 = 70 to 80 years, in Russia’s case). After that, however, most of the cohort dies off and their contribution to overall mortality plumments. In 2000 Russia had plenty of people in their 60′s and 70′s, who were dying rapidly. However, a majority of this process has already occurred and so its effect will now fall. This is why even in my Low scenario, where the life expectancy remained the same throughout the period, death rates fall slightly through to the late 2020′s before beginning to rise again.

   Of course no gains in life expectancy from now till 2050 is very unlikely, considering the current investments into health-care, some anti-alcohol measures and overall improvements in medical technology. Rapid mortality reductions can be accomplished when its due to lifestyle factors, as I covered in a past post, Out of the Death Spiral?, e.g. Finnish Karelia in the 1970′s and 1980′s. Thus allowing for a degree of convergence to Western life expectancies during the period, death rates fall from 14-16/1000 nowadays, to 10-12/1000 by the late 2030′s, before slightly rising again but nonetheless remaining below 12/1000. This is because rising life expectancies ‘push back’ in time the peak-mortality contributing age groups. Thus they are going to have a downward pressure on the overall mortality rate, but one which will in time be overtaken again by upward pressure due to the ageing population.

   5. The above is also a big reason Russia’s population in the post Soviet period fell by 6mn (note – actually 7mn, from 149mn in 1991 to 142mn today), whereas if it hadn’t been for migrants it would have fallen by 12mn. This is because a) falling life expectancies ‘pushed forwards’ the time schedule of peak death well into the midst of the big 1920-40 generation, as well as for the rest of the population generally and b) there began to be fewer children to ‘dilute’ high mortality rates from older people. However, now both trends are reversing. Recovering life expectancies are slowly pushing back the mortality schedule, the bigger part of the 1920-40 age group has already died and more children now means more downward pressure on the mortality rate.

   6. Re-ageing. Vishnevsky notes the paradox that although the post Soviet period saw a drastic population decline, in structural terms it has improved to a point where it was never better in terms of the dependency ratio. A second paradox I would note is that the more successful Russia is in raising the life expectancy and raising the TFR, the worse the dependency ratio is going to become. Like economists, demographers don’t give out free lunches . (Although, more children will improve future dependency ratios while greater life expectancy is usually accompanied by better overall health and therefore greater old-worker participation and productivity. All very confusing).

   7. Re-migration. Mostly he says common-sense well known things, that although young migrants are very useful from a demographic perspective the benefits must be reconciled with the costs – usually low skills and questionable cultural affinity and loyalty. Although hard-working, high-fertility Hispaniac migrants will account for a bulk of future US population growth, generally they place a relatively low value on skills and education and as argued by the recently late Samuel P Huntington, may in the long-term pose a threat to US cultural identity, politics and even territorial integrity. Thus each country, including Russia, will try to balance and optimize its choices in this sphere.

   Regarding my personal view, I would prefer to replace labor with capital wherever possible, as Japan does (it’s a world leader in industrial robots), and accept only skilled workers. Failing that, I would try to limit immigrants to Europeans, Central Asians and Indians. Europeans are usually skilled and the closest culturally, but as Vishnevsky said it’s hard to entice a Princeton professor to move to Russia barring some kind of apocalypse in the West. Central Asians respect Russian culture, most speak the language to some degree and are little influenced by Islamism, all of which make up for lack of skills and so will be easy to integrate, like Russian peasants moving into the industrial cities during 1880-1960. Indians like Russians and Russians like Indians, the two country’s have strong security ties, but most are again unskilled and hardly any speak Russian – however, unlike the Chinese, India is far away and will not represent a national security threat.

   I would however try to limit large or non-skilled immigration from Arab and South Asian Muslims, and the Chinese. The former, as in Western Europe, may be drawn into ghettos where they will hotbeds of resent and extremism, and sources of radicalism to indigenous Muslims. In the long term, large Muslim immigration poses the threat of dhimmitude. Contrary to popular opinion, most Chinese immigrants are loyal to Russia (as covered in an issue in Demoscope devoted entirely to Chinese in Russia). Nonetheless, unless diluted by a large number of other immigrants, they may pose a long-term threat to territorial integrity since loyalties can change quickly in certain cases.

   8. For all my dry expositions about demography, I actually believe it will play a very small role in the twenty first century because its effects will be overtaken by much-higher impact events. On the one hand, research in regenerative and ‘longevity’ medicine could lead to ‘actuarial escape velocity’, where life expectancy starts rising faster than one year, per year. By some estimates an artificial womb is already technologically feasible, which will allow one to divorce fertility from social mores; although that will first require social acceptance, I can foresee countries with demographic problems like Japan, Russia, Korea, Germany, etc, utilizing it more rapidly. If and when we start entering the technological singularity, things like populations will start becoming entirely irrelevant.

   However, the above growth trends are in a battle against time with dark limits to growth trends, such as resource depletion and catastrophic climate change. In the latter case, you could see the political collapse of many states to the south in the face of encroaching deserts and rising seas, and mass refugee movements in the hundreds of millions to narrowing zones of habitability around the poles lying primarily in Russia, Canada and northern Europe. In this situation things like extractable hydrocarbons, machines, and nukes will be at a premium instead of people. In this doomsday scenario Russia’s population could potentially swell to more than a billion within a century, and witness its transformation into either a feudal polyglot quasi-state or a harsh caste-based empire.

   Reply
5. Kolya says:

   January 5, 2009 at 2:36 pm

   Thank you for such an incredibly detailed reply! I have to say that much of it is over my head. Many years ago I studied a bit of population biology, so I’m not one to dismiss demographers with a shrug. Also, since Vishnevsky is a well-known scholar in the field, I prefer to assume that he’s correct on the data he cites. Whether his projections are off the mark is a different issue and he may well be wrong. Time will tell. I simply don’t know enough to have an informed opinion. From the personal point of view, I prefer smaller populations. The thing, of course, is whether the population is sustainable. There will probably be scientific/technical advances that will ameliorate some of the problem, but you are more optimistic about it than I am. From what I read, the Japanese themselves are rather worried.

   One more thing: Chavez has been bad news for Venezuela. He’s a charismatic demagogue, but despite the oil bonanza that coincided with his rule Venezuelan society is in worse shape now than before he took over: the infrastructure is in worse shape, the quality of education went downhill, and the murder rate (which was already high) has risen two or three times since he took power. Moreover, Venezuelan society became considerably more polarized than before. Perhaps these are surprising things to hear from me, since I’m considered a lefty by most Americans who know me. But then I know Venezuela quite well: I lived there for many years.

   Before Chavez, Venezuela was a very corrupt democracy with a fairly strong presidential system that was tempered by term limits. That is, after a five year presidential term, a person had to wait ten years before running again–a good precaution after years of caudillismo. Now Venezuela is still very corrupt, but because of the constitutional changes sponsored by Chavez the presidency is much stronger than before, presidents can run for a second consecutive term, and presidential terms are now six instead of five years. And now Chavez wants to eliminate all presidential term limits. Not a good idea for a country with Venezuela’s history. I disagree with those who call him a dictator. He’s not. At least not yet, and I hope never. Despite his populism, though, Chavez is definitely more authoritarian than those who governed from 1958 to 1998. And it was Chavez’s 1992 coup attempt (which landed him in prison for only a couple of years–despite a couple of dozen deaths) that broke a thirty year streak of no military attempts to take over. For Venezuela this was a remarkable streak.

   Reply
6. AK says:

   January 6, 2009 at 5:08 pm

   Kolya,

   Very detailed and reliable demographic data on Russia is easily available from the Internet. Vishnevsky or professional demographers do not have a monopoly on it. And the ‘bizarre claim’ I mentioned in (2) is just that – it is simply impossible that no Russian generation after 1910 replaced itself. Considering that all pre-1910 generations have already died out for practical purposes, that is simply a logical impossibility. The most likely explanation is that it was a ‘slip of the tongue’.

   Secondly, I too assembled a demographic model for Russia, using the most accurate and up to date information, and even assuming no life expectancy gain and only a small increase in fertility, it still shows (slightly) falling death rates to the late 2020′s, because much of the huge 1925-1940 ‘bulge’ cohort dies off and the next big cohort, the 1945-1960 one, is much smaller because of the post-war demographic transition which more than canceled out the postwar ‘baby boom’. Yes, Russian birth rates are almost certainly going to fall quite rapidly after around 2013. But so are death rates, slowly if there’s no improvement in life expectancy (ie healthcare and lifestyles), very rapidly if there is. I stress that the above are not my opinions – they are rigorous projections based on previous trends (as Vishnevsky himself stresses, past dynamics play a key role in demography) that have a very high chance of being fulfilled.

   Re-sustainability: I don’t think I’m necessarily more optimistic than both of you. Since I don’t think the global system has the will to move decisively away from materialism, I consider a global collapse and population die-off as inevitable – unless we’re first saved by a technological silver bullet that will negate our ecological problems, the most likely of which I believe to be some version of a technological singularity characterized by nanomanufacturing and deep AI. In either case the outcome will be drastic, drastically horrific in the former case, drastically…different, in the latter.

   Re-Chavez. Thank you for an interesting personal perspective on Venezuela. I suppose Chavez is the kind of character who would polarize people into those who love him or those who hate him, and it is to your credit that you’ve retained a dispassionate neutrality. Still, I get the feeling that your criticism is from a strictly bourgeois perspective (who indeed have been hurt by more socialism, deterioration in property rights, crime, etc), whereas there are reasonable grounds to acknowledge him from a workers’ perspective (literacy campaign including for adults, subsidized food shops, more doctors, etc). Also, I don’t see the point of limits to presidential terms, and the consolidation of power is not surprising considering reactionary attempts at counter-revolution and may be interpreted as a defense of democracy.

   Re-infrastructure, there could exist two mitigating factors – a) Venezuela was in an economic boom from 2003 and excessive spending on it could have crowded out private-sector investment – in fact, the time for the former is ripe now, and b) the very fact of a 12% growth rate may have contributed more to the infrastructure problems than chavismo incompetence. Not that this rosier view is necessarily more valid than your’s of course – as one, unusually incisive Economist correspondent on Russia said, “The truth is like a quantum superposition state: it is not one version or the other, but a strange combination of all them”.

   Reply
7. Kolya says:

   January 6, 2009 at 6:58 pm

   Hi. I have to defer to your knowledge of demography. I don’t know enough about it. And I do hope your more positive projections come to pass!

   On Venezuela, how can I counter the statement that I owe my anti-Chavez views to my “bourgeois perspective”? That’s like answering the question “have you stopped beating your wife?” And incidentally, most of the people who are murdered in Venezuela are poor. The reason “term limits” is a good idea for Venezuela is precisely because of its past history of caudillismo and dictators. Venezuela has a sorry history of charismatic leaders becoming too enamored of their power. It is precisely because of this that after the last military dictator was overthrown in 1958 Venezuelans wisely chose to have terms limits (one five year term and then, if you want to run again, wait ten years). They knew their own weaknesses. Besides the temptations of becoming too fond of being called “el presidente”, Venezuelans were too aware of their history of corrupt governments. They knew it was a bad idea to have the same guy (and his party) controlling the treasury for too long. Alas, Chavez and the Chavistas are a good example of that. For instance, his once poor family (father and brothers) have now become rich landowners. Chavez’s constitution made a strong executive even stronger, extended the presidential term by one year, and allowed for two consecutive presidential terms. Knowing Venezuela’s history, that was bad news. But even that was not enough for him. 13 months ago he lost a referendum that, among other things, would have allowed him to stay in power beyond his current term. His own constitution clearly states that there can only be one referendum on any given issue during a presidential term. But they are going to vote on it again this February. How? All independent lawyers say that what Chavez is doing clearly goes against the language of the constitution he himself pushed a few years ago. I have not followed too closely what’s his excuse (it was clear he was going to do it anyway.) If I’m not mistaken, though, it’s something along the nature that the referendum is okay because this time it was requested not by him (or his party) but by the people. At this point we cannot say he’s a dictator. Not yet. I hope never. On the other hand, to claim that he’s a democrat or that he’s more democratic that his 1958-98 predecessors is simply wrong. It does not surprise me, however, that many western lefties are in love with him. After all, they were also in love with Che and Castro (and many of them still are.)

   I probably already mentioned this, but just in case. In Venezuela, compared to the US, the last forty years of pre-Chavez governments were center-left. They were corrupt. They were inefficient. And they were center-left.

   Reply
8. AK says:

   January 7, 2009 at 11:05 pm

   1) I am not dismissing your views on that account, just categorizing them. The fact still remains that Chavez won multiple free and fair elections, and remains popular, especially amongst the poorer classes. Which is not to say I regard him very positively. Despite being center-left, I think the fact Venezuela is something like third from last in the WB’s Ease of Business can’t mean anything good for its economy.

   2) Still, Chavez’ economic management, democratic credentials, etc, in general is much misaligned by the media (even you agree he is not a dictator, contrary to much of the Western MSM). I don’t have any first-hand experience there (like you do, and like I have in Russia), but much of what Mark Weisbrot writes about him (from a center-left perspective) seems to make sense, convincingly shows some common “truthisms” about his regime to be myths and as such I have drawn attention to his work.

   3) I looked up Venezuela’s historical homicide rates (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_homicide_rate), / 100,000. 1986 – 8, 1990 – 14; 1995 – 23; 1999 (Chavez comes to power) – 28; 2003 (homicide peak, attempted coup/PDVSA strike) – 59; 2007 – 48. So it seems that a) the homicide rate there was on an upward trend, for whatever reason, since well before Chavez and b) the peak was reached while he was still relatively weak and before the political disturbances of 2002/3; the period after that, when the Bolivarian rhetoric heated up, has seen a stagnation or small improvement.

   4) I agree. Pre-Chavez governments were corrupt, inefficient and populist, favoring the state-connected bourgeoisie. I also agree that to some (or even a large extent) it continues today. You can’t root out a specific socio-cultural system within a single decade, although I see the human capital investments and decent macroeconomic fundamentals under Chavez as a good start. Some would agree, some like yourself would disagree…chances are, the truth is some measure of both, and that we’d be better off agreeing to disagree .

   Reply
9. Michael Averko says:

   January 8, 2009 at 7:48 am

   There’ve been a good number of White Russians in Venezuela.

   The White Russian community seems to have been generally supportive of Putin. On the other hand, I understand the White Russian community in Venezuela hasn’t been (generally) so supportive of Chavez.

   Reply
10. Kolya says:

    January 8, 2009 at 5:39 pm

    Hi AK, I’ll try to be quick.

    I don’t like Putin, but I have to say that as president/pm I hold him (so far) in higher regard than Chavez. A saving grace for Venezuela is that from 1958 to 1998 they got used to contested elections, a vigorous free press, as well as got used to loudly express their views in street protests. These things, so far, keep Chavez’s authoritarian impulses in check. So far his threatening barks are much fiercer than his actions. (In that regard he’s the reverse of TR’s “speak sofly and carry a big stick.”) What the future will hold, I don’t know.

    Yes, Chavez won elections and is popular among many. It has to be said that his approval rating went through wild swing, from over 70 percent approval, to less than 35, to over 70 again. I don’t know at what level it is now, but so far there is no single opposition figure that rivals him. It cannot be stated, though, that the last constitutional referendum (which he narrowly lost 13 months ago) and the gubernatorial and municipal elections of last November were in any way “fair”. New laws and regulations were stacked against the opposition, opposition candidates were disqualified for bogus reasons, etc. There are also his infamous “cadenas” in which radio and TV stations have to interrupt their programming and broadcast whatever Chavez wants to say (this happens with increasing frequency), sometimes for more than an hour or two. As I keep on saying, it is precisely because of Venezuela’s political history that to do away with term limits is a bad idea. Maybe fifty years from know the issue can be revised, but it’s simply too soon.

    As to Mark Weisbrot. Well, I don’t trust his analysis. At least in the past he’s been much too enamored of Chavez.

    The murder rate in Venezuela has gone up tremendously in the last ten years. I think the murder rate overcame Colombia’s. Moreover, Caracas now is the most dangerous capital in Latin America. As I said before, the murder rate was not low before Chavez. And of course, other crimes went up considerably too.

    Chavez’s propaganda machine has succeeded in portraying his opponents as a bunch of spoiled-rich right wingers crying over lost privileges. The reality is that the politically strongest opponents to Chavez belong to the center-left, but thanks to Chavez’s propaganda many in the US and Europe assume that they are primarily well to do right-wingers.

    Reply
11. Mark Winston says:

    January 9, 2009 at 1:47 pm

    [Also, I don’t see the point of limits to presidential terms]

    One reason I support term limits across all elected offices is that it makes regime change feel ‘normal’ to people. Unfortunately, in special-interest-ruled societies like the US, it is not very effective since unelected lobbyists and septuagenarian legislators wield more power than those politicians with any sorts of term limits.

    I think the reason many people have such a jaded view of term limits is that there is no polity out there that has made effective use of them. That doesn’t mean you should write them off wholesale, though.

    Reply
12. AK says:

    February 28, 2009 at 10:32 pm

    Note: as of February, Internet penetration in Russia has risen to 27% of the population, thus fulfilling that prediction (and nearly the entire 2009 one as well).

    Reply

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