L'héroïne gangrène la Russie - Marie Jego

Plus meurtrière que le terrorisme, plus destructrice que l'alcool, l'héroïne est le fléau numéro un en Russie, pays à la démographie chancelante, seul Etat industriel où l'espérance de vie a considérablement baissé ces trente dernières années (60 ans pour les hommes).

Marie Jego a écrit:seul Etat industriel où l'espérance de vie a considérablement baissé ces trente dernières années

This improvement was in large part thanks to an impressive increase in the life expectancy, which rose to 69 years in 2009 – almost as high as in 1963-68 (before the alcoholism epidemic) and 1986-91 (Gorbachev’s anti-alcohol campaign).

Life expectancy
On Jan 22, vice-premier Aleksander Zhukov said that ‘between 2006 and 2009’, life expectancy at birth has increased by ‘almost 4 years’ to 63 years for men and 69 overall. (For the total population, year 2005 saw life expectancy at birth of 65.3, and thus he probably meant the difference between 2005 and 2009 life expectancies). Usually, this number is calculated towards the middle of the next year, as it requires knowing exact age-specific death rates. However, a quick check of this number is definitely possible. For the last several years, there was a solid linear relation between changes in the death rates and changes in life expectancy at birth: for males, a decrease of the death rate by 1.0 is translated into increase of life expectancy at birth by 1.34 years. (2008 was an exception, with an increase of life expectancy for males by 0.4 years while the death rate remained essentially the same. This happened because infant mortality and mortality in younger cohorts continued to improve strongly. Age-specific death rates actually increased among some older cohorts, such as the 55-59, 65-69, and 80-84 groups, but these contribute very little to the life expectancy at birth formula. Barring such shifts in mortality, the linear relation holds). By plugging in 2009 numbers, we get 0.57 years increase, or 62.4 years life expectancy at birth for males. With a little help from further favorable age structure changes (such as less deaths in the first year or twenties), this could easily go above 62.5 and be rounded up to 63.

Of course, life expectancy at birth increasing at a close to double digit number of month per year is nothing short of remarkable – as remarkable, in fact, as its breathtaking drop between 1990 (63.73 for males and 69.19 overall) and 1995 (58.12 for males and 64.52 overall). So, in a certain sense, the last several years are nothing but the early 1990′s playing out in reverse.

Update: More on Life Expectancy
More surprises on the upside in demographic data. Vice-premier Zhukov has announced yesterday that life expectancy increased by 1.2 years (as reported by Russia Today) or 14 months (see Nezavisimaya Gazeta) in 2009. This clearly shows that in 2009 favorable changes in age structure of mortality continued apace. I have no note that in Russian context even 1.2 years increase of life expectancy at birth in a single year is not unheard of – it increased by 1.3 years in 2006. Still, life expectancy for both men and women is still marginally lower than it was back in 1990 (69.13). Two decades lost

So in conclusion, the overall rate of population decline eased from 80,900 in Q1 2008 to just 46,900 in Q1 2009, equivalent to 0.03% of the population. In other words, Russia has for all practical purposes halted its population crunch – at least for now. As such, one of the key Russophile Predictions – “Russia’s population will start growing again by 2010″ – may still be just about fulfillable, even despite the crisis. It’s iffy. But I am highly confident it will come true by 2011, by which time Russia is likely to be growing rapidly once again.