With all the talk about the overpopulation in the world and its effects on our environment, you find that the experts in Russia are occupied by its population decline. Russia's population is shrinking. According to M. Rosenberg (2006), in the early 1990’s at the time of the end of the Soviet Union, Russia’s population was 148 million. Today, Russia's population is 143 million. "The Russian Federation today is in the grip of a steadily tightening mesh of serious demographic problems, for which the term ‘crisis’ is no overstatement. This crisis is altering the realm of the possible for the country and its people--continuously, directly, and adversely. Russian social conditions, economic potential, military power, and international influence are today all subject to negative demographic constraints--and these constraints stand only to worsen over the years immediately ahead" (Eberstadt, 2005, para.1). “Russia's population of 143 million people is expected to decrease by 22 percent between now and the year 2050. If this expectation happens, Russia could lose 42 percent of its active working population” (Mcadams, 2006, para. 2). The causes of this decline are the dilapidating health care system, the low birth rate, the high consumption of alcohol, drugs and cigarettes and the high abortion rate. Russia should make solutions in order to end its population decline. The best solutions are that Russia should provide an enduring health care system, decrease the consumption of alcohol, cigarettes and drugs, and stop abortion.
First, Russia has a free but a very poor health care system. It should revamp it in order to increase its people’s life expectancy and stop its population from decreasing. According to A. Rodriguez (2008), the big reason for Russia's population decline by 7,000,000 people a year is that its death rate is very high and the average life expectancy for Russian men is 59. In the U.S. it is 75; in Japan it is 79. In the existent health care system there are few professional doctors, rife corruption, and poor equipment. “Medical care in Russia is among the worst in the industrialized world. A 2000 World Health Organization report ranked Russia's health system 130th out of 191 countries, on a par with such nations as Peru and Honduras” (Danilova, 2007, para. 6). Therefore, Russia should spend more money on its health care system. This spending should contain three goals. First, it should make the salaries of the nurses and doctors higher in order to diminish the corruption. It should provide new equipment to its hospitals, and it should train its workers who work in the health care system. If Russia does that, the life expectancy of its people will be higher and its population decrease will stop. According to A. Rodriguez (2008), In Russia there are many 30 to 59-year-old men who die from heart diseases. If Russia provides a better health care system, it can reverse that trend. Russia's health care system needs to be changed as soon as possible.
Second, Russia should decrease the consumption of alcohol, drugs and cigarettes. The drug use, alcoholism and cigarettes are leading reasons for the decline in Russia's population (BBC News, 2002). Also, “Rates of alcoholism and drug addiction have increased, especially among young people. Two-thirds of Russian males currently smoke, more than twice the proportion in the USA, and one third of Russian females also smoke. Lung cancer has increased by almost 63% since the mid-1990s” (de Rooy, 2002, para. 4). Therefore, Russia should cope with this problem by doing three things. First, Russia should put high taxes on buying alcohol or cigarettes in order to stop its people from drinking or smoking too much. Second, it should effectively prevent smuggling drugs into its borders. Finally, Russia should use media in order to warn its people of the dangers of drug use, alcoholism and cigarettes. According to A. Smolchenko (2005, para. 7) “there is an urgent need to raise awareness about leading healthier lifestyles to reverse trends”. She also doesn’t believe that the average Russian wants to die. But she believes that Russians don’t know what to do to stay healthy. Russia should stop its people from doing these habits.
Third, Russia should stop allowing abortion. According to M. Rosenberg (2006), during the Soviet time, abortion was very common as a method of birth control. That technique is still common today, which makes the country's mortality rate high. Also, "there are more abortions than births in Russia. The most recent available figures, for 2006, show 1.6 million abortions compared to 1.5 million live births" (Huliq news, 2007, p. 1). In 2003, the BBC reported that Russia had "13 abortions for every 10 live births. Furthermore, a total of 1.582 million abortions accrued in Russia in 2006 (As cited in M. Rosenberg’ article, 2006). If Russia did not allow abortion, it would not lose this number of children that could grow and have children, which could keep Russia's population from decline. Russia should do three things in order to stop abortion. First, it should stop the pharmacies from selling abortion drugs. Second, it should penalize women who use abortion to lose their infants without strong reasons. Finally, it should offer money to the new parents who think about abortion because their financial positions are bad in order to stop them from doing that.
Some people may feel that by promoting immigration and increasing birth rate, Russia can stop its population from decline; however, if Russia does that its population will not stop from decreasing, because the actual problem in Russia is that the death rate is very high. Therefore, there is one solution for Russian population decline, which is decreasing its death rate, because if it decreases its death rate, its population will stop decreasing and its population will go back to increasing. Also, birth rates in many developed countries are declining or stagnant because women in these countries are working outside or getting their education. Therefore, in this time it is hard to persuade women to have more children. Furthermore, the ethnic Russian group will not allow immigration, because they don’t want any group in Russia like the Islamic group to be stronger than them. Because the number of people that die annually in Russia is very high, Russia should decrease it. According to M. Rosenberg (2006), Russia has a very high death rate of 15 deaths per 1000 people per year. This is far higher than the world's average death rate of just under 9. The death rate in the U.S. is 8 per 1000 and in the United Kingdom it's 10 per 1000. Therefore, it should decrease the consumption of alcohol, drugs and cigarettes. Also according to M. Rosenberg (2006), because of the high rate of alcoholism women don’t have children. Second, according to R. Kupchinsky (2006), it is clear that making the birth rate higher and increasing immigration is not going to be enough. Huge barriers will remain, including deteriorating health-care system, alcohol dependency and tremendous abortion rate.
In conclusion, Russia should repair its health care system, make alcohol, drug and cigarette consumption lower, and make abortion illegal. Russia is a very rich country. Its land is full of miners, oil and gas. In the current time Russia's economy is growing. Therefore, the Russian government has a lot to do in order to cope with its population declines to cover the gap between its economic growth and its population decline. Also, its huge land needs more people to build it and to get the benefit from it. If Russia gets over this issue, it will be back to its old position in the world with all of the oil and gas wealth that it has. Russians should come together and work hard to overcome this issue. Russian men should stop smoking, drinking and using illicit drugs. Russian women should stop having abortions. Russian doctors and nurses should stop the corruption. Russia's future will be better after it overcomes this issue. Being a developed country with oil wealth would lead Russia to get back on its feet strongly.
References:
BBC News. (2000, October 24). Russian population in steep decline.bbc.com. Retrieved February 3, 2009, from http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/988723.stm
Danilova, M. (2007, June 28). Despite oil wealth, Russia faces huge health care problems. Herald Tribune. Retrieved February 24, 2009, from http://www.iht.com/articles/2007/06/28/business/russhealth.php?page=1
De Rooy, C. (2008, March 26). Life expectancy as a government performance measure in Russia. Russian Federation. Retrieved February 16, 2009, from http://www.unicef.org/russia/Article_Life_Expectancy_12_March_Eng-final.pdf
Eberstadt, N. (2005, May 12). Russia, the sick man of Europe. findarticles.com. Retrieved February 24, 2009, from http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0377/is_158/ai_n8680968
Huliq news. (2005, August 23). More abortions than births in Russia. huliq.com. Retrieved February 24, 2009, from http://www.huliq.com/63124/russia-records-more-abortions-births
Kupchinsky, R. (2006, May 19). Russia: tackling the demographic crisis. RadioFreeEurope. Retrieved February 16, 2009, from http://www.rferl.org/content/article/1068526.html
Mcadams, L. (2006, March 08). Russia losing battle in population growth to disease, low birth rates. VOANews.com. Retrieved February 10, 2009, from http://www.voanews.com/english/archive/2006-03/2006-03-08-voa29.cfm
Rodriguez, A. (2008, February 26). Russian health-care system badly ailing: graft is rife, staffing short in the nation’s poorly equipped hospitals, and it shows in death rates. Chicagotribune.com. Retrieved February 15, 2009, from http://archives.chicagotribune.com/2008/feb/26/news/chi-russia_side_tuesdayfeb26
Rosenberg, M. (2006, May 31). Population decline in Russia. About.com. Retrieved February 10, 2009, from http://geography.about.com/od/obtainpopulationdata/a/russiapop.htm
Smolcheko, A. (2005, October 18). UN pleads for a change in behavior. Themoscowtimes.com. Retrieved February 24, 2009, from http://www.themoscowtimes.com/article/852/49/209188.htm
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment