The population of Ukraine continues to decline inexorably every year. You come to such a disappointing conclusion by reading the latest data from the State Statistics Service. Back in the second half of 2012, the population of Ukraine was approximately at the same level, which was not observed over the past 19 years.
September 2012 even pleased with a slight growth, and the next month, in October, a similar situation repeated itself again. However, the specialists of the State Statistics Service specified that Ukraine managed to get a plus mostly to the expense of foreign students who came to study at domestic universities, and people who came to the country in search of work.
At the Institute of Demography and Social Research, experts believe that thanks to the baby boom that Ukraine was experiencing in the 80s of the last century, the population received a certain positive trend, which, apparently, was just about to be completed.
Svetlana Aksenova, who works as a senior researcher at the Department of Quality Problems of Demographic Processes, explained that to date, children are born by those who were born during the baby boom. The wave of fertility itself, due to the tendency of women to have offspring later than usual, has somewhat stretched. In addition, Ukrainians began to think more often about their second child. However, sooner or later this surge in fertility will end; the turn of those born in the 90s will come. At that time, the birth rate was low … Therefore, even if the generation of the 90s begins to actively have children, it still will not be able to change the general trend, the population of Ukraine will continue to decline further.
According to demographers, the nation of Ukrainians continues to die out. According to the long-term forecast until 2061, already in 2017 the number of citizens will be slightly below 45 million, and after about 50 years, 37.5 million inhabitants will remain in the country. Moreover, this is not the most pessimistic assessment. With the worst-case scenario, the population of Ukraine will generally decline to 28 million. However, migration processes will undoubtedly make their own adjustments to this scenario. Migrants from underdeveloped countries will continue to arrive in Ukraine, so that the state will not be empty.
Naturally, demographers are not able to foresee all the factors that may affect their forecast. No one can reliably predict wars, natural disasters and other events that may affect the development of the demographic situation in a particular country. However, if all current factors and trends continue, then the forecast value will be very close to real numbers.
Moreover, the dynamics of fertility will vary depending on the region under consideration. So, in the western regions positive growth is forecasted. This is due to the fact that Ukrainians there are more religious and less likely to decide on abortion. Also in the western regions the rural population lives more, which is aimed at creating large families. In the east, there are urbanized people who rarely create a family with more than two children.
Last year, Kharkiv (2.2 thousand) and Odessa (7 thousand) regions also showed positive growth. This is due to the effect of the same baby boom of the 80s. As of March 1 of the current 2013, the population of Ukraine decreased to 45 million 529 thousand, which is 9.7 thousand less than in February of the same year.
