Demographics of Russia

Demographic statistics according to the latest Rosstat vital statistics and the World Population Review in 2019. • One birth every 22 seconds After having peaked at 148,689,000 in 1991, the population then decreased, falling to 142,737,196 by 2008. Russia has become increasingly reliant on immigration to maintain its population; 2021 had the highest net immigration since 1994, despite which there was a small overall decline from 146.1 million to 145.4 million in 2021, the largest decline in over a decade. The natural population had declined by 997,000 between October 2020 and September 2021 (the difference between the number of births and the number of deaths over a period). The natural death rate in January 2020, 2021, and 2022 have each been nearly double the natural birth rate. Following the Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022, the demographic crisis in the country has deepened, as the country has suffered high military fatalities while facing renewed human capital flight and brain drain caused by Western mass-sanctions and boycotts. The number of Russian men which died due to the Russo-Ukrainian war has been censored by the Russian 2022 war censorship laws. In 2022, tens of thousands of tech workers left Russia. In 2024, the website of the science journal Science indicated that Russia has seen a multi-year brain drain in the science profession and that salaries are decreasing in the Russian scientific community. Many commentators predict that the situation will be worse than during the 1990s. Although, a large part of the emigrants have returned home to Russia in a continuing process. In March 2023, The Economist reported that "Over the past three years the country has lost around 2 million more people than it would ordinarily have done, as a result of war [in Ukraine], disease and exodus." The UN is projecting that the decline that started in 2021 will continue, and if current demographic conditions persist, Russia's population will be 120 million in 50 years, a decline of about 17%. Fertility Between 1993 and 2008 there was a great decrease in the country's population from 148 to 143 million. There was a huge 50% decrease in the number of births per year from 2.5 million in 1987 to 1.2 million since 1997, but the current 1.37 fertility rate is still higher than that of the 1990s. In many of the years from 1843 to 1917, Russia had the highest total fertility rate in the world. These elevated fertility rates did not lead to population growth due to high mortality rate, the casualties of the Russian Revolution, the two world wars and to a lesser extent the political killings. Historical crude birth rates Age structure File:Russian population by age and sex (demographic pyramid) on 01 January, 1927.png|alt=|Population pyramid in 1927 File:Russia Sex by Age 19410101.png|alt=|Population pyramid in 1941 File:Russia Sex by Age 19460101.png|alt=|Population pyramid in 1946 File:Russia Sex by Age 20150101.png|alt=|Population pyramid in 2015 File:RUS_SbA1y20210101.png|alt=|Population pyramid in 2021 File:Russia animated population pyramid.gif|alt=|Russia animated population pyramid 1946-2023 Structure of the population Median age in Russia since 1896 :total: 40.7 years. Country comparison to the world: 51st :male: 37.6 years :female: 43.5 years (2021 est.) Life expectancy :total population: 70.06 years for a child born in 2021, decreasing from 73.34 in 2019 :male: 65.51 years (2021) :female: 74.51 years (2021) Infant mortality rate :total: 4.5 deaths/1,000 live births (2020) :male: 5.0 deaths/1,000 live births (2020) :female: 3.9 deaths/1,000 live births (2020) == Vital statistics ==

Before WW2 After WW2 Current vital statistics Since June 2025 the Federal State Statistics Service (Rosstat) has stopped publishing regular birth and death statistics for the country. This deviation from a long-established pattern of monthly publication coincided with the total birth numbers falling below the previous historic minimum of 1,214,000, a major setback for Putin's long-stated natalist policy. All numbers for the Russian Federation in this section do not include the Ukrainian regions of Kherson, Zaporizhzhia, Donetsk and Luhansk, which Russia annexed in September 2022 and which are currently partly under Russian military control. The annexation is internationally recognized only by North Korea. Total fertility rate of federal subjects == Immigration ==

In 2006, in a bid to compensate for the country's demographic decline, the Russian government started simplifying immigration laws. New citizenship rules introduced in April 2014 allowing eligible citizens from former Soviet republics to obtain Russian citizenship, have gained strong interest among Russian-speaking residents of those countries (i.e. Russians, Germans, Belarusians and Ukrainians). There are an estimated four million undocumented immigrants from the ex-Soviet states in Russia. In 2012, the Russian Federal Security Service's Border Service stated there had been an increase in undocumented migration from the Middle East and Southeast Asia (Note that these were Temporary Contract Migrants) Under legal changes made in 2012, undocumented immigrants who are caught will be banned from reentering the country for 10 years. Since the collapse of the USSR, most immigrants have come from Ukraine, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Azerbaijan, Armenia, Kyrgyzstan, Moldova, Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan, Belarus, from poor areas of China, and from Vietnam and Laos. Worker migration Temporary migrant workers in Russia consists of about 7 million people. Most of the temporary workers come from Central Asia (mostly from Uzbekistan, Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan), the South Caucasus (mostly from Armenia and Azerbaijan), and East Asia (mostly from poor areas of China, from Vietnam and Laos). Most of them work in the construction, cleaning and in the household industries. They primarily live in cities such as Moscow and Moscow Oblast, Saint Petersburg, Yekaterinburg, Novosibirsk, Kazan, Nijniy Novgorod, Vladivostok, Samara, Krasnodar, Ufa, Sochi, Khabarovsk, Krasnoyarsk, Chelyabinsk, Rostov on Don, Volgograd, Omsk, Tyumen, Voronezh, Perm and others. The mayor of Moscow said that Moscow cannot do without worker migrants. New laws are in place that require worker migrants to be fluent in Russian, know Russian history and laws. ==Emigration==

The 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine has led to considerable emigration, with over 300,000 Russian citizens and residents estimated to have left Russia by mid-March 2022, at least 500,000 by the end of August 2022, and an additional 400,000 by early October. The total number of political refugees, economic migrants, and conscientious objectors is thought to be more than 900,000. In addition to evading criminal prosecution for opposing the invasion, and fear of being conscripted after President Vladimir Putin's 21 September 2022 announcement of partial mobilization, those fleeing voiced reasons such as disagreement with the war, the uselessness and cruelty of the war, sympathy for Ukraine, disagreement with the political roots of the war with Ukraine, the rejection of killing, and an assessment that Russia is no longer the place for their family. == Occupied and annexed regions ==

Russia has encouraged or even forced people in occupied or annexed regions to become Russian citizens, a procedure known as passportization. This includes the Donetsk, Kherson, Luhansk and Zaporizhzhia oblasts and the Autonomous Republic of Crimea of Ukraine, as well as South Ossetia and Abkhazia in Georgia. == Employment and income ==

;Unemployment, youth ages 15–24 : :total: 12%. Country comparison to the world: 72nd :male: 15.3% :female: 16.9% (2015 est.) ==Health==

in Sochi Russia's constitution guarantees free, universal health care for all Russian citizens, through a compulsory state health insurance program. The Ministry of Health of the Russian Federation oversees the Russian public healthcare system, and the sector employs more than two million people. Federal regions also have their own departments of health that oversee local administration. A separate private health insurance plan is needed to access private healthcare in Russia. Russia spent 5.32% of its GDP on healthcare in 2018. Its healthcare expenditure is notably lower than other developed nations. Russia has one of the world's most female-biased sex ratios, with 0.859 males to every female with more older females than males prevailing, due to its high male mortality rate in later age. In 2019, the overall life expectancy in Russia at birth was 73.2 years (68.2 years for males and 78.0 years for females), and it had a very low infant mortality rate (5 per 1,000 live births). The principal causes of death in Russia are cardiovascular diseases. Obesity is a prevalent health issue in Russia; 61.1% of Russian adults were overweight or obese in 2016. However, Russia's historically high alcohol consumption rate is the biggest health issue in the country, as it remains one of the world's highest, despite a stark decrease in the last decade. Smoking is another health issue in the country. The country's high suicide rate, although on the decline, remains a significant social issue. COVID-19 pandemic Russia had one of the highest number of confirmed cases in the world. Analysis of excess deaths from official government demographic statistics, based on births and deaths and excluding migration, showed that Russia had its biggest ever annual population drop in peacetime, with the population declining by 997,000 between October 2020 and September 2021, which demographer Alexei Raksha interpreted as being primarily due to the COVID-19 pandemic. ==Ethnic groups==

Russia is a multinational state, with many subnational entities associated with different minorities. There are over 193 ethnic groups nationwide. In the 2021 census, nearly 71.73% of the population identified as ethnic Russians (among those stating their ethnicity), and while approximately 19% of the total population identified with various ethnic minority groups. The percentage of total Russian population that did not publicly indicate any ethnic identity in the census increased from 3.94% in 2010 to 11.27% in 2021. According to the 2021 Russian census, the number of ethnic Russians decreased by nearly 5.43 million, from roughly 111 million people in 2010 to approximately 105.5 million in 2021. In 2010, four-fifths of Russia's population originated from West of the Ural Mountains — of which the vast majority were Slavs, with a substantial minority of Finno-Ugric and Germanic peoples. Turkic peoples form a large minority, and are spread around pockets across the vast nation. Various distinct ethnic groups also inhabit the North Caucasus. Other minorities include Mongolian peoples (Buryats and Kalmyks), the Indigenous peoples of Siberia, a historical Jewish population, and the Koryo-saram (including Sakhalin Koreans). According to the United Nations, Russia's immigrant population was the third-largest in the world as recently as 2016, numbering over 11.6 million; most of which are from post-Soviet states, mainly from Central Asia. Due to a decline in immigrant population and increases in other countries, Russia has the tenth largest immigrant population with 7.6 million as of 2024. There are 22 republics in Russia, who have their own ethnicities, cultures, and languages. In 12 of them in 2021, ethnic Russians constitute a minority: ==Languages==

Russian is the official and the predominantly spoken language in Russia. It is the most spoken native language in Europe, the most geographically widespread language of Eurasia, as well as the world's most widely spoken Slavic language. and is one of two official languages aboard the International Space Station, as well as one of the six official languages of the United Nations. Russia is a multilingual nation; approximately 100–150 minority languages are spoken across the country. According to the Russian Census of 2002, 142.6 million across the country spoke Russian, 5.3 million spoke Tatar, and 1.8 million spoke Ukrainian. The constitution allows the country's individual republics the right to establish their own state languages in addition to Russian, as well as guarantee its citizens the right to preserve their native language and to create conditions for its study and development. However, various experts have claimed Russia's linguistic diversity is rapidly declining. ==Religion==

in Voronezh Russia is a secular state by constitution, and its largest religion is Christianity. It has the world's largest Orthodox population. As of different sociological surveys on religious adherence, between 41% and over 80% of the total population of Russia adhere to the Russian Orthodox Church. Other branches of Christianity present in Russia include Catholicism (approx. 1%), Baptists, Pentecostals, Lutherans and other Protestant churches (together totalling about 0.5% of the population) and Old Believers. There is some presence of Judaism, Buddhism, and Hinduism; pagan beliefs are also present to some extent in remote areas, sometimes syncretized with one of the mainstream religions. In 2017, a survey made by the Pew Research Center showed that 73% of Russians declared themselves as Christians—out of which 71% were Orthodox, 1% were Catholic, and 2% were Other Christians, while 15% were unaffiliated, 10% were Muslims, and 1% followed other religions. According to various reports, the proportion of Atheists in Russia is between 16% and 48% of the population. Islam is the second-largest religion in Russia, and it is the traditional religion among most peoples of the North Caucasus, and among some Turkic peoples scattered along the Volga-Ural region. Buddhists have a sizable population in three Siberian republics: Buryatia, Tuva, and Zabaykalsky Krai, and in Kalmykia, the only region in Europe where Buddhism is the most practised religion. ==Education==

, the most prestigious educational institution in Russia. Russia has an adult literacy rate of 100%. It grants free education to its citizens under its constitution. The Ministry of Education of Russia is responsible for primary and secondary education, as well as vocational education; while the Ministry of Education and Science of Russia is responsible for science and higher education. Regional authorities regulate education within their jurisdictions within the prevailing framework of federal laws. Russia is among the world's most educated countries, and has the third-highest proportion of tertiary-level graduates in terms of percentage of population, at 62%. It spent roughly 4.7% of its GDP on education in 2018. Russia has compulsory education for a duration of 11 years, exclusively for children aged 7 to 17–18. some four-fifths of children aged 3 to 6 attend day nurseries or kindergartens. Primary school is compulsory for 11 years, starting from age 6 to 7, and leads to a basic general education certificate. The oldest and largest universities in Russia are Moscow State University and Saint Petersburg State University. There are ten highly prestigious federal universities across the country. Russia was the world's fifth-leading destination for international students in 2019, hosting roughly 300,000. ==Urbanized areas==

File:Business Centre of Moscow 2.jpg|Moscow, the capital and largest city of Russia File:Spb 06-2017 img01 Spit of Vasilievsky Island.jpg|Saint Petersburg, the cultural capital and the second-largest city File:E-burg asv2019-05 img46 view from VysotSky.jpg|Yekaterinburg, the fourth-largest city in the country. Russia is one of the world's most urbanized countries, with roughly 75% of its total population living in urban areas. while over 17 million residents in the urban area, and over 20 million residents in the metropolitan area. Moscow is among the world's largest cities, being the most populous city entirely within Europe, the most populous urban area in Europe, Saint Petersburg, the cultural capital, is the second-largest city, with a population of roughly 5.4 million inhabitants. Other major urban areas are Yekaterinburg, Novosibirsk, Kazan, Nizhny Novgorod, and Chelyabinsk. ==See also==