Fertility trends in Russia during the past half century: period and cohort perspectives

Abstract

The present stage of fertility change in Russia is characterized by the transformation of the traditional childbearing patterns of relatively early family formation to later family formation. This paper focuses on the process of delaying childbearing at a young age with the subsequent realization of deferred births at older ages among generations of Russians born after 1960. This article uses the new methodological approaches for analyzing demographic changes in the fertility level and age profile of childbearing by birth order, measured by period and cohort fertility indicators. The focus is on identifying shifts in cohort fertility rates, which, unlike conventional period indicators reflect the most fundamental changes in reproductive behavior.

Significant changes in the demographic behavior of Russians were intrinsically interwoven with fundamental changes in all aspects of life of young people, for whom the individual space for decisions in all spheres of life was immeasurably expanded since the end of the 1980s. The last three decades were also marked by concern with low fertility and attempts to increase fertility in the early 1980s and the late 2000s. The family policies of the 1980s failed to raise fertility. The surge in fertility for several calendar years as showed by period synthetic fertility measures, e.g. conventional period total fertility rate (PTFR) was not followed by the increase in ultimate fertility for generations of women measured by cohort cumulative and cohort total fertility rate (CTFR). Preliminary analyses indicate that the fate of the 2007 policies could be similar. Will government efforts to raise fertility during the 2010s be sufficiently effective to offset economic and social forces challenging childbearing? As of 2014 the outlook for a future fertility increase does not appear hopeful.

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