Demographic security of Russia: trends and forecasts

Currently, the analysis of trends and the assessment of promising parameters characterizing the situation regarding demographic security in Russia attract the attention of the country’s leading scientists, officials, managers of various levels, and politicians. Such interest is due to the understanding of the role of the demographic component as the key one in ensuring national security. The parameters of demographic security are contained in several strategic initiatives, in particular in the National Security Strategy of the Russian Federation. This determines not just the relevance, but also a dramatic increase in the importance of analyzing the current state and trends of demographic indicators, as well as building their forecast estimates in order to design and construct more favorable parameters for the development of society. Methodological basis of the study includes techniques and methods of comparative analytics, descriptive statistics and adaptive forecasting. The analysis and development of forecasts were carried out on the basis of official statistics provided by Rosstat. When assessing differences in population dynamics in accordance with current accounting and with the data obtained as a result of recalculation using the results of the 2020 All-Russian Population Census, we identified different periods of depopulation. The analysis of retrospective data on demographic parameters and the demographic forecasts determine in the short term the continuation of the second wave of depopulation, while its attenuation and the vector toward achieving demographic security are possible if an optimistic scenario is implemented. An optimistic scenario (achieving an increase in the birth rate) is assumed when developing a mechanism that allows implementing the proposed set of recommendations - measures aimed at increasing the birth rate.