Demographic forecast of the number of rural population in the Northwestern federal district

The article analyzes the demographic situation in the Northwestern Federal District of the Russian Federation and builds a forecast for the number of rural population in the medium term. Forecast calculations are based on the current demographic trends prevailing in the Northwestern Federal District and on the adjustment parameters of the situation, contained in policy documents; all this allows us to consider them as a tool for assessing the effectiveness of state demographic policy. The authors analyze the overall demographic development trends for rural territories of NWFD, assessed the consequences of the existing negative trends using estimates of the number of rural population of the NWFD for the period up to 2035 under different variants of development of the demographic situation. As the tools for forecasting, the authors use the method of components, which, in contrast to methods based on applying mathematical functions helps build medium-term trends of the number of certain categories of the population taking into account changes in parameters of fertility and mortality, thereby it helps evaluate the effectiveness of federal target programs aimed to develop rural areas. The results of the scenario calculations indicate the high probability of the most unfavorable forecast scenarios, and even the optimistic variant of the forecast (scenario of “control optimization”) can not smooth current negative trends in the macro-region. Modern trends of increasing fertility and reducing mortality r are positive, but their quantitative expression has a negative balance, which will continue in the foreseeable future. In general, the results of the study lead to the conclusion that parameters set out in the federal target program “Sustainable development of rural territories for 2014-2017 and for the period till 2020” that aim to improve the demographic situation in the rural areas do not solve adequately the tasks of overcoming depopulation in the rural areas, since according to the results of the constructed scenario of the forecast in different variations the rural population will continue to decline rapidly. The identified trends indicate the risk of incomplete reproduction of the rural population and the inability to create the conditions for sustainable development of rural areas; however, the change of the situation for the better requires a fundamental revision of targets and refinement of the content and mechanisms of implementation of state programs for rural development.