Demographic development of Minsk: current situation and scenarios of evolvement in the long term

Among the peculiarities of demographic processes’ development in Minsk at the turn of two centuries, low birth rate, low life expectancy, increasing ageing of population and widening disparities in the structure of population by sex and age can be mentioned. All that requires greater attention to changes in demographic situation as well as providing municipal administrative bodies with information about projected population size and its structure, revealing negative tendencies and developing the concept of demographic policy. The problem of projecting growth in population size of Minsk is becoming more urgent. Analysis of prediction’s authenticity, conducted in 2000, showed high accuracy. The results of prediction concerning growth of population size, developed. 15 years ago, proved almost true. A new prediction is formed on three variants from basis at the beginning of 2014 using the cohort-component method. According to the medium variant, which is the most likely scenario of demographic development of the city, the population size of the city will be increasing further till 2030. However, due to all three variants the population below the working age will grow till 2022-2025, and then it will reduce as a result of decrease in birth rate. The population above the working age according to all three scenarios will be rapidly increasing up to the end of predictive period. Consequently, the death rate will increase. The population size of the city will grow only by the migration gain. Due to the variant in terms of which migration gain in the city in connection with expected rapid growth of satellite towns will harshly reduce, the population size of the city will decrease. Natural increase of population according to all three scenarios will be negative.