Trends and prospects in sociodemographic dynamics of Russia: philosophical and economical approach

The study is aimed at analyzing the long-term historical dynamics of sociodemographic processes in Russia over the period of 500 years and elaborating the directions for overcoming the current sociodemographic crisis. The novelty of the research consists of considering cyclic sociodemographic processes with a significant horizon period (half a millennium), and studying the impact of government regulations in the country starting from the “the Time of Troubles”, through the reforms of 1861, the revolution of 1917 and the transformation of 1991, on demographic bifurcations. The authors introduce the statistical information regarding the population of Russia from 1500 to the present moment; the researchers propose to use the philosophical and economical approach (the theory of population economy) analyzing the population problems based on the theory of economy's philosophy and the theory of economy by S.N. Bulgakov and Yu.M. Osipov, the professors from the Lomonosov Moscow State University; and by 2025 to elaborate and adopt the social doctrine of the Russian Federation. Using the historical material the authors prove that the mechanisms and institutions of state regulation in the country can create conditions affecting the change of the population's reproductive behavior. The article presents the comparative analysis of the proposed theory of “population economy” and traditional ones of economic demography and population economics, and describes the main postulates of the theory of “population economy”. The researchers mark the factors that should be taken into account in composing the social doctrine of the Russian Federation. The research results can be used for justifying the long-term strategy of the sociodemographic policy in Russia.