Birth rate of the Komi Republic population: factors, trends, prospects

Birth rate decline, which caused a new stage of natural decline in Russia’s population, actualizes research in the fi eld of fertility. The article examines the birth rate dynamics in the Komi Republic, changes in its structure by the age of the mother, the order of birth and mother’s marital status in urban and rural areas during the birth rate decline period of2016-2020 and the preceding period of growth of2000-2015, and assesses the factors causing them. We have carried out the research on the basis of Rosstat and Comistat offi cial data and the results of several author’s sociological surveys of reproductive attitudes. We have used statistical and sociological methods, dynamic and comparative analysis, methods of conditional and real generation. We have established that a signifi cant excess of the average Russian birth rate in the republic in recent years is the result of the implementation of the regional maternity capital program, the introduction of a third child allowance for low-income families, as well as the revival of ethnic characteristics of reproductive behavior among the indigenous population in conditions of economic stimulation of large families. Birth rate decrease in 2016-2020 is determined by a decrease in the birth rate of the fi rst and second order, the birth rate of the third and higher order continues increasing both in the city and countryside. In urban areas, there is birth rate decrease in all age groups, in rural areas - only in young ones. Thus, the differentiation of age-related birth patterns in urban and rural areas, where the third births always occurr at an earlier age, is not so much preserved as modifi ed by higher-priority births. In the near future, the improvement of the age structure of women of reproductive age will begin, which will lead to the transition of birth rate stabilization to an increase in its level. Its scope will be limited by a signifi cant exhaustion of the fi nal childhood of older generations and low reproductive attitudes of young cohorts. It is necessary to repurpose economic measures of demographic policy to second births.