Natural reduction of Ukraine’s population: Regional dimensions of the national threat

Abstract

A significant decline in Ukraine’s population is mainly due to its natural decrease, which began in the 1970s and 1980s in the rural areas and had been determined by the objective trends in demographic transition, the inertia effect of the demographic losses in the past and the social policy of the political regime at that time. Likewise, the social and economic crisis of the 1990s deepened the depopulation processes. In the present research, correlation analysis demonstrated a relationship between the current dimensions of natural population decline and a number of socio-demographic factors (proportion of the rural population, mean age of the population, divorce rate and the mean age at first marriage). In recent years, the effects of the demographic crisis have been particularly acute in North-eastern and Central Ukraine, due to the deepening disproportions in the age and sex structures of the population. However, in the capital of Ukraine, Kyiv, and in some western regions, the natural decrease in population is less acute because of more balanced social and demographic indicators. Although religious and ethnic factors contribute to some extent to greater natural population growth, especially in the western and south-western regions, their impact on the processes of population reproduction in Ukraine is generally not significant. To sum up, in order to stop natural population decline in Ukraine, it is important to ensure more favourable conditions for demographic development in the economic, social, informational and cultural spheres of society. Furthermore, in areas of acute demographic crisis, it is important to raise the issue of rural reconstruction involving a variety of organisational and economic mechanisms.