Against the background of the ongoing census in Ukraine, deliberate understatement of the number of Ukrainians has again come into the political limelight promising to enter parties’ political agendas, as the case was in 1998 and 1999. Politicians, practically regardless of their party affiliations, are quite unanimous — the practice of downplaying the number of Ukrainians is bad and comes from low standards of living. Let us try to estimate how true this opinion is.
ROLE OF INDUSTRIALIZATION
At the start of the last century Ukraine was Europe’s recognized leader in population growth, with the leadership seeming to later switch to Latin America and Asia. The soaring population in this or that country was duly attributed to certain objective factors related to industrialization and urbanization.
In the farming environment, with its high labor demand and low sanitary and medical standards, the tradition of having a large number of children in families prevailed. This tradition was quite understandable, as families needed many hands and the death rate among children was high. Even today, in Transcarpathian villages one can meet women who gave birth to twelve or fifteen children.
With the onset of industrialization, the outflow of rural population to the cities began. Two important factors could be traced. First, for all the dirt and inadequate housing, new industrial cities in India or Brazil could provide higher social and medical standards than those available in the villages, causing a drop in death rates due to natural causes in the cities. Second, while new city residents preserved their village traditions, having as many children as before, child mortality fell.
Soon, however, the new urban ways of life got the upper hand. Large families were a burden hindering social adaptation. The growing humanization of society limited child labor and, on the other hand, increased women’s role in production. To ensure normal standards of living both parents had to work. Given such conditions, children became an additional burden, being born far apart and typically not exceeding three in number. With time the number of children even dropped to one or two, not to stand in the way of their parents’ social life.
It was due to this very reason, not any treacherous tricks by communists or some American couple whose names Natalia Vitrenko cannot until now recall, that the birthrate dropped. This tendency can also be observed in any industrialized country including those that have entered the post industrial era. A good example is Europe, where the local populations are dwindling at the same rate as in Ukraine.
ON THE ROLE OF BASIS
Many say now that the drop in population was caused by the low incomes of most Ukrainians. True, this factor cannot be ignored but, on the other hand, areas with not so high standard of living show the largest population growth. Even in Ukraine, one of its areas most afflicted by the slump, Zakarpattia, has a positive population growth rate. Moreover, the pattern described previously times high population growth with early phases of urbanization when the standards of living were comparatively low and parents did not seem to care too much whether they could feed their children.
By contrast, now parents are not so much worried by how to feed their second child as by how to ensure an adequate education, access to culture, and high standard of living for them. Consequently, their main worries are not related to the possibility of having more children. Unless we can keep up with the Joneses, we would have no children at all, and this seems to be modern parents’ rule of thumb.
Due to the recent revolution in priorities, the possibility of having the second child, and very often the first one, is close to nil. Indeed, if parents condition child birth by the availability of a car, a VCR, etc., the child will probably never be born. For a significant segment of population cannot afford such rewards of civilization now or ever in the future.
Understandably, there are numerous families that cannot support their children. Moreover, even in the wealthier Dnipropetrovsk the bulk of its residents cannot afford to buy meat for holidays, let alone their daily repast.
The radical change of the economic order and equally radical changes in social and economic standing of entire population segments has caused increasing uncertainty for the future prevailing with many families. So many shocking changes led to such numerous stressful situations in society and families that many couples feared having children, something which amply explains the catastrophic decline in the birthrate we experienced in the early nineties when maternity hospitals were often simply empty.
Of much greater importance is the health of the nation. The burden of critical environment and the failure of medical science in Ukraine and elsewhere to meet new challenges, have caused the infertility rate among the women of the most productive age group to rise dramatically.
Poor medical standards, certainly adding dark colors to the overall picture, are not crucial to the problem. Let me repeat that even in the highly developed countries the progress reached in fighting viral infections, including AIDS, and genetic diseases is far from significant.
AGAIN ON THE DEMISE OF THE TRADITIONAL FAMILY
Quite strangely, politicians of the Left and Right believe family disintegration to be the major reason for Ukraine’s shrinking population. Without denying its effect, we doubt very much that it is a deciding one or even exceeding the other mentioned factors in significance. In any case, the concept of a traditional Ukrainian family and the effect it has on population growth is quite ambiguous.
First, it was quite common for three generations in both Soviet and Ukrainian families to reside in one apartment which automatically makes such families a very traditional entity, while in the postindustrial era parents share the same apartment only with their unmarried children. In this respect, the Ukrainian family belongs even to preindustrial era. Due to a number of reasons, such families, even if partially disintegrated or still preserved, are reluctant to have children.
Second, the low birth rate typical of industrial age families has been discussed above. Such families usually number three or four persons, which is far from the reproduction ceiling. In the Soviet Union reproduction was maintained due to fatal accidents and old type families with many children residing in its non-European part.
Third, the structure of the traditional family was largely determined by the structure of economic relationships. Recall that the fact of running a household jointly by a man and a woman, not a marriage certificate, carried more weight for establishing a marriage relationship. In this respect, a mini commune of two persons engaging in a joint household and sexual relationship is no more strange than a family made up of a child and two parents who do not go to work and stay at home carrying out work via a computer and the Internet.
As early as 1980, American futurologist Alvin Toffler wrote about the inevitable disintegration of a traditional family and the emergence of new forms of marriage. It should be noted that Toffler’s so-called third wave has not led to the emergence of a stable family structure making it possible to maintain the reproduction of the population. Regrettably, no effort is done in Ukraine to bring to light such new forms of marriage, focusing instead on promoting legally registered, albeit childless, marriages.
IMMORAL BEHAVIOR
The role, of disintegrating social morals, or rather the changes they underwent, has also been unduly overestimated. True, greater sexual freedom leads to later marriages, higher divorce rate, spread of venereal diseases, and reluctance to burden oneself with children.
Still, other factors should be taken into consideration, notably, that the later marriage age and birth of children hinges on economic conditions. For example, many young people prefer to marry after getting an education, finding a job, and buying an apartment, with just a few objecting to such an arrangement.
The traditional morals themselves are not beyond reproach. Thus, a ban on extramarital relationships considerably undermines the position of traditional families. Whatever the true reasons for the breakup of any family, there are always some accusations that infidelity, true or imaginary, behind the divorce. This view is taken by Russian psychiatrist Nikolai Kozlov. Unwelcome as it is, marital infidelity, however, is quite an ordinary thing. From this perspective, a considerable part of world literature must be condemned and banned, for instance, the books by Count Leo Tolstoi who dwelt much and in style about infidelity.
Similarly, traditional morals promote the spread of sexually transmittable diseases, STD. Since they are considered shameful, patients fear to see a doctor, delaying visits to professionals, and eventually going to quacks. As a result, doctors have to deal with long neglected disease (maybe several) plus an assortment of various complications of which infertility is certainly not the worst. Moreover, uncared-for sick persons continue to have sexual relationships, infecting more and more people. Hence, the dramatic statistics of STD incidence rates. If society learns to view such diseases as it looks upon the flu or measles, they will be much easier to diagnose and treat.
The same is true of abortions. As long as society fails to understand that sex education is merely one of the areas of a person’s overall education, the problem of teenage abortions will be impossible to solve. Moreover, not only youngsters but also quite adult ladies and gentlemen need such education as has been amply shown by the recent debate on the issue in Verkhovna Rada.
DO WE REALLY NEED MORE PEOPLE?
Indeed, is there a need to raise the country’s population? There are many arguments in support of a larger population, but they all come down to one conclusion: in order for the country to be strong it must be densely populated. Again, the interests of people and society are subordinated to the interests of a given state.
Are not the recommendations of the Club of Rome binding on us? Of course, I am not speaking about the politicians who consider until now that the issues of environment, overpopulation, expenditure of unrecoverable resources, etc. have been invented by the capitalists to step up the exploitation of workers. In Slavic and especially in the postsocialist Slavic countries nothing of the kind can happen. It seems that such politicians are the exception.
Would it not be worthwhile to evaluate what number of Ukrainians corresponds to the country’s natural resources. I doubt that the figure is fifty million. How many people are needed to ensure the nation’s reproduction, efficient economy, and quality of life? What should be Ukraine’s immigration policy? No questions are asked about these issues, with any analysis of population growth echoed by statements about depopulation and genocide. Currently, these terms are used to hide the still prevailing attitude from the fourteenth century, when the results of wars could be roughly predicted on the basis of the available human cannon fodder that could be thrown into battle against the enemy cavalry.
In my opinion, the problem is not so much a shrinking population as the fact that this drop is uncontrolled and is complemented by increasingly negative social consequences, with population aging and immigration high on the list. While the first problem, very acute for Europe, will be solved by the great healer, Chronos, the other one definitely requires regulation by the state. One can evaluate the attitude of our state toward its aging population by its deeds, as the government, first, raised the retirement age over the average life span and, second, increased pensions which now far exceed subsidies for children. Given all this, one can see which way the state’s investments go.
ON STATE PLANNING
With the current regime keeping a liberal profile, there is no room for state strategic plans of development. Officials are busy churning out plans for tax collection (this is why our tax base is predominantly made up of fines), plans for exposing crimes (this is why hopeless cases are not even registered by the police), plans for production growth in separate spheres (this is why government reports about production growth are worthless when faced with low life standards), etc. And nothing is done to draw up a comprehensive complex state program. In fact, it is the erroneous practice of semi-official planning that makes it possible to label the current regime as anti-Ukrainian.
It is beyond doubt that the family, immigration, and population growth must be regulated by separate states jointly with international community. So far, nothing in the way of regulating or planning has been done here. Moreover, even monitoring of the situation is carried out not by the state but by individual enthusiasts. The country’s academic institutions are also involved, but their research and conclusions are not translated into any conceptual policy. Even census results do not inspire complete trust.
Meanwhile, in the area of long-range planning we lag behind Europe and the USA, let alone Russia where a number of long-range state programs have been approved, while Ukrainians are still debating their concept of education. Withdrawn from the actual needs of the Ukrainian economy, this concept cannot change things for the better. In addition, the ongoing school reform, in our view, is just a thoughtless copy of the American educational system whose inefficiency has been proved by widespread illiteracy among high school and, sometimes, even college graduates.
It is obvious that the state is doing nothing to embark on any sensible family planning program. Given this, any attempt at analysis of the problem is likely to give way to political verbiage and irrelevant arguments.
