United Nations experts predict the population of Ukraine could drop 40% in the next fifty years. This is the world’s highest population drop index, the BBC (www.bbc.co.ukr) reports.
Such data are included in the just-released UN annual report. The report says negative tendencies will also prevail in Russia and Italy, with the population of these countries to fall by a quarter. The world’s population will increase primarily in Africa as well as in some Asian and Latin American countries.
The developed countries will have the ever-increasing share of the elderly: while the latter now make up one-fifth of the population, they will be one-third half a century later. By 2050, nine out of ten of the elderly will be living in the developed countries.
Meanwhile, the population of Ukraine dropped by almost half a million (419,600) in 2000 alone, being 49,291,200 as of January 1, 2001, the State Statistics Committee reports. As of January 1, 2000, the population was 49,710,800, Korrespondent.net (www.korrespondent.net) reports quoting Ukrayinski Novyny.
As of January 1, 2001, 33,537,200 Ukrainians resided in cities (vs. 33,666,900 in 2000) and 15,754,000 in the countryside (vs. 15,834,100). The year 2000 recorded natural population growth, 0.4 per 1000, in only one region of Ukraine, Transcarpathian oblast (11.3 newborns per 1000 and 10.9 deaths per 1000). Moreover, according to committee information, this region recorded last year one of Ukraine’s highest marriage rates, 5.8 marriages per 1000 inhabitants (the highest rate is in Sevastopol, 7 marriages per 1000 inhabitants, the lowest in Donetsk, Luhansk, and Chernihiv oblasts at 5 per 1000), and the lowest divorce rate of 1.9 divorces per 1000 (with Sevastopol accounting for the maximum level of 5.8 divorces per 1000).
The State Statistics Committee has also confirmed that the fate of elections is decided in eastern Ukraine. The population of the three largest oblasts — Donetsk, Dnipropetrovsk, and Kharkiv — is 23% of all the residents of Ukraine. For instance, as of January 1, 2001, Donetsk oblast was inhabited by 4,893,600 people, almost 9.93% of the total Ukrainian population), with 7.46% or 3,678,000, and almost 5.97% or 2,940,700, living in Dnipropetrovsk and Kharkiv oblasts respectively. The largest western region, Lviv oblast, ranks fourth demographically: 5.48% or 2,703,300 people. Closing the top five is Kyiv, accounting for 5.35% of the total population with 2,637,100 people, Elektronni visti (www.elvisti.com) reports. The State Statistics Committee reports that Chernivtsi oblast is Ukraine’s least populated region: as of January 1, 2001, it hosted 929,200 people, a mere 1.86% of the nation’s population.
