On March 22, 2007, the Institute of Demography and Social Studies made a presentation of a three-year-long demographic study conducted in Ukraine and called “Demography and the Problems of Human Development”. To discuss its outcome, the Institute’s researchers together with government officials and NGO representatives initiated the round table “Contemporary Demographic Situation in Ukraine: Problems, Perspectives, and Ways of Improvement.” A report on the findings was sent to Ukraine’s Cabinet of Ministers.
In every country a demographic crisis, if it exists, has its own peculiarities. Specialists from the Kyiv-based Institute of Demography and Social Studies identified three main causes behind the Ukrainian crisis: the high children and adult illness rate, high mortality rate among men of the working age (three times greater than women’s), and the increased infant mortality index.
Doctors say that genetics, environment, and poverty affect a person’s health to a lesser extent that his or her own attitude. According to them, this latter factor accounts for 55 percent of cases, whereas environmental conditions for 20 percent, and the quality of the country’s health care system together and genetics for 10 percent each. Unhealthy and sedentary lifestyle, disregard for the symptoms of illnesses, smoking, drinking, and overeating are the main causes that shorten people’s lives (especially if you sum them up). Smoking and drinking are at the top of the list. For example, Tetiana Strykalenko, Professor of Medicine and scientific director of the Odesa branch of the International Academy of Ecology and Safe Life Activity, presents a fact: an average Ukrainian citizen consumes annually 30 liters of bottled water and 45 liters of beer.
The latest data produced by the Institute of Gerontology shows that an average life expectancy in Ukraine is 74 years for women and 61 years for men. This index is lower than it was in 1960 when our life expectancy was higher than in Japan, France, and Germany. As compared with the EU, Ukrainian women live 8 to 9 years and men 12 to 13 years less than Europeans. Professor Hennadii Opanasenko believes that in terms of their bodies’ functionality most Ukrainian and CIS citizens are 10 to 15 years older than their passports indicate. Doctors and gerontologists are convinced that no pills will stop the aging of people’s bodies unless they begin to improve their health systematically.
This seemingly banal factor, unhealthy life style, is linked to men’s crisis in Ukraine. We are doing so badly that gerontologists already speak of excess mortality rate among men and add domestic traumatism to the above list of causes. An interesting fact: the Kyiv city organization “People’s Help-Kyiv,” which provides support to homeless in the form of food, clothes, and assistance with paperwork, recently attempted to portray a typical homeless Kyivite. He turned out to be a 35 to 42-year-old alcoholic from Kyiv who does not have a job and collects empty bottles and recyclable paper. Over the last three months they found nearly 9,000 of such men in six Kyiv districts. One would wonder why these men in their prime are unwilling to work, settle down, and live a full life-rather than allowing girls from NGOs to give them food that was purchased for grant money.
Demographers are sounding the alarm indicating that hundreds of thousands of children also lead homeless lives and it is not clear how this stratum of “sandpit generals” is going to influence Ukraine’s population in the future. One thing is certain: not much good will come out of this.
The third problem, and the most important one according to the Institute of Gerontology, is the increased infant mortality rate. No deep analysis is needed to understand the cause of children’s mortality and illness rates. Where would they get health from if parents are careless about their physical condition? The children mortality rate may still increase because starting from this year Ukrainian doctors will follow European standards which require them to fight for an infant’s life if the baby weighs at least 500 grams (approximately 22 weeks of pregnancy). Pulling such infants through is a difficult and expensive operation. Doctors point to the careless attitude of pregnant mothers to their health, stresses, etc. as the main causes of prematurely born children. Specialists from the Institute of Gerontology maintain that the rise in the birth rate in the last three to four years is due to the fact that during the crisis of the 1990s women could not afford a baby and now they have their firstborns. That is why specialists cool down our enthusiasm and say that “such a situation does not provide sufficient grounds to speak about a reversal in the negative childbearing trends and to hope for a palpable increase in the birthrate in the most immediate future.”
Our demographic situation is unspeakably poor, and so are the prognoses: having averaged out Ukraine’s demographic development, specialists from the Institute of Gerontology and Social Studies expect that in 2050 the cumulative birthrate in Ukraine will equal 1.5 children per woman and an average life expectancy will be 79 years for women and 71 years for men. Virtually every third Ukrainian will be 60 or more. And demographers are silent on how many Ukrainians will be left...
