Report predicts drop in Russia’s population

MOSCOW, July 16: Russia’s population is likely to dip under 146 million by the year 2000 and drop to 141 million by 2010, according to a new government forecast.

The report by the State Statistics Committee also projects that Russia’s dismally low life expectancy figures won’t rise in the decade ahead, Interfax news agency said. Based on the most likely of four demographic estimates compiled by the committee, the average life span in 2005 will be 65 years — the same as in 1996.

Russia’s population, which has been in decline since the Soviet Union’s collapse, shrank by 4,75,000 people last year and currently stands at 147.1 million. Demographers blame the soaring mortality rate and low birth rate on a protracted economic crisis, severe stress over the transformation to a market economy and a sharp deterioration in health care.