>Are there data to show that alcoholism in Russia increase since the shift from
>communism?
Plenty, but I don't have it at hand.
>The attribution to declining health care standards is intriguing. China also
>suffer a general decline in public health, but Chinese population did not
>decline, not to mention a near total environmental collapse in term of
>polluted
>air and water.
>Has anyone looked at the cultural impacts of the shift from a socialist to
>market
>eonomy?
>Any data on life expectancy befroe and after the shift?
Oh yes, plenty there too. The World Bank's newsletter/journal Transition, which is a surprisingly honest publication despite its source, has had quite a bit on social indicators in the former "socialist" world. They find the decline in health, life expectancy, and population to be quite alarming, and it was there I first learned that the post-transition shrinkage in Russian population is unprecedented in a modern country not at war.
>What rationale did the Russian report give for interpreting a declining
>population as a national security threat?
Don't know for sure, but it's probably not all that different from Ben Wattenberg's birth dearth anxiety: shrinking population = decline = national shame = ripe for colonization. Of course, Wattenberg fears "colonization" by the darker races, while Russians no doubt fear colonization by Jewish financiers.
Doug