Russia Population Continues Decline August 22, 2000
MOSCOW (AP) - Russia's population continued to decline during the first six months of the year, falling by 425,000 people, officials said Tuesday.
A similar decline happened during the same period in 1999. The latest slide brought Russia's population to an estimated 145.1 million people, the State Statistics Committee said.
The falling population reflects bad economic conditions, the poor state of the health system and a falling birth rate.
The drop would be far greater if not for an inflow of immigrants, mainly ethnic Russians from other former Soviet republics. But immigration is slowing, and the population decline is expected to continue for years to come.
The statistics committee had said previously that Russia could lose another 8 million people by the year 2016.
Russia's population has been falling throughout the last decade, an extremely rare development for an industrialized country not at war.