Football and Babies

Population Reference Bureau tracks population changes for countries around the world. Ukraine has one of the worst negative population growths in the world.

Right now Ukraine has 46.8 million people. 9 babies are born for every 1,000 people. And 17 people die for every 1,000 people. By 2050 it is projected that Ukraine will only have 33.4 million citizens.

The Ukrainian government is rightly worried. Losing 28% of your population in 43 years is very destructive.

Ukrainian women (between 15 and 49 years of age) on average have 1.2 children. Another way of looking at this is that 2/3 of Ukrainian families only have 1 child. So in 2005, the Ukrainian government started paying families to have children. The family gets $1,700 for every baby.

Demographers, economists, and policymakers now look with increasing alarm at the implications of chronic low fertility, especially rapid population aging and population decline. The issue has assumed crisis status in some countries. It has already caused radical changes in countries’ age distributions; many now face the very real possibility that up to one-third of their population will be over age 65. Many countries are already seeing more deaths than births each year—and population decline.

From: Is Fertility Rising in Countries With Low Birth Rates?

Another contributing factor to the population decline is men’s health (heart disease and cancer-related deaths). On average Ukrainian men die 10 years before most European men. Their life expectancy is 63 years of age.

And this is why Ukraine has focused on increasing their domestic adoption. They need to keep their population.

In April Ukraine won the right to co-host the Euro 2012 football championship. And the hope is this will cause a mini baby boom.

It worked out that way for Germany. The 2006 World Cup, hosted by Germany, appeared to increase the birth rate by 10% to 15%.

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

The baby’s picture at the top of this blog is licensed under Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 License.

You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.