Natural Reproduction of the Population in the European North of Russia in 1980–1990 (Based on the Materials from the Arkhangelsk and Vologda Regions)

The Arkhangelsk and Vologda regions are located in the central part of the European North of Russia and are distinguished from other constituent territories by similarity of their ethnodemographic processes. This paper aims to identify the main trends and factors of birth rate, mortality, and rate of natural increase in the Arkhangelsk and Vologda regions from 1980 to 1990. The methodological basis of the study is the institutional approach, which allows one to identify the influence of state and socio-economic institutions on the demographic processes. The author studied statistical materials and records (archival and published) containing data on birth rate and mortality in the European North of Russia and country as a whole during the period of 1980–1990. It is demonstrated that the increase in birth rate in the Arkhangelsk and Vologda regions during the decade in question was caused by a growing number of women of reproductive age, government measures to support families introduced in 1981, and the effect of the anti-alcohol campaign. At the same time, mortality in the European North of Russia was growing and its structure was changing: the proportion of alcohol-related deaths and that of deaths from external causes increased, which was associated with the changing economic situation in the second half of the 1980s. As a cumulative result of birth rate and mortality, under the influence of the systemic crisis the rate of natural increase (after its active growth in the first part of the period) from 1987 to 1990 reached a minimum level. Having compared the rates of natural increase in the regions under study with those in Central Russia, the author came to the conclusion that the population of the Arkhangelsk and Vologda regions had not entered the depopulation stage by the end of the period in question, whereas in Central Russia, e.g. the Kostroma and Vladimir regions, depopulation began in the second half of the 1980s.