Found this morsel today and thought I'd share...if it was posted before I didn't remember! Worth another look anyway, even if for the standard natalist propaganda and the underlying expectation that growth is not just necessary, it's inevitable and/or ordained.
Best quote from the article: "Russians don't like foreigners" (by way of explaining how the current immigration policies won't work!)
(I only copied selected sentences, the article is here: April 5,2009 http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/7971719.stm)
Demographic experts say Russia's steep population decline could have serious consequences for the economy.
"The numbers are frightening," says Sergei Zakharov, from the Institute of Demography at Moscow's Higher School of Economics.
By 2050, Russia's population could shrink from the current figure of 142 million people to 100 million, according to a United Nations sponsored study published last year.
When BBC Brasil travelled to Russia as part of its series looking at where the BRIC economies - Brazil, Russia, India and China - will be in 2020 it found that the picture for Russia's population was bleak.
…snip
She also said that a hangover of the Soviet era is the custom that women only had one child, and that that thinking affected how women behave today.
((How about when women are educated and participate in the economic well being of the family, they are disinclined to have many children))
…snip
There is no easy way out for Russia as it tries to halt its population collapse, but to do nothing could bring the country to its knees and ruin any hope it has of joining the leading economies of the world.
(((In other words, if the policy to increase population succeeds, Russia will be brought to it's knees as well!! No wonder there is no easy way out!)))
