MOSCOW, February 16./TASS/. Working age citizens account for about 24% of all deaths across Russia, and 80% of them are men. Every fifth fatality in Russia is a death of an able-bodied man, Chairman of the Russian Civic Chamber’s Commission on Demography, Protection of Family, Children and Traditional Family Values, Sergei Rybalchenko, said on Tuesday.
"Twenty-four percent of all deaths in Russia occurs in the working age [population], so these mortalities can be averted. Eighty percent of these fatalities are among men, every fifth death in Russia is the death of an able-bodied man - who is somebody’s father, husband or son, who ensures the well-being of not only the family, but also of the country. Based on this data, this number is the same figure as in war-torn Syria," Rybalchenko pointed out.
"This is an awful situation for us, and it must be remedied," he told an online seminar reviewing pubic projects to reduce premature deaths among the working age populace.
If Russia maintains the current figures of births and deaths, the natural decline in the population will amount to over 5.5 million by 2030, the expert stressed. "This is about 30% of all the losses the USSR sustained in the Great Patriotic War, or the loss of such a region as the Moscow Region," Rybalchenko noted.
However, it is impossible to reverse the situation with deaths only with the help of medicine, he went on to say. "We cannot cure all those who find themselves on the brink between life and death. We must nip those causes in the bud that lead to these deaths," he stressed.
Earlier, Deputy Prime Minister Tatyana Golikova said that Russia had experienced a 17.9-percent rise in nationwide mortalities last year. According to the Russian Federal State Statistics Service, the country’s population shrank by 0.5 million people last year, to 145.2 million. The previous population drop of this magnitude was reported 15 years ago.