Russia experiencing a baby boom

The 750,000 annual loss of previous years shrank to just 223,000 in the first 11 months of 2007, compared with 521,000 over the same period of 2006.

Between 2005 and 2006, life expectancy for males increased by 1.6 years, according to the Russian state statistical service, roughly a 2.7 percent jump.

Men in Russia today can expect to live to just over the age of 60 — about 15 years less than males in Europe, but still more than during the rest of Russia's post-Soviet history.

Demographic experts were impressed.

"In a normal country with a normal history, during one year, life expectancy can grow .02, .03 percent," said Yevgeny Andreev, a Russian researcher with the Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research in Rostock, Germany. "More than one percent is extremely high growth."

Russian women can expect to live to be about 73 on average, much longer than men but still about seven years shorter than the European Union.

Trapped in 'demographic pit'
While Russia's population decline has slowed, experts are divided over when and if it will ever grow again. The country may still be headed for a population crash, says Murray Feshbach, a prominent Western expert on Russia's population crisis.

Feshbach, who is with the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars in Washington, said the number of women aged 20-29, their prime childbearing years, will start to decline around 2013. Moreover, he predicts a sharp rise in deaths from AIDS, tuberculosis and hepatitis C over the next five to 10 years — a result, for the most part, of authorities having paid too little attention to preventing these diseases after the Soviet collapse.

Russia, he said, finds itself in a "demographic pit" that may be difficult to escape.

After almost two decades of low birthrates, Russian society can seem less child-friendly than other industrialized nations.

Employers rarely grant paternity leave, Simanova and others say. Working mothers-to-be also face job discrimination, because of a widespread belief that pregnant women lose their memory and become "weak-minded."

No more stigma
On the other hand, being pregnant no longer seems to carry a stigma, at least in Moscow. Simanova and others say subway riders now offer their seats to pregnant women, and avoid pushing or shoving them on the chronically overcrowded trains and platforms.

Previously, Simanova said, the attitude of many passengers was: "It's your fault, so suffer."

The roots of Russia's demographic implosion reach deep into the Soviet era, but the current crisis started as the Soviet Union began to break apart in the late 1980s. Couples stopped having children and the birthrate plummeted by 50 percent between 1987 and 1999.

Putin recently called for raising life expectancy to 75 by the year 2020 — a staggering increase.

Andreev of the Max Planck Institute said it was possible, but would need new curbs on alcohol and tobacco, better medical services, and other initiatives requiring both money and "political will."

"These will not be popular measures," he predicted.

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