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Fully 73 percent of Russian women experience complications during pregnancy, and the death rate during childbirth is 50 per 1,000 births - more than six times the U.S. rate. Only 45 percent of Russian births qualify as normal by Western medical standards.
The factors underlying these trends are complex and numerous, but most can be traced to some combination of environmental contamination and economic instability. In part, the fertility decline is a matter of simple demographics: the number of marriages has decreased, and there are fewer Russian women of childbearing age in the population due to a brief decline in births after World War II.
Russianwomen.com - Away from collectivism
But life in Russia is still haunted by the abrupt transition from communism, which provided work and housing for nearly everyone, to a capitalist system driven by competition and characterized by insecurity. Russians do not have a tradition of individualism, self reliance and self initiative.
The uncertain economic situation has prompted many Russian women to forego childbearing, according to Carl Haub, Director of Information and Education at the Population Reference Bureau. In a survey of 3,000 Russian women in 1993, 70 percent cited insufficient income as a factor discouraging childbearing. As Haub observed in a 1995 report, "The recent birth dearth, not surprisingly, is a direct result of the collapse of the economy and a general lack of confidence in the future."
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