Azernews.Az

By Rashid Shirinov

The Armenian president’s recent speech at the Parliament, in which he said that the number of the country’s population will reach 4 million in 2040, and the social burden will be reduced, was a surprise for all, and especially demographers. Because, the available is contrary to “plans and wishes” of Serzh Sargsyan.

Demographer Artak Markosyan, commenting on Sargsyan’s estimates, said that the figure is far from the reality.

Markosyan, talking to Armenia’s 1in.am agency, presented the data of the UN Population Fund, which has two scenarios on the population growth in Armenia by 2050: the country will have 3.2 million people at best, and 2 million at worst.

“Armenia still has mobile population. That is, emigration does not cease, and after 2009 it shows a stable growth trend,” Markosyan noted. “It is unrealistic to speak about increase of the population on the backdrop of a continuing exile.”

The expert reminded that as many as 81,200 children were born in Armenia in 1986. “It was the peak of fertility, and the population number was fairly high until 1991, but after independence the birth rate began to decline,” noted Markosyan.

Moreover, there was a sharp drop in the birth rate in the first trimester of 2017, and that was the lowest demography indicator over the past 25 years, Markosyan noted.

The population of Armenia was about 3.6 million in 1991, but after the Soviet breakup, the situation has extremely aggravated. Due to the government failures, socio-economic problems and poor prospects of living in Armenia, many of the country’s population decide to leave abroad. Now, Armenia’s population is even less than 3 million.

The youth mainly prefer to leave abroad as they cannot find appropriate jobs in their homeland. The current volume of unemployment in Armenia exceeds 18 percent of the able-to-work population, which is the highest indicator among the CIS.

The official data shows that the birth rate in Armenia for the first 3 months of this year has decreased by 6.5 percent as compared to the data of 2016, while the mortality rate has grown by 3.8 percent. This means people cannot afford to have children due to all the obstacles they face in Armenia.

Therefore, the population of the country keeps aging, and it won’t be surprising if Armenia’s population will decline by 1 million until 2040 rather than increase, as Sargsyan expects.

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Rashid Shirinov is AzerNews’ staff journalist, follow him on Twitter: @RashidShirinov

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