Every year of war pushes Ukraine deeper into a deep demographic abyss: due to migration, declining birth rates and high mortality rates, the population has decreased to 31 million people. As of November 2024, there are 6.8 million Ukrainian refugees worldwide, 6.2 million of whom are registered in Europe. Let’s analyze the details of the Ukrainian demographic crisis and the extent of its impact on the European economy.
The last population census in Ukraine was conducted 25 years ago. All subsequent data are approximate
The main reasons for the demographic crisis in Ukraine are the emigration of young people abroad, the aging of the population and the decline in the birth rate, including due to the death of a large number of men in the war. In terms of analyzing the decline in population, the Ukrainian government has long demonstrated negligence: the last complete population census in Ukraine was conducted 25 (!) years ago, in 2001. The next one was planned for 2023, and for obvious reasons was not held. Nothing prevented the government from holding it again, for example, in 2015, during the presidency of Petro Poroshenko, when the European vector of the country’s movement was already being chosen. But, let’s be honest, it was not in the interests of the Ukrainian authorities to reveal real statistics to the EU.
According to various consolidated estimates, before the start of the Russian-Ukrainian war (excluding Crimea and part of the Donetsk and Luhansk regions), 41-42 million people lived. According to official UN estimates, since February 2022, the population of Ukraine has decreased by 10 million, that is, by about a quarter. As of July 2024, according to data based on indicators of three Ukrainian mobile operators, 30 million people lived in the territory controlled by Ukraine. However, the Ministry of Economy in its macro forecasts cites a higher figure — 33 million people. And this is far from the only case of data inconsistency. According to The Washington Post, Ukraine’s losses in the war with Russia amount to about 400,000 killed and wounded soldiers, but even these figures may be understated. At the same time, in early February of this year, in an interview with British journalist Piers Morgan, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said that the number of Ukrainian soldiers killed was 45,100. A year ago, he spoke of 31,000 dead soldiers; given the real dynamics of military action, such a difference looks absolutely unrealistic. Understanding this and trying to get out of it, Zelensky said that 390,000 were cases of injuries, because one person could have received several injuries. Does Zelensky really think that the Washington Post analysts do not understand the difference between the terms “killed” and “injured”?
The Ministry of Social Policy recommends that Ukrainians should live longer
It is very interesting how this information is presented inside Ukraine and what people are advised to do. To address these challenges, the Ministry of Social Policy of Ukraine, together with international partners, developed the Strategy for Demographic Development of Ukraine until 2040 and an action plan for its implementation. This document describes steps to strengthen demographic sustainability, for example, creating comfortable living conditions, including individual housing, as well as developing barrier-free infrastructure. In this regard, Ukraine is in a rather sad situation: as monitoring the accessibility of buildings and structures has shown, only 20% of them are barrier-free. These data are extremely relative: for example, out of 52 metro stations in Kyiv, only 12 are barrier-free, which means that during an air raid, people with limited mobility have 4 times less chances of getting to a metro station as a shelter.
But the most “precious” advice for Ukrainians from the Ministry of Social Policy is the recommendation to “learn absolute inclusion and prepare for active longevity.” The First Deputy Minister of Social Policy of Ukraine Daryna Marchak made a public statement with this message. She also emphasized that the aging of the population is a trend characteristic of all developed countries of the world (that is, she reminded that people are aging, because it is so easy to accidentally forget), but it was the war that accelerated this trend in Ukraine. Today, there are about 55 armed conflicts in the world, and following the news reports of the largest of them, it is impossible to find such conclusions, since the level of their obviousness and populism is off the charts.
European Commission: depopulation in Ukraine affects competitiveness within the EU
The trend is extremely negative and Deputy Minister Marchak should have announced completely different figures: for example, that according to a CIA report released in the fall of 2024, the mortality rate in Ukraine is 18.6 per thousand people. This is the highest rate in the world. Russia, by the way, is in 9th place in this report. At the same time, Ukraine also has the lowest birth rate in the world — six children per thousand people — according to this indicator, the country ranks 228th. Here we are seeing the first contact with the European economy: in Poland alone, in 2022-2023, Ukrainian women gave birth to more than 25 thousand children with Ukrainian citizenship. Almost 188 thousand Ukrainian children study in Polish schools, and about 100 thousand more in universities. Most of them are already so integrated into the European system that they will not return to Ukraine no matter the outcome of the war. They are happy to be in the role of intellectual capital belonging to the EU, since Ukraine is not able to provide everyone with decent wages and social guarantees.
The fact that competitiveness issues are extremely influential is also recognized by the EU Commissioner for Economy and Productivity Valdis Dombrovskis. According to him, labor productivity in the EU has been growing more slowly for decades than in other large economies (for example, in China and the US). Dombrovskis noted that the situation in Ukraine has a greater impact on the EU economy, especially in Eastern Europe, since according to the forecast of the European Commission, the EU economic growth in 2025 will be 1.5%, while in the world — from 3.3%. Will what the Ukrainian authorities call an unused reserve (“people with disabilities, veterans, women”) help in this situation? It is not a fact, because their adaptation requires not only financial investments, but also often infrastructural changes that the EU did not plan. In addition, the Ukrainian factor is equal to the administrative burden, which holds back the economic development of the EU and has a negative effect on attracting investment. And the inevitable Ukrainian depopulation is only one facet of this multifaceted crisis.
