Caucasus (bbabo.net), - In the regions of the North Caucasus, unlike other regions of Russia, natural population growth continues. Why the North Caucasus remained the only large territory in the country where growth continues, explained the head of the department of the Institute of Sociology of the Russian Academy of Sciences in Krasnodar, Doctor of Sociological Sciences Aitech Khagurov.
“The way of life and customs have an impact... Traditional family values in the North Caucasus are not an empty phrase. However, negative trends are already visible in this macroregion. I judge this based on my Adyghe ethnic group. Young people tend to move to the cities and have a maximum of two children. When I walk along the main street of my dear village in the evening, it becomes eerie. I look, people lived in this house until recently, there is another empty one on the left, another one on the right... And in the 1980s, life here was in full swing. The voices of children were heard everywhere. In Dagestan, everything is different for now. In Chechnya, as reported, they generally allowed four wives. Therefore, I believe that these republics (maybe also Kabardino-Balkaria) will be in a “demographic advantage” for a long time,” Rossiyskaya Gazeta quotes the scientist as saying.
These republics have natural population growth, but people still leave. As Khagurov explained, the economy there is not very developed.
“The structure is archaic. Every second person feeds on his own subsistence farming all his life. A strong farming sector is poorly developed. Moreover, this is a problem not only of the North Caucasus, but also of Transcaucasia,” he explained.
According to Khagurov, there is a big difference between the real salary and the one officially announced in the regions. The gap is almost double. There is a desire for the region to look no worse than its neighbors, he noted.
“To develop labor resources, we need to increase investments in infrastructure projects - the construction of roads, housing, communications. But the main problem of our agro-industrial complex, of course, is the excessive concentration of production. Agricultural holdings today are more of a burden than a joy. These largest enterprises generally have a strange, incomprehensible status. I was unable to obtain any necessary information about these giants from the statistics office. Product output dynamics are not given. For private household plots and farmers, on the contrary, everything is open,” the scientist said.
He noted that the problem of demography goes back to the history of the ethnic group, what is the “indigenous culture” of the people, so will the demographic situation.
“The sustainable development of territories is determined by the stable socio-economic structure of the rural population, which means that a lot depends on the presence of a middle class in villages and villages. But villagers who consider themselves middle class mostly share the values of an urban rather than a rural lifestyle. And those who do not share these values - farmers and other representatives of small businesses - constitute an absolute minority. Therefore, in rural areas there is actually no middle class in the precise meaning of this term. It needs to be formed... The main thing is that the processing and livestock industries should work well in rural areas. They are the ones who provide jobs, not crop production, where everything has long been mechanized. Plus - the development of cooperation. That's it in short. According to the developed model, sustainability (and therefore job growth and population growth) is affected by about 15 different indicators,” he said.
According to Khagurov, slowly but steadily the North Caucasus is becoming part of a consumer society.
“Every day, every hour, ethnic culture with the traditions of large families is corroded by new values - the cult of supermarkets and advertising. There is no escape from this, like a collision with the “locomotive of history.” We don't even notice this collision. Just as advertising on TV interrupts the dramatic tension of an artistic, patriotic film, so the consumer attitude towards everything kills spiritual culture. This highlights another pressing problem - how primitive and irresponsible our social technologies are. As much as the exact sciences are highly developed in our country, the social sciences are now lagging behind and degrading,” Khagurov said.
He believes that we must abandon the basic elements of consumer society. A person doesn’t need much to feel good. And now the process of buying goods has become a kind of addiction. And society cannot get out of this useless cycle of things, which is increasingly acquiring the features of a financial pyramid, the scientist added.
As bbabo.net reported, natural population growth is recorded in the republics of the North Caucasus in 2023, as follows from Rosstat data. In Dagestan over the year, the natural increase was 27,754 people, in Chechnya - 24,251 people, in Ingushetia - 6,217 people, in Kabardino-Balkaria - 3,132 people, in North Ossetia - 503 people, in Karachay-Cherkessia - 481 people.
Natural decline among the subjects of the North Caucasian Federal District was recorded only in the Stavropol Territory. Over the year it amounted to 6,584 people.
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