Generation of men under 30 smallest in Ukraine, posing threat to conscription – NYT

The generation of healthy men under 30 is now the smallest in the history of Ukraine's independence. Source: The New York Times Details: The New York Times reported that the demographic crisis began in the early 1990s.

Ukrainian women, on average, had 1.9 children back in 1991, the year of Ukraine's independence.

The birth rate dropped to 1.1 children over the next decade. "In the 1990s, uncertainty about the future loomed over life in Ukraine, as savings vanished and salaries became worthless in an economic crisis. That uncertainty 'affected the reproductive behaviour' of the population," Oleksandr Hladun, Deputy Director of the Mykhailo Ptukha Institute for Demography and Social Studies, told journalists.

Lowering the conscription age for men from 27 to 25 may have an even greater generational impactPhoto: Depositphotos/BUMBLE-DEE

As the children born in the first years of Ukraine's independence reached the age of 20, the state experienced a labour shortage due to the lack of people.

The journalists added that the low number of people became a cornerstone of the issue of conscription after Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022. They note that lowering the conscription age for men from 27 to 25 may further reduce the generation. The birth rate in Ukraine has almost halved as of the third year of the full-scale invasion, the journalists say.

One of the main reasons is that about 800,000 Ukrainian women aged 18 to 34 have left for EU countries. The absence of women plays a bigger role in Ukrainian demography than the conscription of men into the ranks of the Armed Forces. The journalists added that the demographic crisis followed the collapse of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics in many of the countries that were part of it, including Russia.

However, Ukraine's demographic problem during the war is much more severe than that of Russia. Russia has almost four times the population of Ukraine, meaning it has more men. At the same time, the NYT pointed out that the conscription age of 25 remains high compared to other European countries, particularly the United States, where men can be drafted into the army from the age of 18.

Background: Earlier, Taras Chmut, ATO veteran and director of the charity Come Back Alive, said he believes conscription in Ukraine should start at the age of 20, as "we have lost too much time during the 10 years of war" [The ATO or Anti-Terrorist Operation is a term used from 2014 to 2018 by the media, the government of Ukraine and the OSCE to identify combat actions in parts of Donetsk and Luhansk oblasts against Russian military forces and pro-Russian separatists - ed.]. On 11 April, the Ukrainian parliament passed amendments to the law on mobilisation. The law states that citizens between the ages of 25 and 60 are subject to mobilisation.

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