Armenia facing serious demographic challenge - Tigran Jrbashyan

ArmInfo. Armenia today faces a very serious challenge in the field of demography. This was stated in an interview with the country's Public Television by the head of the consulting company "Ameria" Tigran Jrbashyan, under whose leadership the Strategy for Improving the Demographic Situation for 2024-2040 was developed. 

According to Jrbashyan, the existing problem has not been studied in  depth for a long period of time, and the program that is presented  concerns every citizen of the country. "There is no group of people  or individuals who are not affected by it," the specialist said,  adding that the document, the work on which began three years ago,  was developed by the Ministry of Labor and Social Affairs of the  Republic of Armenia with the funding of the UN Population Fund. The  document includes the consequences of the Armenian Genocide of 1915,  as well as World War II, industrialization, the Spitak earthquake and  the post- Soviet period. All these events are interconnected and will  continue to influence subsequent demographic processes.

The expert noted that today the demographic problem in Armenia  resembles a "perfect storm". The world is currently experiencing a  decline in birth rates, and this stereotype is one of the main  problems that must be addressed. "Demographers have an idea that  after 2060-2070 the population of the Earth will stop increasing.  Armenia is part of these processes, it has crossed the reproduction  threshold - 2.1 children per woman, after which there is a decrease  in natural population growth. In addition, the increase in life  expectancy leads to the aging of the population, which is also a  global trend, as a result of which the elderly population begins to  predominate in the structure of the country's population. We are  talking about people aged 65 and older.

Of no less importance is the migration of the population, which is  heading to countries with a higher level of prosperity. According to  Jrbashyan, Armenia is one of the countries that has suffered the  greatest migration losses: over the past 30 years, they amounted to  about 1.1 million people. As a result, in Armenia, on the one hand,  there is a decline in the birth rate, on the other hand, there is an  outflow of labor resources from the country, as well as a fairly high  percentage of representatives of the older generation.  "All these  phenomena, taken together, lead to the fact that the resource of  society, including the state, which will be directed at improving the  quality of human capital, becomes limited. As a result, the most  important challenge is the likelihood of the formation of such a  demographic structure that will reduce the possibility of investing  in the development of human capital," the specialist explained.

He noted that the goals of the Strategy include creating conditions  that will lead to the development of human capital and a prosperous  life for people, and for this purpose the document includes four  target areas. 

The first, according to the expert, is the implementation of a policy  aimed at ensuring that families have children. Armenia still belongs  to the category of societies where the number of desired children  exceeds their actual number in the family. "Our task is to create  such an environment within 7-10 years so that the desired children  are born," he said. Among the possible measures, he pointed out the  need to provide various assistance to young families wishing to have  a child, incentives in matters of family planning, including  increasing the interest of employers in hiring pregnant women.

The developers of the strategy propose replacing the institution of  paying child benefits with a system of public services, when the  state concludes contracts and pays salaries to people caring for a  child under 3 years of age, be it parents, grandparents or  professional nannies, equating them to civil servants.

The second goal of the strategy, as Jrbashyan noted, affects aspects  of preserving life, which implies reforms in many areas - from  healthcare to road safety.

The third block concerns the global trend of active aging, which is  aimed at the fact that an elderly person can generate added value by  being healthy and socially active, and the fourth block focuses on  migration flows, which are based on qualitative changes in human  capital.

The specialist previously noted that 44 programs and more than 150  events have been developed in the Strategy to implement these four  global goals, and, in general, it is planned to invest 2.6 trillion  drams over 17 years.