Russia's natural population decrease in Q1 down 43.7% y.o.y - Rosstat

MOSCOW. May 12 (Interfax) - The natural decrease in Russia's population (deaths outnumbering births) in January-March 2023 dropped by 43.7% compared with the first quarter of 2022, to 148,700 (versus 264,300 the year before), the national statistics agency Rosstat said on Friday.

Births fell by 2.9% to 311,100, from 320,400 in January-March 2022.

Deaths fell by 21.4% to 459,800, from 584,700 in the same period in 2022.

It was reported earlier that the natural population decrease in 2022 was down 42.5% in comparison with 2021 (the figures were 599,616 and 1,042,675, respectively).

As a result, by the beginning of 2023 Russia's population ("excluding official statistics for the Donetsk People's Republic, the Lugansk People's Republic, and the Zaporozhye and Kherson regions") had fallen to 146.4 million people, from 147 million at the start of 2022.