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Current topic: Large cities of Russia: leaders and outsiders

• Why large cities?

• The demographic situation: size and location matter

• The city’s economy: factors of success and failure

• The social well-being of large cities

• Ranking cities: a fun fad or a measuring tool?

• Links to current issue

• Topics of previous issues

World demographic Barometer

The urban population of the World: an assessment of 2011

•In 2012 the UN presented the results of new estimates of the world’s urban population until 2050

•In 2011 3.6 billion people lived in urban settlements, or 52% of the world’s population. By 2050 the urban population will rise to 6.3 billion people (67% of the world’s population)

•In 1950 the world had two megacities with a population of 10 million people or more. In 2011 there were 23 of them, and in 2025 there may be 37.

•The growth rate of the largest cities is changing, along with the list of which cities are largest

•60% of the world’s cities with a million people or more are located in areas with a high risk of natural disaster

Analytical articles

• Modern Russia: geography with arithmetic

• Multi-scale analysis of demographic development of post-Soviet Moscow

• Demographic development of Belarusian cities in the context of globalization

• Ultra-megaproject “Big Moscow” and Russia’s geopolitical risks

Take care of women!

•In which countries do children live best?

Russian news

•Record democratic indicators in 2012

•The population size of Chuvashia decreased by 0.3% over past year

•The number of teenagers in Russia is decreasing

•Putin gives orders to analyze mechanisms for encouraging the bearing of children

•Ministry of Labor issues recommendations for encouraging the bearing of children

•Ministry of Labor forecasts growth in the number of third children at 35 thousand a year

•Russian salaries to grow 1.5 times by 2020

•Maximum salaries in Russia are 16 times bigger than minimum ones

•The minimum salary in Russia will reach the subsistence minimum by 2017

•The average retirement pension will grow by 41.6% by the year 2016

•Pension payments to working pensioners may be limited

•If everyone paid into the pension fund, would a pension be 20,000 rubles?

•Women’s employment record may include time spent on maternity leave

•Average monthly benefit for a third child in Russia is 6.5 thousand rubles

•By 2016 the maternity capital will grow to at least 500 thousand rubles

•Maternity capital program may be extended for certain regions

•All foreigners will travel to Russia on foreign passports starting in 2015

•Visas for citizens of CIS countries will not solve the problem of illegal migration

•Happy Russians want more than others to emigrate

•Sakhalin Koreans are not against repatriation to their homeland

•Russia will encourage immigration to Russia of Moldovan guest workers

•Starting in 2015 State Duma will require migrants to take exams in Russian language, history and laws

•Immigrants should not be treated merely as a labor force

•ROC launches program for the systemic adaption of labor migrants

•About 7 thousand migrants have proven their knowledge of the Russian language

•Economic cost to Russia of mortality due to circulatory diseases is 1 trillion rubles

•Mortality from traffic accidents rose by 7.5% in 2012

•Chechen authorities want to halve infant mortality within 3 years

•Astakhov calls for not depriving sparsely populated points of obstetric units

•Ban on advertising of abortion to be submitted to Duma

•Ministry of Health plans to conduct medical check-ups of nearly one-third of Russia’s inhabitants

Eurasian panorama

•The population of Kazakhstan has increased by 42 thousand people since the start of the year

•In Kazakhstan, 8 thousand divorces for every 20 thousand marriages

•The “Dima Yakovlev” law has not led to an increase in foreign adoptions in Ukraine

•Will raising the retirement age for women in Kazakhstan lead to higher unemployment?

•In Kazakhstan, starting in 2014 around 335 thousand jobs will remain filled

•In Georgia, 28% of respondents consider themselves employed

•Kazakhstan Ministry of Labor urges newspapers not to specify age and sex in job ads

•Romanian citizenship received by 400 thousand residents of Moldova

•Turkmenistan promises to solve issue of citizens with dual citizenship

•European Parliament ratifies simplified EU visa regime with Ukraine

•Moldovan Parliament ratifies agreement on visa-free regime with Turkey

•Georgia and Israel set to work on abolition of visa regime

•In Brussels, a readmission agreement is signed between Armenia and the European Union

•The tightening of Russia’s immigration laws will not affect citizens of Kazakhstan

•Tajik migrants not allowed into Russia will head for Kazakhstan

•Dushanbe asks Russia to let in migrants who have committed no serious crimes

•Kazakhstan Ministry of Labor simplifies procedure for issuing foreigners work permits

•In Kazakhstan, the number of foreign workers has been reduced by nearly a third in three years

•Moldova soon to set record for cash inflows into country from migrant workers

•Immigration control on the border between Moldova and Transnistria will not affect local residents

•In Azerbaijan, 564 foreigners were punished in March for violating the immigration regime

•Tajik diaspora in Russia does not agree with the suspension of railroad service to Tajikistan

•Ukrainian Cabinet of Ministers develops plan for the integration of Gypsies into society

•Will new language policy of Moldova infringe the rights of Russian speakers?

•Lukashenko vows not to allow same-sex marriages in Belarus

World news

•Population size of Israel exceeds 8 million people

•The number of pensioners in Japan exceeds 30 million for the first time

•Riga registers growth in the number of births

•The oldest person on planet celebrates 116^th birthday

•Chinese army still the world’s biggest

•By 2020 the share of people in the EU with a higher education should reach 40%

•One third of the world’s poorest people live in India

•The total damage from the “black market” of tobacco products in the EU amounted to 12.5 billion euros in 2012

•Unemployment in Greece sets new record

•Only 13% of Latvia’s unemployed have higher education

•Latvian president calls to resolve the issue of non-citizens

•Lithuanian Seimas to consider a referendum on dual citizenship

•Mark Zuckerberg decides to improve U.S. immigration policy

•The number of Syrian refugees reaches 1.3 million

•Nearly 60% of Latvians support the teaching of the Russian language in school

•The President of Lithuania is against simplified Lithuanian language exam for national minorities

•Does circumcision lower the risk of contracting AIDS?

•In China, the number of bird flu cases rose to 87 within a single day

•The number of industrial accidents in Estonia has increased by 11% over the year

•Singapore faces violent epidemic of dengue fever

•Newly published list of world’s healthiest countries

•China becomes leader in the number of death sentences

•Romanians consider their main enemies to be Russia, Hungary and Ukraine

•French Senate allows same-sex couples to adopt children

The newspapers write about….

•“Vedomosti” on the anti-alcohol cause of fertility growth at the end of the 1980s

•“Profil” on enclaves of trouble in Moscow

•“Kommersant” on investing in Moscow real estate

•“Rossiskaya Gazeta” on child benefits for a third child

•“Belarusy i rynok” on fertility in Belarus

•“Obozrevatel.com” and “Korrespondent” on a possible ban on abortion in Ukraine

•“Kommersant” on crimes against minors

•“Nezavisamaya Gazeta” on the cause of the reduction in mortality

•“Izvestiya” on the lack of funds for the prevention of traffic accidents

•“Vedomosti” on different ways of calculating deaths in traffic accidents

•“Izvestiya” on mortality resulting from disasters

•“Novye Izvestiya” on the cost of medical errors

•“The Guardian” on the benefits of the crisis for Cubans’ health

•“South China Morning Post” on the bird flu as an American scheme

•“Slate.fr” on morning smoking and cancer

•“Time” on the age of fathers and the health of their offspring

•“Dengi” on the strange figures of invisible employment

•“Itogi” on pension payments and the closing of small businesses

•“The Guardian” on unstable labor relations in the UK

•“Novye Izvestiya” on the minimum wage and the subsistence minimum

•“Gazeta.ru” on pension reform

•“Gazeta.ru” and “Rossiskaya Biznes-Gazeta” on the shortage of doctors

•“Vedomosti” on migration and the Russian economy

•“Gazeta.ru” and “Vedomosti” on amendments to the law “on rubber apartments”

•“Kommersant” on prosecutorless powers of the Federal Migration Service

•“Vedomosti” on the reason for stopping the Tajik train

•“Novye Izvestiya” on migrants and the Russian language

•“Itogi” on the price of Russian citizenship

•“Belorusskie Novosti” on emigration from Belarus

•“Rossiskaya Gazeta” on child migrant labor

•“Izvestiya” on the VIP-illegal Madonna

•“Opec.ru” on the benefit of the brain drain

•“Novye Izvestiya” on unemployment as a motor for emigration from Spain

•“Liter.kz” on migration reform in the USA

•“Ogonyok” on xenophobia and social disintegration

•“Moskovskie Novosti” on the faces of identity

•“Novye Izvestiya” on race issues in South Africa

•“Novosti Uzbekistana” on a possible conflict in Burma and Bangladesh

Recent publications

•Cities of Russia. A geographer’s view

•Russians and Chinese in a time of change: a comparative study of St. Petersburg and Shanghai at the start of the 21^st century

•Ethical aspects of international health research. A collection of case studies

•Socio-demographic problems of the population in Russian literature in the second half of the 19^th and beginning of the 20^th centuries

•Human capital as a factor of economic growth in the regions of Russia

•Through the pages of the magazines “Regionalnye Issledovaniya” (“Regional Studies”) and “SPERO”

•Content of the “Journal of Marriage and Family”

Profession: researcher

Don’t put scientists in prison: we don’t have so many of them!

•A letter in support of M.V. Savva

•A chronicle of events

Congratulations on the anniversary of Georgy Mikhailovich Lappo

•A fan of cities

•From 80 to 90

•G.M. Lappo. My cities

From the archive folders

What urbanists argued about in the 80s

•On some erroneous concepts in urban studies. An article by three authors

•Are these concepts really wrong?

Satirical column

•Mortality of adolescents in hectopascals

Students’ page

•On the Master’s Program in Demography

•Quota places for foreign students at the HSE

•“The science of alcology with Russian illustrations”. A meeting of the student researchers group for “A demographic analysis of mortality”

•“The activities of the World Bank in the area of migration and international development”. A joint meeting of the Laboratory of Socio-demographic Policy of HSE and the student society “Demographer”.