Moscow, 16 March, ITAR-TASS correspondent Natalya Yezhova: Russia is in 134th place in male life expectancy and in 100th place in female life expectancy, Russian First Deputy Minister of Labour and Social Development Galina Karelova [см. о ней ещё] told the seminar "Problems 2003: demographic crisis and ways of overcoming it" at the Centre for Strategic Studies.

According to Karelova, in 2000 an increase in the mortality rate was registered in 78 regions in Russia. It was particularly noticeable in Nenets, Taymyr and Khanty-Mansi Autonomous Areas and in Kaliningrad and Tyumen Regions. The highest mortality rate is in the northwest of the European part of Russia and in the south of East Siberia.

Galina Karelova said that men account for about 80 per cent of deaths among the working-age population. The level of the male mortality is four times higher than the female one. In developed countries the male mortality among the working-age population is 2-4 times lower than in Russia.

According to specialists, if the rate of mortality among the working-age population remains at this level in Russia, only 58 per cent of men among those who are now 16 will live until the age of 60. By 2016 one in four Russian citizens will be a pensioner and the number of those entering the working age will be halved.

According to the participants in the seminar, the main aims of the demographic policy are to create macroconditions for improving the health of the population and increasing life expectancy, to stabilize birth rate indicators and reduce the early death rate.