Abortion in Russia

This page gives information of type abortion about the country Russia.
See all pages giving information on abortion for particular countries|See all pages giving information about Russia

Data sources

Abortion data is obtained from Johnston's archive, which in turn relies on a variety of sources. Data is not of high reliability.

Fertility data referenced on this page is drawn from the Human Fertility Database, which is of high reliability. The UN data and the HFD data correlate highly, even though the former is slightly less accurate, so the inconsistency in data sources should not affect broad conclusions. For more detailed fertility data, see the fertility in Russia page.

Qualitative history of relevant events

See Wikipedia:Abortion in Russia.

Year	Event	Postulated effects seen in abortion statistics
1920	Abortion was made legal by the Bolshevik government as part of their "Decree on Women's Healthcare" -- it was seen as a temporary necessity given that many women were not financially prepared to have kids because of the devastation caused by the war.	No data available
1936	Abortion was made illegal because the leader, Joseph Stalin, wanted a larger population for greater national power. The law was unpopular.	No data available
1955	Abortion was made legal again, shortly following Stalin's death in 1953.	No data available
1993	Legal restrictions on sterilization were removed	Decline in the abortion ratio from 1993 to 1994 -- the abortion ratio was quite high in 1992-1993 relative to what it was both earlier and later, suggesting that sterilization might have prevented further rise in the abortion ratio (note that the abortion rate was declining anyway, because the number of pregnancies overall was declining).
2011	Legal abortion was restricted to the first 12 weeks after pregnancy, with exception for abortion in the case of rape (22 weeks) and in case of medical necessity (any time prior to birth)	No data available (too recent)

Abortion ratio and abortion rate

Year	Abortion ratio	Abortion ratio minus previous year's abortion ratio	Abortion rate	Abortion rate minus previous year's abortion rate
1957	1216.9
1958	1382.2	165.3
1959	1492.8	110.6	165
1960	1571.7	78.9	109.8	-55.2
1961	1787.7	216	118.2	8.4
1962	1983.9	196.2	124.6	6.4
1963	2202.1	218.2	130.7	6.1
1964	2533.6	331.5	137.3	6.6
1965	2744.7	211.1	139.4	2.1
1966	2718.7	-26	135	-4.4
1967	2703.9	-14.8	125.4	-9.6
1968	2682.6	-21.3	120.8	-4.6
1969	2571.5	-111.1	116.4	-4.4
1970	2541.2	-30.3	136.6	20.2
1971	2450.4	-90.8	114.9	-21.7
1972	2365.6	-84.8	112.3	-2.6
1973	2379.9	14.3	111.4	-0.9
1974	2247.3	-132.6	109.6	-1.8
1975	2217.7	-29.6	129.4	19.8
1976	2216	-1.7	111.5	-17.9
1977	2172.8	-43.2	110.1	-1.4
1978	2136.8	-36	110	-0.1
1979	2084.2	-52.6	108	-2
1980	2045.7	-38.5	123.1	15.1
1981	1967.6	-78.1	106.1	-17
1982	1917	-50.6	124.3	18.2
1983	1742	-175	104.8	-19.5
1984	1810.2	68.2	124	19.2
1985	1916.7	106.5	121.5	-2.5
1986	1842.1	-74.6	124	2.5
1987	1754.3	-87.8	101.9	-22.1
1988	1962.5	208.2	126.6	24.7
1989	2049.3	86.8	122.7	-3.9
1990	2063.2	13.9	114	-8.7
1991	2090.9	27.7	100.3	-13.7
1992	2204.3	113.4	95	-5.3
1993	2352.4	148.1	88.4	-6.6
1994	2202.2	-150.2	82.4	-6
1995	2058.1	-144.1	73.9	-8.5
1996	2077.3	19.2	69	-4.9
1997	2018.9	-58.4	65	-4
1998	1857.8	-161.1	61	-4
1999	1819.7	-38.1	56.2	-4.8
2000	1714.4	-105.3	55	-1.2
2001	1630.2	-84.2	51.8	-3.2
2002	1409.5	-220.7	48.7	-3.1
2003	1296.2	-113.3	46.6	-2.1
2004	1228.3	-67.9	45.1	-1.5
2005	1223.5	-4.8	43.7	-1.4
2006	1085.5	-138	40.3	-3.4
2007	918.6	-166.9	38	-2.3
2008	808.4	-110.2	36.1	-1.9
2009	733.6	-74.8	34.2	-1.9
2010	663	-70.6	31.9	-2.3
2011	626.1	-36.9
2012	564.8	-61.3

Relation between abortion and fertility

The third and fifth columns (abortion-adjusted birth and fertility measures) are not standard demographic variables but have simply been computed to give a better intuition about the maximum extent to which abortion availability could have directly affected fertility. In particular, note that abortions undertaken in a given year may substitute for a birth next year, so the year-to-year data has some inconsistencies. Also, because detailed age-specific abortion data was not available, the abortion-adjusted TFR does not take into account the age distribution of abortions but simply uses the abortion ratio to adjust the TFR (in the same way as for the CBR), therefore the measure is incorrect.

Year	Crude birth rate (CBR)	Abortion-adjusted crude birth rate (if every abortion had been substituted by a birth)	Total fertility rate (TFR)	Abortion-adjusted TFR (Crude estimate without considering age distribution of mothers undergoing abortions)	Abortion ratio	Abortion rate
1957					1216.9
1958					1382.2
1959	23.61	58.855008	2.583	6.4389024	1492.8	165
1960	23.16	59.560572	2.556	6.5732652	1571.7	109.8
1961	21.86	60.939122	2.458	6.8521666	1787.7	118.2
1962	20.14	60.095746	2.34	6.982326	1983.9	124.6
1963	18.72	59.943312	2.283	7.3103943	2202.1	130.7
1964	16.88	59.647168	2.16	7.632576	2533.6	137.3
1965	15.71	58.829237	2.087	7.8151889	2744.7	139.4
1966	15.34	57.044858	2.098	7.8018326	2718.7	135
1967	14.42	53.410238	2.006	7.4300234	2703.9	125.4
1968	14.07	51.814182	1.97	7.254722	2682.6	120.8
1969	14.24	50.85816	1.984	7.085856	2571.5	116.4
1970	14.61	51.736932	1.995	7.064694	2541.2	136.6
1971	15.08	52.032032	2.024	6.9836096	2450.4	114.9
1972	15.3	51.49368	2.027	6.8220712	2365.6	112.3
1973	15.06	50.901294	1.962	6.6313638	2379.9	111.4
1974	15.61	50.690353	1.995	6.4783635	2247.3	109.6
1975	15.71	50.550067	1.971	6.3420867	2217.7	129.4
1976	15.9	51.1344	1.953	6.280848	2216	111.5
1977	15.86	50.320608	1.918	6.0854304	2172.8	110.1
1978	15.91	49.906488	1.899	5.9567832	2136.8	110
1979	15.81	48.761202	1.865	5.752033	2084.2	108
1980	15.91	48.457087	1.863	5.6741391	2045.7	123.1
1981	16.07	47.689332	1.882	5.5850232	1967.6	106.1
1982	16.63	48.50971	1.956	5.705652	1917	124.3
1983	17.57	48.17694	2.088	5.725296	1742	104.8
1984	16.97	47.689094	2.051	5.7637202	1810.2	124
1985	16.61	48.446387	2.051	5.9821517	1916.7	121.5
1986	17.25	49.026225	2.177	6.1872517	1842.1	124
1987	17.2	47.37396	2.229	6.1393347	1754.3	101.9
1988	16.03	47.488875	2.142	6.345675	1962.5	126.6
1989	14.66	44.702738	2.018	6.1534874	2049.3	122.7
1990	13.44	41.169408	1.894	5.8017008	2063.2	114
1991	12.09	37.368981	1.733	5.3565297	2090.9	100.3
1992	10.69	34.253967	1.549	4.9634607	2204.3	95
1993	9.38	31.445512	1.37	4.592788	2352.4	88.4
1994	9.59	30.709098	1.395	4.467069	2202.2	82.4
1995	9.27	28.348587	1.338	4.0917378	2058.1	73.9
1996	8.88	27.326424	1.271	3.9112483	2077.3	69
1997	8.59	25.932351	1.219	3.6800391	2018.9	65
1998	8.76	25.034328	1.233	3.5236674	1857.8	61
1999	8.32	23.459904	1.158	3.2652126	1819.7	56.2
2000	8.7	23.61528	1.196	3.2464224	1714.4	55
2001	9.05	23.80331	1.224	3.2193648	1630.2	51.8
2002	9.69	23.348055	1.287	3.1010265	1409.5	48.7
2003	10.22	23.467164	1.333	3.0608346	1296.2	46.6
2004	10.45	23.285735	1.341	2.9881503	1228.3	45.1
2005	10.18	22.63523	1.288	2.863868	1223.5	43.7
2006	10.39	21.668345	1.296	2.702808	1085.5	40.3
2007	11.33	21.737738	1.406	2.6975516	918.6	38
2008	12.08	21.845472	1.494	2.7017496	808.4	36.1
2009	12.41	21.513976	1.537	2.6645432	733.6	34.2
2010	12.61	20.97043	1.569	2.609247	663	31.9
2011					626.1
2012					564.8