For the most part, Natalia Metlyuk and Roman Didenko are satisfied with their life – except for one thing: Although they have lived together for four years, they can't afford to raise a child. Therefore, they will keep waiting to start a family.
Metlyuk works as a nurse in one of Kyiv's hospitals for Hr 130 a month. Her husband is a private taxi driver who brings home about Hr 30 a day – when business is good.
'I would like to have children,' Metlyuk admits. 'But my husband and I agreed that we should wait until our economic situation gets better. We have just enough to support ourselves. Besides my mother needs help because her pension is too small and she is alone.'
It is a common plight among couples living in independent Ukraine. With little hope of increasing their family income, people are opting to delay starting families and, in some cases, are choosing not to have children at all.
This phenomenon is reflected in alarming statistics that show a steady plunge in Ukraine's population since 1993. According to the State Statistics Committee, the population has dropped by 2.5 million people in the past seven years. On Jan. 1, the population of Ukraine was 49,710,800 people, compared to about 52 million in 1993.
At the same time, Ukraine is experiencing a decline in life expectancy brought on, in part, by a lower standard of living.
The birth rate is almost half the mortality rate in Ukraine, statistics show.
These factors add up to a potential crisis in the future, demographers say, because as the nation's population gets progressively older, there ultimately will be too few adults working to support too many elderly. And there will be fewer children, generations from now, to reverse the trend. Even if the economy immediately rebounds, it will take generations for the population to follow suit.
A gender analysis study conducted by the United Nations Development Program found that only about 2 percent of couples do not want children, while 23.8 percent of young couples are childless.
In order to maintain steady population growth, Ukrainian couples would need to have an average of 2.5 children, the study said. But that isn't happening, said Valentina Stashenko, a professor at the state Institute for Demography.
'Many families choose to have only one child these days,' Stashenko said. 'It's because of the bad economy, personal depression and disillusionment with their financial situation.'
Ukrainian women of child-bearing age are currently averaging 1.2 children.
Thrown into the soup is the fact that nearly 1 million couples who, according to analysts at the Health Ministry, are unable to have children.
In 10 years, the number of people aged 20 to 24, who are of prime child-bearing age, will be too small to maintain population growth.
The dismal economic situation has contributed not only to a low birth rate, but also to a reduction in average life expectancy, Stashenko said. In 1996 the average life expectancy for men was 67 years and for women 75 years. Just two years later, the life expectancy for men declined by four years to 63.2 years and dipped nearly three years for women to 73.8 years.
On average life expectancy in developed countries is five to seven years longer, the study said.
'We have made a prognosis on the basis of this data for the next 25-26 years,' Stashenko said. By 2025-2026 the population is expected to range from 38 million to 44.5 million.
Those figures mean little to people like Metlyuk who says her life just isn't complete without a child.
'Recently, I have started to watch other people's children with some kind of regret that I do not have any,' Metlyuk said.
Time takes it's toll on people, and soon, if the economic situation is not improved, they will have to decide. 'I am 26 now, and soon giving birth might be a problem for me,' she said. 'So, most likely, if we decide to have children, we will have only one.'
