Hundreds of thousands of Ukrainians of reproductive age have been killed and wounded on the frontline, and thousands, including children, have been deported from the occupied territories. The birth rate has fallen due to the uncertainties of wartime, and the death rate is growing.
In 2024, Ukraine became the country with the lowest birth rate and the highest death rate in the world. In 1992, the population of Ukraine was around 53 million people; by 2021, it had dropped to 42 million, and in 2023 it was only around 37 million (with only 31.5 million living in territory controlled by Kyiv.)
The forecasts are grim. The UN long-term population forecast predicts the population of Ukraine will be around 15 million by 2100, and the Ukrainian Institute of Demography predicts it will fall to about 30 million by 2037.
Since 2013, the birth rate in Ukraine has been dropping, but it almost halved after 2022. Aby Shukyurov, a demographic researcher at the École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales (EHESS) in Paris, says during wars, there are “postponed” births among people who wait until the situation is more stable. These births will happen after the war, improving the situation, he said, as happened in many countries after World War II.
But, while the number of children born per woman of fertile age might naturally grow after the end of the war — from the current 0.6 to the pre-war 1.2 — this won’t be enough, he said. It would be a standard rate for a European country, but short of what is needed to increase Ukraine’s population.
In 2024, Ukraine’s Ministry of Social Policy adopted a strategy to overcome the crisis over the next 15 years. The proposals published so far are vague and contain generalizations that do not apply to a country in the midst of war and economic crises, Shukyurov said.
To increase the number of births, families should be sure they will be supported financially and socially through long-term social policy and programs, Shukyurov said. Efficient programs that could be used as a blueprint include “maternity capital,” which offers cash payments to women who have two or more children, or a French policy that entitles larger families to extra state allowances.
But it’s not only the birth rate that concerns the Ukrainian government. While it’s inevitable that the death rate has soared during the war, the country had the fourth-highest number of deaths per thousand in the world even before the full-scale invasion.
To meet the needs of hundreds of thousands of veterans with physical and psychological trauma, the healthcare system also needs to be reformed and improved to avoid post-war deaths connected to the conflict. Shukyurov argues the focus on preventing deaths is as critical as increasing births to avoid a further decline in population.
Emigration is another factor deepening the crisis. The longer the war goes on, the more Ukrainians establish lives abroad and lose the desire to return. Currently, more than 7 million people have left (including 6 million in Europe), and the number wanting to return has plunged. In 2022, around 74% expressed a desire to return after the war, but by 2024, it was just 53%.
In Bosnia and Herzegovina, 56% of the population still lives outside the country after fleeing the wars of the 1990s. Ukraine seems at risk of a similar fate.
Internally displaced people, who number 3.7 million, are not getting enough support and live in poverty, forcing many to return to the occupied territories, the Kyiv Independent reported.
Encouraging participation in “repatriation” programs, which offer financial enticements worked well in Germany (where ethnic Germans in countries like Russia were encouraged to migrate.) Croatia has established a new Ministry of Demography and Immigration. Another approach is the use of coercion — many Ukrainians are now denied consular access abroad and must return home to update documents. Most men would then be barred from leaving.
To rebuild the country and its economy, Ukraine will need people. Shukyurov suggests the development of repatriation programs to encourage returners and says Ukraine should be ready to accept migrants from other countries to bolster the population because without workers it will be extremely hard to rebuild a shattered country.
Action will be needed to encourage and welcome that, as well as financial inducements for citizens to return, and long-term programs to increase birth rates and cut death rates. And Kyiv will need to persevere, even if the programs don’t deliver an immediate effect.
The demographic crisis cannot be overcome in a year or five years, but will require long-term investment and the ability to adjust.
Mykyta Vorobiov is a Ukrainian political adviser, journalist, and political science student at Bard College Berlin. For the last two years, he has been developing articles on politics and law for CEPA, VoxEurop, JURIST, and others.
Europe’s Edge is CEPA’s online journal covering critical topics on the foreign policy docket across Europe and North America. All opinions expressed on Europe’s Edge are those of the author alone and may not represent those of the institutions they represent or the Center for European Policy Analysis. CEPA maintains a strict intellectual independence policy across all its projects and publications.
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