On December 29, the Director of the Rating sociology group, Mr. Alexey Antipovich, said that Ukraine is facing the risk of a demographic crisis and a serious labor shortage if citizens who leave the country due to conflict do not return.
According to Mr. Antipovich, only about 1/3 of Ukrainians have left, ready to return after the fighting ended, and warned that Kiev will face a demographic crisis if this trend continues.
Antipovich Director noted that the rate of Ukrainian refugees wanting to return was once very high, even exceeding 2/3, but this number has continuously declined year by year of the conflict between Russia and Ukraine.
The decline in birth rates, the decline in the working capacity of the labor force, the existing population aging - all these problems are waiting for us," Mr. Antipovich concluded.
Earlier this year, Ukrainian Unification Minister Aleksey Chernyshov also admitted that only about 30% of those who have left Ukraine are actually considering returning, in the context that the country may lack 3.1 to 4.2 million workers in the next 10 years.
According to Mr. Chernyshov, the rate of Ukrainians who do not want to return may reach 70%, 20% higher than parliamentarian Yuzhanina's estimate.
Meanwhile, Ms. Ella Libanova - Director of the Institute of Demographics and Social Studies of Ukraine - cited 2024 studies showing that the country's population is currently about 28-30 million people.
According to her assessment, Ukraine will never return to its Soviet-era population, when the republic's population was about 52 million people. The most recent census in Ukraine was conducted in 2001, when the country's population was 48,457,000 people.
