Armenia’s population ‘will hit 5 million by 2050,’ prime minister says in Artsakh

The Armenian Government’s long-term strategy envisages consistent steps towards increasing the country's population to 5 million by 2050, Nikol Pashinyan said in Nagorno-Karabakh (Artsakh).

The prime minister made the statement in capital Stepanakert, as he addressed the big crowd of people attending the opening of the Seventh Pan-Armenian Games.

Ethno-sociologist Mihran Galstyan attributes the kind of positivism, reflected in the premier's remark, to several contributing factors includig an increase in the general birth rate, creation of socio-economic conditions, an active engagement of the diaspora and different ethnic communities, etc. “It is, by virtue, difficult to predict to what extent all this will be realized. An important moment to consider is that positive scenarios go side by side with negative ones,” he told Tert.am on Tuesday, considering the predicted figure an exaggeration.

Galstyan cited professional estimates forecasting an increased mortality against declining births. “An average family in Armenia today is inclined to have one child but to invest everything possible in that child alone,” he said, describing the change in the set of values as a major influencing factor.

An executive representative of the UN Population Fund, Tsovinar Harutyunyan, described the 5 million ceiling as just a guideline, expression of a will, a vision or a desire rather than an “estimate relying on serious forecasts”. Speaking to Tert.am, she cited the United Nations’ World Population Prospects 2019 report which, she said hints chances of a slight growth – to up to  2.977 million. “But we will then record a population decline to 2.816 million by 2050. Notably, this is just a forecast. The UN estimates rely on the developments in the previous five years, on-site observations and the situation in other countries undergoing similar processes. All that is later projected on the future. This vision, which the Government presents to us, is not based on the future; it is a kind of guideline as to the trends adopted,” she noted.

Harutyunyan added that a comparison between the 2017 and 2019 UN forecasts reveals a certain positive dynamics. “The population declines to a lesser extent compared to the 2017 figures, with the birth-rate co-efficient improving significantly and the selective abortions reaching an acceptable norm. The projection of the changes, made in the past couple of years, offers us better opportunities for positive forecasts than did the 2017 records,” she said.