On the issue of fertility research in the USSR in the 1960s–1980s

The article examines the formation and development of the main areas of research on the birth rate of the population in the Soviet Union in the specified time frame. To this end, the historical continuity of this process and the problems that were posed at its various stages are shown. The formation of new approaches and methods for studying fertility is shown. The article analyzes the change in theoretical approaches, including the reasons for the transition from the socialist law of population to the methodology of demographic transition. Starting from the 1930s and up to the end of the 1950s, a detailed study of demographic issues was not welcomed by the state authorities for domestic political reasons. Research on demographic problems intensified only after the All-Union Census of 1959. The first works related to the period under consideration appeared already in the 1960s. The research was carried out in the context of the socialist population law, according to which the birth rate in socialist countries should have been higher than in capitalist ones. In subsequent years, the nature of the development of demographic processes in the USSR called this to question. By the end of the 1960s, the study of fertility began to move more into the practical plane, and some scientists began to avoid theoretical issues. In the 1970s, the number of publications increased significantly. In this decade, works were published that left a deep mark on the history of the study of the problem. The monograph of A. G. Vishnevsky played an important role in the development of the theory of fertility research. The non-formational interpretation of the history of demographic processes was a big step forward in the Soviet demographic science. In the 1980s, work on the study of fertility was continued, although the intensity of research decreased somewhat. So, a large number of papers were published on fertility of the population in the period under review. Demographers were able to identify the key trends in fertility, but the lengthy discussions of the supporters of formational approach and demographic modernization in Soviet times affected the conceptual understanding of the processes that took place.

historiography, demography, fertility, socialist law of population, the Soviet Union