- Brain drain because of emigration of young Russians looking for unemployment overseas.
- Fall in birth rates as Russia’s population has declined steadily since 1995.
- Decline in government revenue resulted in cuts in welfare provision. There was no longer free health care that occurred during the communism rule of the USSR.
- Fall in male expectancy as 50% of working aged men die from alcoholic related illnesses. They have a weak, working population.
- They had the highest AIDS endemic in Europe.
- More freedom and relaxed controls and glasnost as well as perestroika selling privately and political freedom.
- Freedoms lead to alcoholism and drug use causing fall in life expectancy to 59.
Environmental
- Contaminated land and polluted rivers following rapid industrialisation.
- Russia had to ‘clean up’ to quality for loans from the IMF.
Economic
- 80% decline in investment in Russia’s economy and old factories grind to a halt and production fall by 50%.
- Mass unemployment with limited trade, private investment and personal wealth.