Below is an excerpt from a new Demography Unplugged research note written by Hedgeye Demography analyst Neil Howe. Click here to learn more and subscribe.

(Here's Why) Russian Booze Consumption Has Fallen 50% - zvod

  • Between 2008 and 2018, alcohol consumption per capita in Russia fell by half. Under Putin, the country has worked hard to shed its heavy-drinking reputation, which has coincided with a rise in life expectancy to an all-time high. (Financial Times)

Neil Howe: Who can forget the moment, back in the early Clinton years, when drunk Russian president Boris Yeltsin, visiting Washington, DC, stumbled out onto Pennsylvania Avenue and passed out in his underwear? Over the decades Russia has acquired the image of a nation of alcoholics, addicted to vodka and (when that wasn't available) to antifreeze.

At last, that image may be changing. According to the WHO, per-capita alcohol consumption in Russia dropped from 18 liters in 2008 to 9 liters in 2018. This dramatic 50% decline is no accident. It's the result of a deliberate government campaign. New laws have prohibited alcohol sales after 11 pm, changed the drinking age to 21, added higher taxes on booze, and banned alcohol sales at sporting events.

Russians on average are still drinking 9 liters of pure alcohol a year, which is significantly higher than the world average of 6.4 liters a year. But this average hides a steep generational decline. While older Russians continue to be (relatively) hard drinkers, Russian Millennials today actually consume alcohol at lower rates than Western European Millennials.

Spearheading the campaign is President Vladimir Putin himself. During his leadership years, Putin has crusaded to clean up the image of the unhealthy Russian and ditch the dissipated lifestyle popularized by Yeltsin during the chaotic early post-Soviet years. He has had similar success in hugely reducing smoking in Russia. See “What in the World Are Millennials Smoking” and “How (and Where) to Bet on Big Tobacco."

As a result, the age-adjusted mortality rate is falling (that is, life expectancy is rising) at the same time that fertility rates are rising. Russia's population is still shrinking (see "Russia's Demographics are Anomalous" and "Russia Enters Negative Population Growth Territory"), but it is no longer gripped in the demographic death spiral that it seemed to have entered in the 1990s. If these behavioral improvements in mortality and fertility can be sustained, Russia may yet have a demographic future.

(Here's Why) Russian Booze Consumption Has Fallen 50% - 1 22 2020 8 59 04 AM

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ABOUT NEIL HOWE

Neil Howe is a renowned authority on generations and social change in America. An acclaimed bestselling author and speaker, he is the nation's leading thinker on today's generations—who they are, what motivates them, and how they will shape America's future.

A historian, economist, and demographer, Howe is also a recognized authority on global aging, long-term fiscal policy, and migration. He is a senior associate to the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) in Washington, D.C., where he helps direct the CSIS Global Aging Initiative.

Howe has written over a dozen books on generations, demographic change, and fiscal policy, many of them with William Strauss. Howe and Strauss' first book, Generations is a history of America told as a sequence of generational biographies. Vice President Al Gore called it "the most stimulating book on American history that I have ever read" and sent a copy to every member of Congress. Newt Gingrich called it "an intellectual tour de force." Of their book, The Fourth Turning, The Boston Globe wrote, "If Howe and Strauss are right, they will take their place among the great American prophets."

Howe and Strauss originally coined the term "Millennial Generation" in 1991, and wrote the pioneering book on this generation, Millennials Rising. His work has been featured frequently in the media, including USA Today, CNN, the New York Times, and CBS' 60 Minutes.

Previously, with Peter G. Peterson, Howe co-authored On Borrowed Time, a pioneering call for budgetary reform and The Graying of the Great Powers with Richard Jackson.

Howe received his B.A. at U.C. Berkeley and later earned graduate degrees in economics and history from Yale University.