2017 Issue №3

The Kaliningrad region has a sub-replacement fertility rate (with a total fertility rate of about 1.8) and a slightly negative rate of natural increase. With a net migration of up to 10,000 people per year (Russian regions account for 37 % of this figure), the population of the region is increasing and the workforce number is stable. Population change and age-sex structure forecasts strongly rely on the estimates of prospective net migration and a rate of natural increase. Accompanied by a decreasing age-specific mortality rate and growing life expectancy, the current age-specific fertility rate and net migration ensure a stable workforce number and a positive rate of natural increase, against the background of an increasing dependency ratio. The article considers possible measures to increase the birth rate, to reduce the morality rate, and to regulate migration processes.

In each historical period, regional models of agricultural practices are affected by a combination of natural, political, and economic factors. Such models incorporate indicators of changes in the cultivated land area, land structure, and the intensity of agricultural practices. At early stages, the evolution of a model is affected by natural conditions. Later, political (wars, revolutions, changes in national borders) and economic factors (economic crises, changes in the overall economic situation, and shifts in the structure of the economy) come to the fore. The time series of statistical data from 1890—1900 to 2015—2016 and the major events in the region’s history were juxtaposed and compared to identify the key stages in the formation of regional models of agricultural nature management in the Baltics and the Kaliningrad region. A comprehensive historical and geographical analysis helped to reconstruct balances for each landmark in the evolution of agricultural nature management in the Baltics and the Kaliningrad region. Several models existed in the region over the time – those of production curtailment in the war and post-war years and in the period following the collapse of the USSR and those of booming agriculture observed in 1913—1914, 1975—1980, and the past decade.