Fertility and life expectancy in Armenia

By Alexander Pracht

Armenia’s overall birth-rate trends are broadly in line with those of neighboring countries, but recent data highlight a continuing decline in fertility. According to the United Nations Population Fund estimate for this year, the rate stands at around 1.7 children per woman, well below the replacement level of 2 and far from the minimum of 2.1 needed for sustained population growth.

This contrasts sharply with Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan’s long-standing goal to increase the country’s population to 5 million by 2050, first voiced in 2019. While the target was widely seen as unrealistic from the outset, given that it envisioned almost doubling the population within just one generation, Armenia has been moving even further away.

Moreover, emigration continues to weigh heavily on Armenia’s demographic outlook. Estimates suggest that the country has lost up to one million residents since independence, driven by the humanitarian crisis of the early 1990s and the prolonged economic difficulties related to unemployment and the First Karabakh War. Most of those leaving are young people, and their departure has a clear impact on the country’s demography: the population ages faster, the birth rate falls, so the permanent population keeps shrinking.

Although the recent influx of Russians, Ukrainians, Karabakh refugees, and labor migrants, particularly from India, has contributed to short-term population growth, fertility, which had briefly risen following the introduction of state financial incentives for parents in 2020, is declining again.

How emigration distorts Armenia’s birth rate

Armenia’s fertility indicators can vary depending on how the population is counted, Alexey Raksha, a Russian demographer, told the local outlet News.am in an interview last month.

He noted the distinction between the official permanent population and the de facto population physically present in the country at a given time. According to him, Armenia lists 2.9 million permanent residents, while only about 2.6 million people actually live in the country.

“That’s a difference of 300,000,” Raksha said. “These people are not in Armenia, but they are still on the books. Many of them are young women. If they give birth abroad, are those children registered in Armenia, and how quickly?”

This discrepancy raises the question of which population figure should be used when calculating fertility. If the official 2.9 million is used, the total fertility rate appears to be around 1.6 children per woman. But if the smaller 2.6 million figure is used, the rate could be closer to 1.8.

“Some may think that 0.2 does not seem like much,” Raksha said. “But for a demographer, it’s nearly half the distance to replacement level. Put simply, if your fertility rate is 1.6, the population shrinks almost twice as fast as it does at 1.8.”

How does Armenia compare to neighboring countries?

Armenia’s fertility patterns closely mirror those of its neighbors. Azerbaijan’s rate also stands at 1.7 children per woman. Georgia is only slightly higher at around 1.8, while Iran records the same 1.7 as Armenia. Even Turkey, long perceived as more demographically dynamic, now reports a fertility rate of roughly 1.6.

Raksha characterized Armenia’s demographic situation as broadly typical for a post-Soviet country. He said that for a long time, the country’s fertility rate was slightly above the Soviet average, then fell briefly below it, and today Armenia’s birth rate is roughly average among the former Soviet republics. 

Is raising the fertility rate a necessity?

Whenever a country’s birth rate falls below the replacement level of 2.0 children per woman, there is always a rationale for trying to raise it, especially if the country does not receive significant immigration. UN reports cite the need to address population ageing as it places growing pressure on a country’s pension system and increases spending on healthcare and social programs for older adults. As the share of retirees grows and the working-age population shrinks, governments face rising fiscal burdens.

Ageing populations also slow innovation and weaken long-term economic growth, as fewer young workers enter the labor market and overall productivity gains diminish.

“When your government introduced cash support for families having a third child, your birth rate went up,” Alexey Raksha said. “I’ve often cited Armenia as a good example of how introducing allowances helps lift fertility.”

He noted, however, that the government should not consider its initial progress sufficient and urged officials to explore options for additional financial support, including substantial one-time payments. In Raksha’s view, these policies should be treated as a priority because few other rapid solutions exist.

Expanding the number of nurseries and kindergartens to make childcare more accessible and affordable is also vital.

“Providing widely available, accessible, and high-quality childcare which starts immediately after parental leave finishes and whose opening hours are aligned with parents’ working hours is indispensable to sustaining higher fertility rates,” the UN Population Fund stressed in its 2019 report.

“Properly designed incentives, such as discounts on mortgages, subsidies, or even tax exemptions can be effective for the middle class,” Raksha said. “And direct one-time payments mostly benefit lower-income families, but they are the foundation of any pro-natalist policy, because only these measures have been proven to work in the 21st century.”

Banning abortions does not increase the birth rate, Raksha explained, neither does encouraging younger women to have children. 

“Incentives aimed at first births also don’t work, and making divorce more difficult or restricting it altogether doesn’t raise fertility, it may even lower it. Propaganda or any kind of prohibition doesn’t boost birth rates either, including anti-LGBT measures,” the demographer said.

Armenia’s life expectancy

Armenia's average life expectancy has reached 78.6 years in 2024, according to the country’s National Statistical Committee, with women living up to 81.7 years.

“Life expectancy in Armenia was probably either the highest or among the top two or three of all Soviet republics,” Raksha noted, adding that even today, Armenians tend to live longer than people in nearly all other former Soviet states, with the exception of the Baltic countries.

According to the World Health Organization’s 2024 report, Armenia’s annual spirits consumption is about 5.0 liters of pure alcohol per capita, which is slightly below the global average of 5.5 liters and almost twice as low as the European average of 9.2 liters.

However, smoking remains widespread. Nearly half of Armenian men, 49.3%, are smokers. Perhaps this is why the gap in life expectancy between men and women is now much larger than it was in the 1960s, Raksha suggested.

“Around the late 1950s and early 1960s, the difference was less than four years, similar to current figures in Europe. This means that over the past 60-plus years, women have accumulated more progress in life expectancy than men,” he added.

“So it comes down to lifestyle, diet, smoking, alcohol consumption, risky behavior, and so on. As far as I know, women’s life expectancy in Armenia has now approached 82 years. That’s a very good level, even by European standards, almost the European average,” he concluded.