Real population size in Armenia and Azerbaijan

The distrust to official statistics has remained since the Soviet times, when statistics, deprived of any civilian control, faithfully served the communist regime, praising its achievements. Public distrust of Soviet statistics was fully justified when the USSR collapsed, although official statistics spoke about the successful development of the country in all areas. Exactly the same attitude to the official statistics is observed today, especially in those former Soviet republics, where official statistics, deprived of civilian control, continue to serve the ruling regimes.

For example, the public sphere of the post-Soviet republics was surprised by reports that the real population size in the Russian Federation is not one hundred forty-two, but only ninety million people.

"According to the data of the Central Analytical Center of the Russian Federation, in the civil registry office for June 1, 2010, according to the documents, 89,654,325 people (Russian citizens) were living). Every quarter, the government records the reports of the Central Analytical Center, but the published numbers are quite different." If this statement is true, then it turns out that the Russian government (like the USSR in the past) is falsifying census data.

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Following this statement, some experts in the field of demography attempted to indirectly determine the real number of the population of Russia, and it turned out that the figure of 90 million people has a basis.

The overestimation of the number of citizens in the Russian Federation by the government of the Russian Federation urged us to closely scrutinize reports on the population of other post-Soviet republics. Azerbaijan, in particular, from a strategic point of view, is interested in the population of Armenia, and the Azerbaijani society is also interested in the population of Azerbaijan itself.

Armenian population

The country's population is one of the most important socio-economic indicators. Since the state economic policy is formed on the basis of this indicator, a budget is drawn up and much more. The official resident population of Armenia, according to current records, based on the 2011 population census, for January 1, 2018, was 2,972,900 people. Compared to the same period of 2017, this indicator decreased by 13.2 thousand people.

The decline occurred for the following reasons:

- excess of the negative migration balance (23.5 thousand people) over the natural population growth (10.3 thousand people). Although over the past 3 years, the negative migration balance has decreased from 25.9 to 23.5 thousand people.

- natural growth decreased from 13.9 to 10.3 thousand for two reasons:

a) the number of children born in 2017 decreased by 7.1% or by 2.89 thousand to 37 699;

b) the number of deaths over the reporting period increased by 3%, reaching 27,367.

In other words, in Armenia now all factors of population decline are observed.

But let us try to calculate the population size of Armenia by means of indirect counting

1. One of the indicators that allow to compare the actual population size is the voter lists. The voter list includes the entire population of the country over 18 and not deprived of such a right in accordance with the law. To our surprise, in Armenia this figure is even higher than the data of the State Statistics Committee. According to the data of the Central Election Commission of the country (CEC), before the last parliamentary elections, there are currently 2,592,479 electors in Armenia. Imagine that the population under 18 years old is only about 380 thousand meters - quite difficult. On average, the proportion of the population under 15 years of age is 20-27%. Even according to official data, there are about 600-700 thousand.

2. One of the traditional methods of indirect counting of the population is the consumption of bread. Over the past four years, the consumption of bread in Armenia decreased by 7.2%. However, according to official data, in 2014 the population of the country was 3,013,800 people, that is, it decreased by only 1.3%. In other words, the consumption of bread indicates that the population has declined slightly more than official statistics say. The total bread consumption amounted to 271.3 thousand tons, which is by 2.5% less than the corresponding figure in 2016. And according to the calculations (300 grams per day), it turns out that the population of Armenia in 2017 was 2477,625 people.

We can also compare the population of Armenia and Azerbaijan in terms of water consumption. In Azerbaijan, the population in 2017 consumed 19,5009.4 thousand cubic meters, while in Armenia it is 80225.6 thousand cubic meters of water. So if:

the population of Azerbaijan is 6.8-7 million people (see below)

then the population of Armenia is 2.5 million people.

Population of Azerbaijan

Let"s consider the data on the country's population from the State Statistics Committee of Azerbaijan (census made in 2009.) During this census, none of the census takers came to me and another fifty of my friends. Probably, lists of housing and communal services were simply copied to the census forms. In these lists there are a lot of dead people or people who have not lived for a long time at the old address, or left the country altogether. But the census should record the number of people actually living, and not registered at a specific address.

Now let"s compare the data of the CEC and the State Statistics Committee. Thus, according to data published by the CEC before the last election (April 2018), the total number of electors in the country is 5,192,063 people. True, on election day, the CEC announced that there were 5314365 voters. In other words, according to the CEC, this is the number of persons entitled to vote- i.e. the people over 18 years old. Also, persons who are recognized by the court as incapable cannot be elected. But it is doubtful that there were so many of them in the country. So, it is much easier to define this figure as the cumulative number of persons over 18 living in the country. But according to State Statistics Committee, the number of persons over 19 years old (State Statistical Committee indicates only age groups over 19 years old) is 7,663,900 people in the country. The difference is 2,471,837 people (or 2349535 compared with election day). It is doubtful that this was the number of incapable persons. Even the courts do not take so many decisions. In this regard, there is a need to determine the population size by indirect methods.

Indirect methods are mostly related to various economic indicators. We decided to use only a few of them, for which we have certain and accurate indicators. One of the first indicators is the number of subscribers. Every citizen of Azerbaijan has access to electricity, water, and partially to gas. Gradually, gasification also reaches its maximum. Therefore, by comparing the number of subscribers (one subscriber is one apartment or house), and multiplying this index by the average number of persons in one household (4.11 according to the State Statistics Committee), it is possible to roughly determine the population of a country.

We think that it would be more effective to start with electricity. Thus, the water can be received not only from the main water pipelines, but there are only a few electricity producers in our country (Azerenergy, Azalctivnergy) and its distribution goes through single networks. On Azerishig website, we have data for all capacities (number of consumers, etc.), so we can easily determine the total number of subscribers (and specifically the population, and not legal entities (with the exception of the Samukh region, for unknown reason there is no data). According to their data, the total number of subscribers among the "population" group is 2,128,579. Azersu OJSC (water operator) provides services to 1,377,702 subscribers among the "population" group. Azerigaz PE also provides gas 2 171 369 apartments.

To compare their data, we can simply check them at specific regions. So, for example, in Baku Azerigaz, Azerishig and Azersu have approximately the same number of subscribers. So, the first one has 799,220 (enterprises are included), the second one has 788,067, and the third one has 765,948 pumping stations. But you have to understand that all the plots and houses are connected to electricity - and some residents of the capital have at least one more house or a house in the village, or even in districts. In fact, they account for two or more subscribers.

Taking into account that at least 11.3% of the population at the end of 2017 did not have access to a single water supply system, the approximate number of unique subscribers at the beginning of 2018 can be estimated at 1,553,215, approximately 1.6-1.7 million subscribers Taking into account that the average size of one Azerbaijani family is 4.11 people, then we have 6.576-6.987 million people.

Population size in the city of Baku

One of the problematic issues in our demography is the population of Baku. So, judging by the ratio of the population in terms of natural gas consumption, it turns out that 58.39% of Azerbaijan"s population lives in Baku. Since a daily consumption in Baku is 15.3 million cubic meters of the country"s total gas consumption of 26.2 million (in this case, we take into account only the category of the population). And if we add to this the fact that in Baku, nevertheless, gradually passes to electricity consumption, and the total share of gas consumption falls, but in the regions, on the contrary increases (due to natural factors), then the population of Baku is an even larger percentage (at least 60% - 70% of the total population).

But judging by the official data on the number of Azerigaz subscribers, in Baku consumption totals 38.22% of the population of Azerbaijan (799,220 out of 2,171,369 subscribers), which makes 3.2 million people.

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Let"s try to analyze the population with the help of bread and flour consumed in the country. For example, L. Shesler analyzed data on bread in Ukraine, and came to the conclusion that the average Ukrainian consumes 26 kg of bread per person per year, and in this case, the population of Ukraine will be only 24-25 million people, not 46 million as indicated in the official data.

This method has many disadvantages. For example, in more developed countries, bread consumption is much less. On the other hand, the consumption of bread also depends on the availability of substitutes (in our case, pita bread). In our case, we can rely on the data of the Cabinet of Ministers of the country. Thus, according to the minimum consumer basket, the minimum consumption of bread in the country should be as follows:

In accordance with these figures, we can calculate the minimum required flour consumption in the country. The number of children under 15 years old in our country at the beginning of 2018 is 2 234 200 people. Pensioners 1,318,400, and therefore able-bodied at the beginning of 2018, should be 6,345,500 people. The minimum amount of flour required to provide such a population should be as follows:

224537100 + 868064400 + 142255360 = 1234856860 kg, or 1234856.86 tons of flour.

Grain in our country is both imported and produced domestically. According to the State Statistics Committee, the production of flour in 2017 amounted to 1,601,288.4 tons. Naturally, not all flour was used to produce bread and bread products. 1222800 tons were produced directly, but 770400 tons were sent to retail; or an average of 1.5 billion loaves; 77 kg of bread per year per person. This is less than the average rate of 300 grams per person per day, especially taking into account the love of Azerbaijanis for bread, tandir, etc. Therefore, if we count 300 grams of bread per person per day, then we will have about 7 million people. In principle, this figure coincides with the indicator for subscribers of utility companies. However, again, it should be understood that the consumption of bread and bakery products per person can be much higher - due to the popularity of pasta among people, various confectionery products, etc.

To determine the real population size of Azerbaijan, one can also use indirect data on demography. So, at the birth of a child, the family receives a one-time allowance. Until March 1, 2018, the amount of this allowance was 99 manat. Also at birth, each child receives an individual identification number. According to the benefits indices, 100,261people received it in 2015, in 2016 - 99,228, and in 2017 - 84881 people.

Note that as soon as the identification number was applied, the birth in the country began to fall. In 2015, 166210 were issued the identification, in 2016 - 159464, and in 2017 - 144041. According to the data for December 2018, 130000 thousand identification numbers were issued.

These data indicate that, apparently, in the earlier period, the fertility data was either overestimated, or incorrect records were kept. Since birth rate reduction is very rare at this kind of pace.

So, our indirect calculations suggest that:

the real population of Azerbaijan is a maximum of about 7 million people;

the real population of Armenia is no more than 2.5 million people;

the real population of Baku is 3.2 million.