Population and Sustainable Development Section

Mission: Educational and Research Activities

The activities of the “Population and Sustainable Development” Section at the A.G. Vishnevsky Institute of Demography involve carrying out educational and research projects.

Educational Activities

• Supporting the “Population and Development” Master’s program by delivering new courses on sustainable development;

• Supervising final theses of students in the “Population and Development” Master’s program, as well as students from other programs with an interest in sustainable development;

• Conducting project-based work on sustainable development;

• Preparing students for admission to doctoral programs at leading universities worldwide;

• Conducting masterclasses on “Population and Sustainable Development”;

• Developing continuing professional education courses on sustainable development.

Research Activities

• Preparing publications for leading journals on population and sustainable development;

• Presenting at conferences;

• Participating in research projects;

• Drafting expert assessments on demographic policy and sustainable development;

• Organizing research seminars on population and sustainable development.

How Does a Dagestani Village Avoid Childlessness Despite High Endogamy? New Research by HSE University and SI RAS Demographers

At the IEA RAS conference "The Caucasus in the Research Field: From Origins to Perspectives of Caucasian Studies," researchers Ilya Ermolin (HSE University, Vishnevsky Institute of Demography) and Pavel Suvorkov (Centre for Arctic and Siberian Studies, SI RAS – branch of FNISC RAS) presented a study on a remarkable demographic paradox in rural Dagestan.

Despite a very high proportion of consanguineous marriages (endogamy), the share of childless women who have completed their reproductive period is less than 2%. At the same time, the mean protogenetic interval (time from marriage to first birth) has increased from 3.3 to 5 years across cohorts – a trend usually associated with birth postponement.

The key to the puzzle emerged from qualitative interviews. The authors documented a covert practice of newborn exchange (primarily boys) between cousins. This mechanism operates in the temporal gap between a religious marriage (nikah) and official civil registration (ZAGS), which can lag by several years. Women use calendar-based fertility awareness methods not only to limit births but also to "order" the sex of the child, thereby synchronising deliveries with relatives for potential exchange.

Theoretically, the study reinterprets classical frameworks by Mauss, Sahlins, and Lévi-Strauss, introducing the concept of the "document as kinship substance" (a birth certificate consolidates social motherhood no less than blood or milk). The research also reveals the institution's historical fluidity: cohorts born before the 1970s actively practiced translocal endogamy (marriages with urban cousins) and child exchange, whereas younger generations face a shrinking circle of potential participants, raising questions about the strategy's long-term sustainability.

The study draws on a complete household survey (N ≈ 5,400) and 60 semi-structured interviews collected during multi-sited ethnographic fieldwork in 2019. All data have been fully anonymised and collected with informed consent from respondents.