"According to national forecasts, this figure will reach slightly more than 36 million people, rather than 33 million people," Head of the Department of Research into Demographic Processes and Demographic Policy at the Institute of Demography and Social Studies of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine Iryna Kurylo said at a press conference on Wednesday.
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She noted that according to UN forecasts, Ukraine's population could shrink to 33 million people by 2050. At the same time, the demographer said that Ukrainian scientists had disagreed with such UN estimates. "Our demographic projections have been revised to more optimistic in the last few years, since depopulation is slowly declining," Kurylo said. She said that over the past five years Ukraine had seen a trend towards an increase in life expectancy, "although the pace of growth last year slowed." "The birth rate has risen to the average European level over the last decade," she said. A total of 45.495 million people lived in Ukraine as of May 1, 2013.
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