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  Institute of Ethnology and Anthropology, Russian Academy of Sciences
Oksana Zvidennaya

 

The Taz. Demographics: Population Dynamics, Urban/Rural Population, Gender and Age Breakdown

 

The total number of Taz, according to the 2020 All-Russian Population Census, was 236 people, which is 38 people less than in 2010. The main area of settlement is the Primorsky Territory, outside of which only 15 people live. The basins are evenly distributed between urban and rural areas.

The 2010 census puts the number of the Taz at 274 persons; of them, 253 live in the Primorye territory, and most live in the village of Mikhaikovka in the Olga district.

MostTazarerural. In 2002, 110 persons out of 276 lived in cities and 166 lived in villages. In 2010, 96 persons out of 253 in the Primorye territory lived in cities, and 157 lived in the rural area.

The 2010 census recorded 164 persons of employable age. Of those, 41 were below employable age, and 48 were of retirement age. According to the 2010 Census, most of the persons polled were married – 54.5 % (of them, 14 % of men and 27 % of women live in common-law marriages), 3.6 % are officially divorced (4.3 % of men and 4.2 % of women); 2.4 % are separated (1.1 % of men and 2.6 % of women), 7.9 % were widows and widowers (1.1 % of men and 16.1 % of women) and 15.4 % had never been married (23.9 % of men and 14.4 % of women).

In the 1990s, the Taz completely transitioned to families with few children (1-2 per family). Today, 41 % of families have 1-2 children, while in the 1960s, there were many families with four or five children, and families with nine or ten children were not all that rare. In 2010, the Taz had 0.7 children per one woman aged 20-29, 1.2 children per one woman aged 30–39, 1.8 children per one woman aged 40–49, 2.1 children per one woman aged 50–59, 2.6 children per one woman aged 60–69, and 2.9 children per one woman aged 70 and over (per the 2010 Census). Furthermore, 6.7 % of families have no children at all, and given that 21.2% of women have no children, the birth rate remains a concern. Today’s marriages are concluded between the ages of 17-18 and 25-26 for both men and women.

Changes in the Taz’s economic activities and material culture, mutual influences between the Taz and surrounding population largely eliminated the differences between Taz families and the ones from other groups.

Overall, the Taz’s demographic situation is as follows: falling marriage rates among both men and women and greater percentage of the so-called “common-law marriages.” Consequently, there are greater numbers of children born outside of marriages. There are also higher divorce and one-parent family rates. The birth rate will likely continue to drop and mortality rate will increase, mostly among the employable-age population.