ABSTRACT
Regardless of which fertility indicator is studied, one can see marked differences between the different parts of the USSR, with trends that sometimes diverge. There even seems to be a polarization between republics with respect to their fertility level. At one end of the scale we find republics where fertility indicators were already low in the 1950s and have
remained so for the following decades (Russia, Ukraine, Byelorussia, Georgia, Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia). Here the level and trend of fertility changes differ little from those in most developed countries. At the other end there are four Central Asian republics (Uzbekistan, Kirghizia, Tajikistan, and Turkmenistan) with an invariably high level of fertility over the entire post-World War II period which generally exceeds the level of many developing countries. Apart from these two polar groups there is an intermediate group of republics (Kazakhstan, Azerbaijan, Moldavia, and Armenia) where the level of fertility began to drop after 1960, rapidly in some cases.
