Since the seminal work of Malthus in 1798, collective and individual
demographic adjustments to political, social or economic crises have been
observed in many circumstances. The responses to such crises include changes
in mortality and in the timing of fertility and marriage, as well as in migration.
While the most influential work has focused on the effects of the
short-term economic fluctuations on demographic outcomes in pre-industrial
Northern and Western Europe (e.g. Lee, 1981; Galloway, 1986, 1988; Reher,
1990), a growing number of studies have tried to assess the effects of shortterm
and/or sudden economic changes on mortality, fertility and nuptiality in
contemporary developing countries (National Research Council, 1993;
Palloni et al., 1996; Lindstrom, Berhanu, 1999; Eloundou-Enyegue et al.,
2000; Agadjanian Prata, 2002; Caldwell, 2004; Nobles, Buttenheim, 2008).
In this regard, the collapse of the Soviet Union and the resulting social and
economic crisis of the 1990s constitute a unique and nearly experimental setting
for the study of the demographic responses in times of structural change.