Save the Men! Russian Male Health in Crisis from the Revolution to Today

University Of Arkansas At Fayetteville, Fayetteville AR

Investigators

Abstract

Vladimir Putin’s disastrous war on Ukraine has brought to international attention and ridicule the hypermasculine imagery that is a staple of his public personae. This cartoonish machismo is not, however, an advent of war’s necessity but a foundational aspect of Putin’s appeal. Putin’s manly ways resonate as they counter the fears of weakness that have haunted Russians since the political and economic collapse of the 1990s when health funding fell, alcohol and tobacco use rose, and the average age of death for Russian men plummeted. In 1994 it dropped to just 57.6 years, and the longevity gap, the differential between male and female average life expectancy was a full 12.5 years by 1999. Russian men were weaker, sicker, and dying younger. Between lower birth rates and dying men, experts predicted a dire decline for the Russian population – from 149 million in 1991 to an estimated 105 million by 2050. Russian pundits proclaimed it an existential crisis. Putin’s government has aggressively faced this crisis with pro-birth policies and broad restrictions on alcohol and tobacco -- curtailing access, expanding warning labels, and limiting spaces for legal consumption – and before COVID and the war, they claimed progress. In 2018 Putin declared the average age of death had been pushed up to 73 “and predicted that by the end of the next decade it would rise to over 80. Leading the way was Putin himself – physically fit, largely abstemious, and always manly. Putin’s posturing is not a joke within Russia. For Putin to lose in Ukraine will not just be a blow to his manly-man image. Backing down is tied to national health, recovery, existence, and the future. The war is woven through with worries over this existential crisis. Understanding Putin’s health programs and his personal appeal helps explain how his regime seemingly solved, for a while at least, a problem faced by most industrialized countries -- the persistent longevity gap. For example, despite extending life spans generally, American women live on average about five years longer than men, and their health in those latter years is less plagued by illness. Just as in Russia, some of this differential can be attributed to smoking and drinking by men, and consequent accidents, heart disease, cancer, and cardio- vascular disease. But it is not just the USA and Russia. Governments worldwide have shown a commitment to policies that promote harm reduction. None have claimed a turn-around as stunning as that of Putin’s Russia. Save the Men! Russian Male Health in Crisis from the Revolution to Today will provide public health researchers and policy makers qualitative, historical research to make sense of the quantitative materials emerging from Russia as well as the cultural resonance and popularity of Putin’s health campaigns. Save the Men! will root these programs in anxieties over a century of demographic challenges. By outlining programs from the Russian-Soviet-then-Russian state not to control women’s reproductive health but improve men’s behaviors this project will provide a new view of Russian pronatalism as a mask for anxiety over male weakness.