A chart has been doing the rounds on Twitter that appears to show a dramatic fall in the number of men in Ukraine. Two population pyramids are overlaid – one for 2021 and one for 2023 – with the latter indicating a substantially smaller young and middle-aged population:
The alleged source of the chart is a Times article by Maxim Tucker. However, the article does not currently display the chart; nor do any of the archived versions that I found. According to a Russian journalist who posted a screenshot of what appears to be the original version, “The editors of The Times realized that they showed too shocking data of the demographic catastrophe in Ukraine, and removed the corresponding graphics”.
But I’m sceptical. If the editors did in fact remove the chart (before anyone archived the article), a more plausible explanation is that it’s simply not accurate.
As you can see in the lower left-hand corner, the source of the data is given as the UN Population Division. I found the relevant page on their website, and sure enough it shows the same two population pyramids. So whoever made the chart actually did use the UN’s data. But this only means the UN is wrong!
According the UN Human Rights Commissioner, approximately 8 million people have left Ukraine since Russia’s invasion last year. So there has been a dramatic fall in population. Yet crucially, 87% of Ukrainian refugees are women. (A recent EU report gives an even higher figure of 91%.) The reason for the imbalance is simple: men are banned from leaving the country.
Despite this well known fact, the chart above shows an approximately equal sized fall in the male and female population. Which could be interpreted as showing that millions of Ukrainian men have died in battle – something that’s wildly implausible.
On 17th March, BBC News Service Russia estimated from publicly available data that up to 47,000 men have died on the Russian side. Even if Ukrainian losses are three times greater (and I don’t think they are), that would still be ‘only’ 150,000 men. This amounts to less than 1% of the pre-war male population – nowhere near as large as the change shown on the chart.
It’s possible that when the UN made the 2023 population pyramid for Ukraine, they forgot to account for the female skew among refugees, and hence divided the 8 million shortfall equally between the two sexes. I don’t know.
Ukraine faces a profound demographic crisis: the loss of millions of educated young women, many of whom may not return once the war’s over. However, there’s no evidence the country has lost millions of men.
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They are all getting out even the American banks are starting to get jittery about this country. If you leave it too long to get out then you might have difficulties. Just walk down the street and look at it. I’ve been in third world hell holes where the people look happier.
Scamdemic squandering, public sector plundering, climate pandering, energy blundering – extended agony of compulsive economic self-harm.
The cure is now available across the ocean in the New World.
The technicalities of whether we are in a recession don’t interest me much. It just seems obvious that socialism reduces prosperity and freedom, and always will.
Every last advantage we had has been destroyed. The CIA used to list Britain in terms of being a major resource for coal. All gone and shut off or being shut off. Believe me there will be nothing left which is as they want it. Just like they stripped the RAF AWACS aeroplanes down so that they could never be started again. They have destroyed your country and your quality of life and now they just wait for you to drop off. Rot away in the final years under a canopy of toxic fog.
Understand the situation. A lot of people are so lost that they have to dress up as furry animals in order to have sex. What does that tell you? The steam has gone out of the system the culture the mythos has died. Forget all this nonsense about government scrutiny it is grotesque and laughable.
Blimey! Do they do that in Parliament as well?
We finally sold up and got out in August 2024. Aside from a pension, we pulled everything out, and have now stuck over two thirds in property where the weather is nicer, the food better, the scenery much grander, and where there’s far more fun stuff going on.
I don’t weep for England; it’s an arbitrary concept. No, I just tell people to go where you are treated best (courtesy of Nomad Capitalist).
To my two kids, aged 12 and 14, I say:
Find what you enjoy and do it well.
And – Travel! Travel! Travel!
Of course countries are arbitrary but they do make a difference. England is worse off without you, but good luck!
A recession should really be calculated by GDP on a per capita basis. In real terms we have been in a recession for years.
Indeed I find it astonishing that anyone bothers quoting GDP without qualifying it per capita – meaningless!
You can see a pattern developing here.
The ONS admits that it does not have reliable figures for the UK’s population, so they’d claim that it would be impossible to generate any accurate per-capita GDP figures.
Rather than address the problem, they and their political masters prefer to keep quoting the meaningless headline GDP figures knowing that the public are too gullible to question the data.
Indeed. Basic statistics and economics should be taught in schools – but they are probably racist.
Vaguely on topic (economics, politics) I have been ploughing my way through this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8NLzc9kobDk
Lex Fridman interviewing Javier Milei. It’s rambling in places and Fridman I think should have made it more interactive, but it’s refreshing to listen to a politician who has actually thought about what governments should and should not do and has educated himself a bit about political and economic philosophy.
Unfortunately they are too po-faced and arrogant to admit their mistakes. Hopefully America can demonstrate that lower taxes equates to more revenue, along with less bureaucracy – Less government is what we need!
Predictably, today’s BBC news headlines are dominated by the Elon Musk’s supposed Nazi salute and Donald’s decision to pardon the “Capitol rioters”, neatly avoiding having to address what seemed to be a pretty polished inauguiration speech.
I assume that our media will keep up this snarky line of reporting for the next 4 years, regardless of any evidence of the success of Trump’s policies.
The recent sinking of the pound vs the dollar will make things worse, boosting inflation