ИСТИНА

The population of Russia has been undergoing rapid aging in the last two decades, but regional differences make this process heterogeneous. Aging is the most noticeable in large metropolitan areas, the largest of which are Moscow and Saint Petersburg. Despite similar socioeconomic conditions the proportion of older individuals (60+) grows very unevenly in the two cities. Given low fertility the main sources of such differences lie in differential changes in life expectancy in older ages and migration rates. We use Rosstat data to shed light into such striking differences in aging between the two cities. We theorize that slower mortality declines in Saint Petersburg as well as higher migration in Moscow can explain these patterns. We also decompose changes in life expectancy by age, sex, and cause to show what factors of mortality decline are the most important in this process.