During the 1990^th with the beginning of social changes in Russian life, total mortality among Russian started to rose for all age groups except infants and children, and for both sexes, though the increase was far greater for males. The greatest increase in mortality was among males aged 40–49, which nearly doubled (87% increase) in the period 1990–1994.

The size of the Russian Federation population, estimated at 144.8 million in 2000 has fallen by 3.5 million in the period 1992–2000. The decline would have been even greater had it not been for net immigration during the early 1990s due to the resettlement in the Russian Federation of ethnic Russians returning from other Soviet republics.