The author’s analysis of UN demographic statistics revealed two internal problems that objectively impede to the BRICS countries to become new drivers of global economic growth — reduction of economically active population and increase of the social burden on one working person in the form of reducing the potential support ratio. Projected labour shortage could trigger serious socio-economic upheavals in the nearest future.

The authors have studied the possibility of taking into account the human rationality factor in the analysis of global problems of demography and energy. For this purpose, analogues of chemical kinetics and the idea of human communities as an open thermodynamic system were applied. The demography of sapientation was divided into two conventional energy zones — northern and southern, which differ in climatic and geophysical conditions. The sapientation process was formalized by correlating the number of creative and educated people with the amount of external energy they convert into new valuable information. The sapientation kinetics was modeled completing the formalism of the act of a person’s birth with a stage of his education requiring the involvement of at least one teacher from among educated people. The second-order kinetic equation, describing the growth of an equal population of men and women of reproductive age, was transformed into an equation of the third and higher orders. The stationary solution of these equations determines the optimal demography for sustainable noospheric development of the population in accordance with its education index. Real and durable solutions to the demographic and energy problems are proposed.

Academician Vladimir Petrovich Skulachev, director of the A.N. Belozersky Institute of Physico-Chemical Biology, Dean of the Faculty of Bioengineering and Bioinformatics, Moscow State University, for many years is being engaged in the aging problem. The goals of the scientist are more daring than one can imagine: he wants nothing less than to abolish the program of aging and replace it with another, biologically more gentle, in result of which we will simply forget the so-called age-related diseases. On the way towards this challenging goal Vladimir Petrovich and his team are making considerable progress.

The article represents a speech made by Professor A.I. Antonov at the Rhodes Forum “The World on the brink of a global collapse” on October 11, 2015 (Plenary Session “Family values as a basis for development of human civilization”).

The present article analyzes demographic situation in Moscow. It focuses on such topical demographic problems of the city population as migration, birth rate, marriage, length of life, population aging. The author considers the problem of low birth rate as one of the key ones in demographic development of Moscow, without solution of which in many respects it is impossible to cope with the other demographic problems of the capital, such as depopulation of the indigenous population, deformation of the population age structure, reduction of the traditional marriage value. The article presents statistical data characterizing demographic processes in Moscow, it identifies the main trends, evaluates the consequences.

The problem of raising the retirement age in our country has been under discussion from the very outset of pension insurance market reforms, is for a quarter of a century, and without any apparent progress towards its solution. At the same time, all civilized countries have already developed a clear action program to address this problem, although with different social and economic consequences: some of them raised the pensionable age in one-two years, using shock instruments, some of the countries distended this process for decades, others renounced the age regulator of pension insurance rights. In the current socio-economic conditions the problem of raising retirement age in Russia has become especially acute.

The paper is devoted to consideration of assisted reproductive technologies (ART) in the context of social changing. ART raise many medical, social, ethical, political and religious questions, often leading to controversial and sometimes inaccurate opinions about the outcomes of pregnancies resulting from these techniques. We analyze the process of ART implementation in Russia. Such consequences as new types of social inequality and new forms of social mobility, new aspects of kinship, transforming traditional social roles are focus of our interest. Using and distribution of ART do not simply reflect the existing structure of the socio-economic differentiation, but produce new configurations of inequality both globally and within countries, particularly in the area of reproductive rights and reproductive health. Access to ART depends on social status, gender, economic status, religious beliefs and national characteristics for different social groups. We also can speak about reproductive bioeconomics where the reproductive labor e.g. surrogate motherhood is a central element and reproductive tissues are main objects to be exchanged. ART may be considered a great example how modern science and technology may influence social relations and social practices.