While some countries in East Asia may be concerned with overpopulation, Russia’s population trend has been in the negative for the past few decades. During the 1990s, the country’s population fell by 4% as a result of the economic crisis triggered by the collapse of the Soviet Union. Since then, demography has been a big issue for the Russian government, with several programs to boost the birth rate being introduced, including giving money to families on the birth of their second child and providing housing and land benefits to families of three children or more.