In late February, Elizabeth Brainerd, an associate professor of economics at Williams College who studies the impact of economic transition and globalization on countries, gave a lecture on the causes and consequences of Russia's current demographic crisis.

I wasn't able to get to Williams to hear the talk, but Prof. Brainerd just let me know that the college has made her 40-minute lecture available as a podcast. It makes for interesting listening if you are trying to understand the pressures that right-wing politicians in Russia are bringing to bear on adoption--why they want more (perhaps all) Russian children to stay in Russia. To listen to the lecture now, or download it for later playing on any MP3 device, click here and then click on "Access this item" at the top of the page you see.

In her lecture, Prof. Brainerd calls Russia's demographic crisis "a tremendous human tragedy", noting that the increase in mortality in men aged 40 to 44 was 100%.

"These were real lives that were lost," she says. "The middle-aged men who died during this transition left children without fathers and wives without husbands."

Prof. Brainerd concedes that the reasons for the increased mortality among men remain "a puzzle", though she believes that alcohol and stress played a role. Whatever the cause, the result of the demographic crisis is dramatic: The life expectancy of a Russian man is now 59 years, 15 years fewer than that of men in countries like ours. A Russian woman's life expectancy is 73 years old, seven years fewer than Western women. What's more, Russia's fertility rate is among the lowest worldwide, ranking 210th out of 220 countries. President Vladimir Putin has done a considerable amount of hand-wringing about this, most notably in a speech in May 2006.

"As someone who was living in Russia in 1992-1993," Prof. Brainerd says, "I have to say that none of us could have ever predicted the enormous human costs of the changes that occurred."

You can listen to the full lecture here.