Declining birth rates are a global trend, but there is often an ideological dimension to pronatalism, says this Aberystwyth University international politics lecturer.
ABERYSTWYTH, United Kingdom: In some parts of Russia, schoolgirls who become pregnant are being paid more than 100,000 roubles (about US$1,270) for giving birth and raising their babies.
This new measure, introduced in the past few months across 10 regions, is part of Russia’s new demographic strategy, widening the policy adopted in March which only applied to adult women. It is designed to address the dramatic decline in the country’s birthrate.
In 2023, the number of births in Russia per woman was 1.41 – substantially below 2.05, which is the level required to maintain a population at its current size.
Paying teenage girls to have babies while they are still in school is controversial in Russia. According to a recent survey by the Russian Public Opinion Research Centre, 43 per cent of Russians approve of the policy, while 40 per cent are opposed to it. But it indicates the high priority that the state places on increasing the number of children being born.
Russia’s President Vladimir Putin regards a large population as one of the markers of a flourishing great power, along with control over a vast (and growing) territory and a powerful military. Paradoxically, though, his efforts to increase the physical size of Russia by attacking Ukraine and illegally annexing its territory have also been disastrous in terms of shrinking Russia’s population.
The number of Russian soldiers killed in the war has reached 250,000 by some estimates, while the war sparked an exodus of hundreds of thousands of some of the most highly educated Russians. Many of them are young men fleeing military service who could have been fathers to the next generation of Russian citizens.
But while Russia’s demographic situation is extreme, declining birth rates are now a global trend. It is estimated that by 2050 more than three-quarters of the world’s countries will have such low fertility rates that they will not be able to sustain their populations.
IT’S NOT ONLY RUSSIA
Putin is not the only world leader to introduce policies designed to encourage women to have more babies. Viktor Orban’s government in Hungary is offering a range of incentives, such as generous tax breaks and subsidised mortgages, to those who have three or more children.
Poland makes a monthly payment of 500 złoty (about US$140) per child to families with two or more children. But there’s some evidence this has not prompted higher-income Polish women to have more children, as they might have to sacrifice higher earnings and career advancement to have another child.
In the United States, Donald Trump is proposing to pay women US$5,000 to have a baby, tied to a wider MAGA movement push, supported by Elon Musk and others, to encourage women to have larger families.
