Russian president Vladimir Putin has taken a new initiative to tackle the country’s rapidly declining birth rate in the face of the war with Ukraine, which is estimated to have caused 700,000 casualties.
The embattled leader has set up a council aiming to bolster a 2017 “Decade of Childhood in Russia,” social policy designed to protect children and families, according to the Russian news outlet RT News.
Russia’s current birth rate is 1.5 children per woman, and a birth rate of 2.1 children per woman is needed to sustain a population. Moscow’s birth rate, in combination with heavy casualties from the war with Ukraine, has resulted in a population decline, and Russia’s birth rate hit a new 25-year low in September.
Russia has already looked at opening a “ministry of sex” to combat the country’s declining birth rate and has come up with a program in which female students aged 18 to 23 could be paid for having a child.
And Russian Health Minister Yevgeny Shestopalov has even encouraged the population to “engage in procreation on breaks” while at work. “Being very busy at work is not a valid reason, but a lame excuse [for not starting a family].” he said. “You can engage in procreation during breaks, because life flies by too quickly.”
The Russian president has nominated Federation Council chairwoman Valentina Matvienko to lead the new council, which follows a “Strategy of Action” for family and demographic policy drafted last month.
Sergei Karpukhin/Associated Press
Newsweek reached out to the Russian government for comment via email outside of business hours.
The Strategy of Action includes goals such as “protecting, supporting, and defending the family as the fundamental basis of Russian society,” and “strengthening the institution of family and marriage as a union between a man and a woman based on the preservation and promotion of traditional family values.”
Overall, the strategy aims to “improve the rules for providing maternity capital, increase the efficiency of alimony payments, introduce awards for grandparents,” and more.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov described the demographic decline as a “huge challenge” and said that pushing population growth with the new policies will produce a “super strong” country.
The “Strategy of Action” will be implemented in two stages, from 2025 to 2030, and from 2031 to 2036. It aims to promote “family lifestyle” through media and advertising and provide resources to allow families to have more children.
The new strategy anticipates that the birth rate will increase to 1.6 children per woman by 2030, and 1.8 by 2036. The government also anticipates infant mortality rates will decrease, and life expectancies will lengthen.
The creation of this new council followed recent Russian legislation that punishes those who have been found promoting “child free” lifestyles or pushing propaganda that encourages people not to have children.
The law approved by Russian parliament last month will impose fines on those found guilty of writing “childfree propaganda” of up to 400,000 roubles ($4,100) for individuals, twice that amount for officials, and up to 5 million roubles ($51,000) for legal entities, according to Reuters.
