In some elements of Russia, schoolgirls who change into pregnant are being paid greater than 100,000 roubles (practically £900) for giving delivery and elevating their infants.
This new measure, launched previously few months throughout ten regions, is a part of Russia’s new demographic strategy, widening the coverage adopted in March 2025 which solely utilized to grownup ladies. It’s designed to handle the dramatic decline within the nation’s birthrate.
In 2023 the number of births in Russia per woman was 1.41 – considerably beneath 2.05, which is the extent required to take care of a inhabitants at its present measurement.
Paying teenage ladies to have infants whereas they’re nonetheless at school is controversial in Russia. In response to a recent survey by the Russian Public Opinion Analysis Centre, 43% of Russians approve of the coverage, whereas 40% are against it. Nevertheless it signifies the excessive precedence that the state locations on rising the variety of kids being born.
Russia’s president, Vladimir Putin, regards a big inhabitants as one in all the markers of a flourishing great power, together with management over an enormous (and rising) territory and a strong army. Paradoxically, although, his efforts to extend the bodily measurement of Russia by attacking Ukraine and illegally annexing its territory have additionally been disastrous when it comes to shrinking Russia’s inhabitants.
The variety of Russian troopers killed within the conflict has reached 250,000 by some estimates, whereas the conflict sparked an exodus of hundreds of thousands of a number of the most extremely educated Russians. A lot of them are younger males fleeing army service who may have been fathers to the following era of Russian residents.
However whereas Russia’s demographic scenario is excessive, declining birth rates are now a global trend. It’s estimated that by 2050 greater than three quarters of the world’s nations may have such low fertility charges that they won’t be able to maintain their populations.
It’s not solely Russia
Putin just isn’t the one world chief to introduce insurance policies designed to encourage ladies to have extra infants. Viktor Orban’s authorities in Hungary is offering a range of incentives, corresponding to beneficiant tax breaks and subsidised mortgages, to those that have three or extra kids.
Poland makes a monthly payment of 500 złoty (£101) per little one to households with two or extra kids. However there’s some proof this has not prompted higher-income Polish ladies to have extra kids, as they may need to sacrifice larger earnings and profession development to have one other little one.
In the USA, Donald Trump is proposing to pay ladies US$5,000 (£3,682) to have a child, tied to a wider Maga motion push, supported by Elon Musk and others, to encourage ladies to have bigger households.
Reversing demographic traits is complex, as a result of the explanations that people and {couples} have for turning into mother and father are additionally advanced. Private preferences and aspirations, beliefs about their capability to offer for kids, in addition to societal norms and cultural and non secular values all play an element in these selections.
Because of this, the impression of “pronatalist” insurance policies has been combined. No nation has discovered a simple strategy to reverse declining birth rates.
One nation searching for to handle inhabitants decline with insurance policies, apart from encouraging ladies to have extra infants is Spain, which now permits a better pathway to citizenship for migrants, together with those that entered the nation illegally. Madrid’s embrace of immigrants is being credited for its present financial increase.
On the lookout for explicit forms of households
However governments that undertake pronatalist insurance policies are usually involved, not merely with rising the full variety of individuals dwelling and dealing of their nations, however with encouraging certain kinds of people to breed. In different phrases, there may be usually an ideological dimension to those practices.
Incentives for being pregnant, childbirth and enormous households are usually focused at these whom the state regards as its most fascinating residents. These individuals could also be fascinating residents because of their race, ethnicity, language, faith, sexual orientation or another identification or mixture of identities.
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As an example, the Spanish bid to extend the inhabitants by rising immigration provides principally Spanish speakers from Catholic nations in Latin America jobs whereas alternatives to stay in, or transfer to, the nation does look like prolonged to migrants from Africa. In the meantime, Hungary’s incentives to households are only available to heterosexual couples who earn high incomes.
The emphasis on rising the proportion of probably the most fascinating residents is why the Trump administration sees no contradiction in calling for more babies to be born in the US, whereas ordering the arrest and deportation of hundreds of alleged unlawful migrants, trying to reverse the constitutional guarantee of US citizenship for anybody born within the nation and even trying to withdraw citizenship from some People.
Which moms do they need?
The success or failure of governments and societies that promote pronatalism hinges on their capability to influence individuals – and particularly ladies – to embrace parenthood. Together with monetary incentives and different tangible rewards for having infants, some states supply reward and recognition for the moms of enormous households.
Putin’s reintroduction of the Stalin-era motherhood medal for girls with ten or extra kids is one instance. Typically the popularity comes from society, corresponding to the present American fascination with “trad wives” – women who become social media influencers by turning their backs on careers in favour of elevating massive numbers of kids and dwelling socially conservative life.
The mirror picture of this celebration of motherhood is the implicit or express criticism of girls who delay childbirth or reject it altogether. Russia’s parliament handed a legislation in 2024 to ban the promotion of childlessness, or “child-free propaganda”. This laws joins different measures corresponding to restrictions on abortions in private clinics, along with public condemnation of women who choose to study at university and pursue careers somewhat than prioritise marriage and child-rearing.
The world’s most affluent states could be embracing immigration if pronatalist insurance policies had been pushed solely by the necessity to guarantee a enough workforce to help the economic system and society. As a substitute, these makes an attempt are sometimes sure up with efforts to limit or dictate the alternatives that residents – and particularly ladies – make about their private lives, and to create a inhabitants dominated by the forms of the individuals they favour.