Nearly a dozen regions in Russia are preparing to offer a cash payment to young women who give birth, Russian media report, but there’s a very big problem.
According to the Moscow Times newspaper. Cash birth incentives It will be introduced in at least 11 Russian regions and will take effect on January 1, 2025. If a young woman successfully carries the child to term, she will be paid 100,000 rubles, or about $1,300 Canadian dollars.
The rewards, which were first announced in a few regions in the summer, come with strict criteria. Although this varies by region, all require mothers to be full-time students at a local college or university. In addition, they must be under 25 years old at birth.
Eligibility is also revoked if the mother fails to carry the child to term, meaning a stillborn child will disqualify the woman from receiving the payment.
Last month, Russia’s lower house of parliament voted unanimously to ban what authorities describe as… Dangerous propaganda for a child-free lifestylehoping to boost the faltering birth rate, according to Reuters.
Official data issued in September put Russia The birth rate is at its lowest level in a quarter of a century While death rates rise as Moscow’s war rages in Ukraine, and mass wartime displacement causes citizens to move abroad. The Kremlin described these numbers as “disastrous for the future of the nation.”
President Vladimir Putin said families with three children should be the norm in Russia in order to secure the country’s future.
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the Ban child-free advertising It also includes any content seen as promoting “non-traditional lifestyles” such as homosexual or gender-fluid relationships, as well as dissenting narratives of the conflict in Ukraine. Violators can face hefty fines.
“We are talking about protecting citizens, especially the younger generation, from information published in the media space that has a negative impact on the formation of people’s personality,” Vyacheslav Volodin, speaker of the House of Representatives and a major Putin ally, said in November. After the ban was announced.
“Everything must be done to ensure that new generations of our citizens are growth-oriented Traditional family values“.
In the last month, Russian lawmakers have made sweeping, panicked changes to health policy, as well as introducing new monetary stimulus, in an attempt to correct course on falling birth rates.
The government proposed using public funds to pay for newlyweds’ wedding night stay in hotels, with the hope of becoming pregnant, as well as encouraging women to use breaks at work to have sex with the intention of becoming pregnant.
Regional Health Minister Yevgeny Shestopalov said on Russian television in September that women should “engage in childbearing during breaks.”
“Being too busy at work is not a good reason but a lame excuse,” he added in Newsweek. You can Engage in childbearing during rest periodsBecause life goes by so fast.”
Last year, Newsweek reported in addition, that a member of the Russian House of Representatives had suggested this Female prisoners are released in order to have childrenIn the hope of increasing the country’s birth rate, their sentences will be canceled if they succeed in having a child.
As announced by the country’s health authority Expansion of fertility testingwhere some women in Moscow reported receiving unwanted referrals to testing clinics.
Russia is not the only country suffering from low birth rates. According to a Statistics Canada report released in September, Canada’s fertility rate in 2023 was 1.26 children per woman, the lowest level on record since the agency began collecting data.
Canada, like other countries, is riding the “pandemic fertility rollercoaster” as more families postpone having children, said a StatCan report published in January.
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