As the birthrate in Russia froze at the “so-so” level (the birth rate is just under 1.5, meaning “slow extinction”), various healers were excited, claiming that this disease could be cured by one person. a miraculous “legislative viagra”. It is worth admitting that – not inside, but in the Duma – and immediately people will begin to be fruitful and multiply. Connoisseurs of easy recipes in demography, crawling from everywhere, began to offer to “look under the lamp”, that is, to “improve” the procedure for using maternity capital.
In my subjective view, initiatives often cover up either silly or more cynical lobbying goals.
For example, from the last one. Someone suggested that the mother’s capital be allowed to be spent on housing repairs. For example, it is allowed to improve living conditions, but why is repair not an improvement? At the same time, forgetting that the mother’s capital is actually about the future of the child, it is basically about something solid, not about wallpaper. As you know, in addition to improving housing conditions, which 60% of Russians spend on maternity capital certificates (but you can not buy emergency housing), it can also be spent on education, paying for education in a kindergarten, school. or university. And there is even an opportunity to cover the cost of a hostel in an educational institution. Or let them go to the pension funded by the mother, which I think is the same as being blown into the wind or blowing down the chimney under current circumstances. Improper spending threatens up to 10 years, for a minute everything is solid here.
Or another idea: allowing extended families to work four days a week. Here one did not even calculate the second move, which would consist in the fact that such large families would cease to be recruited altogether. However, this legislator habitually thinks according to the canons already entrenched in our open spaces, since the state often likes to shift its social functions to employers. And at any cost. It’s like “days not worked” in a pandemic.
Or one more thing: someone who read a few articles on “how they got it in America” decided that urbanization is responsible for everything (low birth rate), so it is necessary to develop low-rise construction as it stands. America where this led to a baby boom. This person will need to read a few more articles to understand that the baby boom in America happened for completely different reasons, because America itself has always been and has always been “one story” (because mostly).
So what do we have with the main capital, why can’t the Russians breed like rabbits?
The size of maternal capital this year is 586.9 thousand rubles for the first child and 775.6 thousand rubles for the second. However, if you did not receive the payment of the first, you will receive the second amount in full, otherwise – 188.7 thousand rubles and be healthy. Why in this case the second child, although “cheaper” – the ordinary man does not understand.
Demographers around the world have been debating, and have yet to debate, over the key question: do financial incentives lead to an increase in the birth rate?
Some, if simplified, say that “people do not give birth for money”, they say that comprehensive measures are needed, the general mood of the whole society should be fruitful, which depends on many factors – from purely economic to socio-cultural . Others insist that there is a correlation with an increase in the birth rate, especially in poor countries where they only give birth. To put it bluntly, one or another correlation with payments for a child is observed even in relatively wealthy countries (such as Spain or Japan), but in poor countries it is of course stronger. Russia is a poor country and therefore the introduction of the capital program in 2007 had an impact and was noticeable.
In the first years, there was even a short-term increase in population in Russia. Moreover, according to authoritative demographers, the point is not only that there was an increase in people’s well-being at that time, but also the factor of materially stimulating the birth rate.
Many reject abortions for this reason, among other things (their numbers in Russia in the 21st century are generally declining, despite the recent alarm that lawmakers have raised on this issue). Meanwhile, the impact was even greater in regions with significant regional equity programs.
However, in the last five years, there is a feeling that the capital program is self-depleting, as the birth rate, like the population, has started to decline (not counting the growth from the territories annexed after 2014). ). The birth rate has been declining steadily since 2017. However, it’s too early to bury the matercapital program and it’s definitely not worth hanging “all the dogs” over it. Just another factor is now at play – a noticeable decrease in the number of women of childbearing age (i.e. those born in the 1990s), and this “failure” will return in waves in the years to come. At the same time, the matercapital program corrects some negative factors, without it the situation would be even worse.
At the same time, in 2022, the natural decline in the population of the Russian Federation reached about 600 thousand people (for example, in 2019 “pre-pandemic” was 300 thousand people). We recall that with the birth rate (average number of births per woman), it was slightly less than 1.5. This is only slightly higher than the birth rate of 1.3 during the Great Patriotic War.
There is no single and most important quick-acting recipe here. After all, for several years the number of women of childbearing age will not increase from time to time. Another example of an unsuccessful “short-term cure” is appropriate here: a little less than ten years ago, they decided to give large families plots of land for free. A small positive effect did not last more than a year: it quickly became clear that it was not so easy to overcome bureaucracy and get a good plot, then you need to build there, solve communication problems, etc. money and time that large families do not collectively have.
This year, a survey (Rosstat) was conducted that showed an increase in trends “against extended families”. It turned out that 71.6% of Russian women do not want to have more than two children. Five years ago, the rate of those who participated in the study was 65.3%. The proportion of those wishing to have one child rose from 17% to 23%, against a background of 18% (theoretically) wishing to have multiple children.
Whatever one may say, it is impossible to ignore general economic and political conditions as factors influencing the growth or decline in the birth rate. You have to be blind, deaf and dumb at the same time. “The fertility of society” is a whole complex of factors. Let’s just say it’s not just the level of well-being. Importantly, however: the sharp and almost inevitable decline in the level of family welfare in our country after the birth of a child is an undeniable fact that prevents many families, especially the second and third, from having children. That’s why appropriate social programs are important, both financial and non-financial incentives: queue-free kindergartens and exorbitant fees (private ones, for example), the benefits of hiring a nanny, free meals for all in schools, and meal vouchers, though low-income, preferential mortgages remain for large families. though, free housing is not (at least partially) harmed. Yes, there are many things you can think of. The government knows when it needs it.
A sense of security and confidence in the future is also important. However, not everything here is linear. For example, Israel is almost constantly at war. But the birth rate there is about 3. On the one hand, socio-cultural traditions predetermine children’s fashion, on the other hand, Israelis, like few people in the world, believe in their country. Meanwhile, the current demonstrations, which brought together half a million or more people (although not only against, but less so in the latter case) regarding Netanyahu’s judicial reform, show that there is certainly something like the country’s judicial system for Jews. “not figuratively.”
And such an attitude towards what is happening in the country and what its government is doing, however disgusting it may be to admit many lovers of the “simple demographic solution”, is also directly related to the birth rate.
Because, as people who understand it agree with, any demographic is ultimately “managing expectations.” I can say more simply: it is the management of hopes.
The author expresses his personal opinion, which may not coincide with the editors’ position.