Russia’s latest move to combat low birth rates? Paying students to have kids
Global News
Russia, increasingly panicked by a low birth rate and decline in population, is offering young university students money to have babies while they earn an education.
Almost a dozen regions in Russia are getting set to offer a cash payment to young women who give birth, Russian outlets are reporting, but there’s a pretty big catch.
According to the Moscow Times, monetary childbirth incentives will be offered in at least 11 Russian regions and will go into effect on Jan. 1, 2025. If a young woman successfully carries the child to term, they will be paid 100,000 rubles, or approximately C$1,300.
The bonuses, which were first announced in a handful of regions in the summer, come with strict criteria. While it varies by region, all require the mothers-to-be to be full-time students at a local college or university. Additionally, they must be under the age of 25 when they give birth.
The eligibility is also nullified if the mother fails to carry the child to term, meaning a stillborn baby would disqualify the woman from receiving payment.
Last month, Russia’s lower house of parliament voted unanimously to ban what authorities cast as dangerous propaganda for a child-free way of life, hoping to boost a faltering birth rate, reports Reuters.
Official data released in September put Russia’s birth rate at its lowest in a quarter of a century while mortality rates are up as Moscow’s war in Ukraine rages on and a wartime exodus sees citizens moving abroad. The Kremlin called the figures “catastrophic for the future of the nation.”
President Vladimir Putin has said that three-child families should be the norm in Russia in order to secure the future of the country.
The ban on child-free propaganda also includes any content deemed to promote “non-traditional lifestyles” such as same-sex relationships or gender fluidity, as well as dissenting accounts of the conflict in Ukraine. Violators can face large fines.
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