Russia, like many countries in Eurasia, is suffering from a sharp drop in its fertility rate, aggravated by factors such as the conflict in Ukraine. Faced with the collapse in the number of births, several regional governments last year introduced new laws allowing students to receive money if they give birth to healthy children.
A demography at half mast
The worrying situation of Russian demography has been known for several decades, and is still suffering severely from the consequences of the 1990s, a period of economic and political slump. The annual number of births was halved during this decade, going from 2.5 million in 1987 to 1.2 million in 1999 according to the American magazine devoted to the economy, Fortune.
Through pronatalist policies, Russia has since managed to increase its number of children per woman from 1.16 in 1999 to 1.82 in 2021. But this deficit in births in the 1990s means that the number of women in Childbearing age has collapsed since 2010, with far fewer children born at that time and adults today.
Ukraine – Russia: military planes of the war
Another catastrophic problem for Russian demography, the war in Ukraine, is affecting the number of available men: hundreds of thousands of adult males have left the country or lost their lives on the Ukrainian front since 2022.
Help at all levels
Faced with this demographic drain, the central government is redoubling its efforts and imagination to implement new pronatalist policies, in order to stimulate the number of births. Regional governments are invited to contribute to this effort, introducing sometimes surprising solutions: in the Republic of Karelia, a region in the north of Russia, a law adopted in July 2024 and in force since January 1, 2025 allows female students to be less aged 25 to receive 100,000 rubles, or 947 euros, in the event of a successful delivery.
However, no aid is granted if the child does not survive the birth. According to Fortune, 11 Russian regional governments now have programs similar to Karelia’s, in addition to federal aid.
If the results of this initiative cannot be assessed for several years, the other solutions deployed by Moscow have not yet borne fruit: only 599,650 children were born in Russia during the first six months of 2024, a a figure which has never been so low in 25 years.
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