Contemporary Trends in Russia s Fertility Rate and the Impact of State Support Measures (2018) (original) (raw)
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Contemporary Trends in Russia’s Fertility Rate and the Impact of State Support Measures
Sociological Research, 2018
Russia's fertility rate jumped after 2007, when new state measures were introduced to support families with children. This article analyzes the structure of this increase and factors that have contributed to a growth in the fertility rate. In 2007, the greatest gains were made in terms of second and subsequent births, while the fertility rate for first births has remained virtually unchanged. The effectiveness of demographic policy measures taken since early 2007 in regard to the fertility rate can be evaluated on the basis of statistical calculations as an additional
Демографическое обозрение
The idea of an extraordinary growth in fertility in Russia is widespread in the Russian expert community and media space. This increase is believed to be indicative of the positive results of the special financial measures taken by the government after 2006 to stimulate fertility. The author’s viewpoint is more reserved. There are some positive developments, but their significance is quite insufficient to view the future of Russian fertility through rose-colored glasses. With this paper, we continue our previous long-term research in the field of in-depth demographic analysis of Russian fertility, incorporating the latest official statistical data for 2014. The paper provides an overview of the trends of key fertility indicators over a few decades, as well as developing some approaches to cohort fertility analysis in order to obtain more reliable projections. In the first part, we examine period fertility indicators (for calendar years), taking into account the latest changes in the...
Comparative population studies, 2024
This study aims to highlight the changes in fertility patterns of Russians which occurred after the USSR's dissolution or disintegration, taking a long historical perspective. After that disruption, thirty cohorts were born and raised who never lived under the Soviet system. Fifteen more cohorts (those who were born between 1975 and 1990) remember that system only as a part of childhood, but their adult life started after the iron curtain had fallen and a flood of new ideas and practices spilled into all spheres of life. At the same time, the increased concern among the Russian elite about the declining population and low birth rates led to the adoption of a pronatalist family policy based on monetarist approaches reinforced by conservative-traditionalist ideology. Our main research question asks: To what extent did state social and family policies in Russia, which are based on the ideology of traditionalism and conservatism, derail or slow down the modernization of the quantitative and structural parameters of fertility patterns within the Second Demographic Transition context? Our analysis is based on indicators from period and cohort fertility tables, specific for age and parity. Extrapolations are used for Russia's female cohorts born 1971-1994 to arrive at expected ultimate fertility outcomes. Our evidence, obtained from the comprehensive analysis of fertility tables, reveals that the transformation of the Russian fertility model continues to be in line with the Second Demographic Transition common to developed countries, and that two decades of active pronatalist policy in the context of strengthening the conservative family ideology did not stop the modernization of fertility patterns.
A survey of modern Russian fertility
This article based on unpublished data presents birth rate trends during this century and analyses in greater detail the fertility of cohorts born after 1910. During this period, fertility in Russia changed from being amongst the highest in Europe (nearly three children per woman) to one of the lowest (1.8 children per woman in the cohort of 1945). A recent upturn has resulted in a final value of two children for the cohort of 1955. As in other countries, the reduction in the number of families with three ou more children has resulted in a general fertility decline. But births of first and second orders have been exceptionally stable. This is the force of Russian fertility. It has progressed from a pattern of highly diverse family sizes to one in which the one or two-child family model has been widely adopted. The article also shows the family policy measures adopted in 1981 and attempts to assess their effects. Finally, it analyses the fall in fertility after 1987. Although this fall was, in the first instance, clearly a counter-effect of the expectations aroused by the measures of 1981, it is not possible to exclude the hypothesis that the recent fertility decline reflects a 'wait and see' attitude among couples faced by a complex situation in Russia.
The monitoring of public opinion economic&social changes
From 2007 to 2015 total fertility rate in Russia increased from 1.42 to 1.78, following a long period of decline in 1990-1999 and stagnation in 2000-2006. Politicians attribute this growth to a package of pro-natalist policy measures introduced in 2007 and particularly to the maternity (family) capital program, the most well-known innovation of the 2007 reform. Existing studies, although sparse, have not actually proven this point of view clearly yet. This paper aims to reveal whether the pro-natalist measures of 2007 have influenced probability of second and consequent births in Russia. Since in 2007 several family policy measures were introduced simultaneously, and the authors estimate their cumulative effect applying a set of binary logistic regressions on the panel of Russian Generations and Gender Survey data collected in 2004, 2007, and 2011. The study reveals that the probability of second and subsequent births before the introduction of policy measures does not differ signif...
SSRN Electronic Journal, 2016
Estimating effects of 2007 family policy changes on probability of second and subsequent births in Russia 4 From 2007 to 2014 total fertility rate in Russia increased from 1.42 to 1.75. To what extent this growth is related to a package of family policy measures introduced in 2007? Although the maternity (family) capital program is the most well-known innovation of the 2007 reform, we argue that the new rules of monthly childcare allowance assignment is its another major component. Since all measures were introduced simultaneously, it is only possible to estimate their cumulative effect on subsequent fertility behavior. Using panel Russian Generations and Gender Survey data collected in 2004, 2007 and 2011, this study assesses how family policy changes introduced in 2007 were related to the fertility behavior in Russia in recent years. We find a statistically significant increase in the chances of having second and subsequent births in September 2007 to Summer 2011 in comparison with the period of Summer 2004 to September 2007. We interpret that as a cumulative effect of the 2007 policy changes. We acknowledge that the observed effects might be related only to the calendar shifts in fertility behavior and further data and studies are needed to make any conclusions about completed fertility of the cohorts affected by 2007 family policy measures.
2015
Diminishing regional diversity in fertility indicators was the dominant trend in the second half of the 20th century. In the 1990s, a period of the most intense political and economic transformation, this trend was interrupted and Russia experienced a short-term increase in regional variations in fertility, which occurred against the background of the rapid fall in its average quantum. Soon, however, the differentiation of fertility once again continued to decline, and, by the early 2000s, the uniformity of the Russian regions returned to the level characteristic of the 1980s. It can be stated as a period of uniform compensatory increase in fertility with tendency pulling regions, where period fertility rates have fallen too low, up to the regions with an average fertility level. The first five years of increase in total fertility rate (TFR) since 1999, not too change the regional heterogeneity, and it stagnated near the historically lowest level. But in 2007, the year when the new ...