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For a quarter century, the Russian President Vladimir Putin We are struggling with the declining and aging population of our country. Demographic crisis already exists his rise to powerThe nation recorded its lowest birth rate in 1999, a year before he officially became president.
In 2005, Putin acknowledged the issue, saying it was necessary to maintain it.social and economic stabilityTo address the challenge of declining population. He reiterated his concerns in 2019, acknowledging that Russia is still “haunted” by the problem.
Recently, on Thursday (October 23), he addressed a demographic conference in the Kremlin, where he stressed that increasing the birth rate was “crucial” future of russia,
To combat this trend, Putin has launched a number of initiatives, ranging from providing free school meals for large families to reinstating Soviet-era “Hero Mother” medals for women who give birth to 10 or more children.
“Many of our grandmothers and great-grandmothers had seven, eight and even more children,” Putin said in 2023. “Let’s preserve and revive these wonderful traditions. Having many children and a large family should become the norm.”
At the beginning of this century, the birth rate in Russia increased with its economic prosperity, rising from 1.21 million babies born in 1999 to 1.94 million in 2015.
But these hard-earned achievements are fading into the background financial uncertaintyThe war in ukraineThe migration of young men, and opposition to immigration.
According to Russia’s Federal Statistics Service, Russia’s population has declined from 147.6 million in 1990 to 146.1 million this year, a year before the collapse of the Soviet Union. Since then Illegal occupation of Crimea In 2014, data included the peninsula’s population of approximately 2 million, as well as births and deaths there.
The population is also quite old. According to government data, in 1990, 21.1 percent of people were 55 or older. In 2024 this figure was 30 percent.
Since peaking in 2015, the number of births has declined annually, and deaths now exceed births. There were only 1.22 million live births last year – slightly more than the 1999 low. Demographer Alexey Raksha said the number of babies born in Russia in February 2025 was the lowest monthly figure in more than two centuries.
Russia is trying to halt this decline and adopt new restrictions to embrace “traditional family values”, including laws banning abortion and promoting “child-free ideology” and outlawing all LGBT+ activism.
Russian feminist scholar Sasha Talavar said that officials believe these values can act as a “magic wand” to solve the country’s demographic problems.
In the government’s view, she says, women can be economically independent, but they must be “willing and very excited to take on this additional work of reproduction in the name of patriotism and Russian strength”.
In much of the West, declining birth rates are usually linked to economic unrest. Young couples living in cramped apartments, unable to buy their own home, or fearing for their jobs, are naturally less confident that they will be able to raise a child.
But Russia suffers from a harsh demographic history. Approximately 27 million Soviet citizens died in World War II, dramatically reducing the male population. Then, as the country began to recover, the Soviet Union collapsed and the birth rate fell again.
Jenny Mathers of Aberystwyth University in Wales says the number of Russian women in their twenties and thirties is low. This means that officials are “desperate to have as many children as possible from this very small number of women”.
Although Russia has not disclosed how many of its own people have been killed in Ukraine, Western estimates put the death toll in the hundreds of thousands. When the war began, many young Russians moved abroad – some for ideological reasons, to avoid a crackdown on dissent, or to avoid military service.
“The dwindling pool of potential mothers has greatly diminished the pool of potential fathers,” Mathers says, explaining that this is a particular problem for Putin, who has long been concerned with population and national security.
Some family-friendly initiatives are popular, such as the distribution of cash certificates for parents, which can go toward pensions, education, or subsidized mortgages.
Others are controversial, such as lump-sum payments of around $1,200 (£900) given to pregnant teenagers in some areas. Officials say they are aimed at helping vulnerable mothers, but critics say they encourage teen pregnancy.
Other programs appear to be mostly symbolic. Since 2022, Russia has created new state holidays, such as Family, Love and Fidelity Day in July and Pregnant Women’s Day, celebrated twice a year on April 7 and October 7.
Last year, Russia’s fertility rate – the average number of children born per woman – was 1.4, state media reported. This is well below the 2.1 replacement rate for the population, and slightly lower than the US figure of 1.6 released by the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Some regions have laws that make it illegal to “encourage abortion”, while national legislation introduced in 2024 bans the promotion of “child-free propaganda”. The wording in such initiatives is often vague, leaving them open to interpretation, but this change was enough to prompt the producers of a reality TV show called “16 and Pregnant” to change the name of the show to “16 Year Old Mom”.
For many women, the measures have made already sensitive conversations even more frightening. A 29-year-old woman, who has decided not to have children, told reporters that she sees a gynecologist at a private clinic in Moscow rather than a government clinic to avoid intrusive questions.
“Am I planning to have kids, am I not planning to have kids – I am not asked about that at all,” she said, speaking on condition of anonymity for fear of repercussions. He said it was “a completely different story” in government clinics.
A growing number of laws limit access to abortion. Although the procedure is legal and widely available, some private clinics no longer provide abortion services. The new law also banned the sale of abortion-inducing pills and affected access to emergency contraceptives.
Women are encouraged to go to government clinics, where wait times are long, while some of these facilities refuse to perform abortions on certain days. By the time patients complete the mandatory consultation and mandatory waiting period of between 48 hours to a week, they run the risk of exceeding the legal time limit for an abortion.
The number of abortions under these laws has steadily declined, although experts say it was already declining. Still, births have not increased that much, and activists believe banning abortion would only harm the health of women and children.
“All you get from this is illegal abortions. It means more deaths: more children dying and more women dying,” says Russian journalist and feminist activist Zalina Marshenkulova.
She sees the new government’s limitations as mere repression for the sake of repression. “They exist only to impose restrictions, to stop any voice of freedom,” she claims.
Russia could grow its population by allowing higher immigration – a policy the Kremlin is unlikely to adopt.
Russian authorities have recently stoked anti-migrant sentiment, tracking their movements, restricting their employment, and hindering their children’s right to education. Central Asians who traditionally travel to Russia for work are looking elsewhere in hopes of escaping growing discrimination and economic uncertainty.
While the war in Ukraine continues, Moscow can promise financial rewards to prospective parents, but not the stability needed to gamble on the future.
When people lack confidence about their prospects, it’s not the right time to have children, Mathers says, adding: “An open-ended big war doesn’t really encourage people to think positively about the future.”
The 29-year-old woman, who decided not to have children, agrees. “The happiest and healthiest child will only be born into a family with healthy, happy parents,” he said.
The Associated Press contributed to this report