Russian President Vladimir Putin has reportedly encouraged Russians to engage in intimate relations during lunch and coffee breaks at work to address the country’s declining birth rate. The initiative comes as Russia’s fertility rate, currently at about 1.5 children per woman, falls significantly below the 2.1 rate required to maintain a stable population, Metro reported. Additionally, over a million, primarily younger Russians, have left the country amid the ongoing war with Ukraine

Health Minister Dr Yevgeny Shestopalov emphasised that being too busy at work is not a valid excuse for avoiding procreation. He suggested that people could take advantage of breaks to focus on expanding their families, noting that ”life flies by too quickly.”

When a reporter asked him how people working 12 to 14 hours a day would find time to have children, he responded by suggesting they could use their break times.

Previously, Putin has insisted, ”The preservation of the Russian people is our highest national priority. The fate of Russia….depends on how many of us there will be. It is a question of national importance.”

Notably, Russia’s birth rate has hit its lowest point since 1999, with the number of live births in June falling below 100,000. This drastic drop has raised concerns in Moscow about a severe population decline. According to Rosstat, Russia’s governmental statistics agency, the country has seen a significant decrease in births, with 16,000 fewer children born between January and June 2024 compared to the same period last year, as per Euro News. 

This decline is further exacerbated by an 18% increase in population decline, with 49,000 more deaths recorded in 2024 than the previous year, likely due to the ongoing conflict in Ukraine.

The Kremlin’s efforts to boost Russia’s declining birth rate have led to a series of measures, including:

• Free fertility checks: Women in Moscow, aged 18-40, are encouraged to undergo free fertility assessments to evaluate their “reproductive potential”.
• Employer coercion: MP Tatyana Butskaya has proposed a plan to pressure employers into encouraging their female employees to have children.
• Incentives: Chelyabinsk region is offering 8,500 pounds to female students under 24 for their first child’s birth
• Restricting abortion: Access to abortion across the country is being blocked as public figures and churchmen claim women’s duty is to give birth and raise children.
• Divorce fees: Fees for divorce have been increased to discourage separation.

Politician Anna Kuznetsova has also demanded women start giving birth at a young age. She said: ”You should start giving birth at 19-20 years old. Then, statistically, the family will be able to have three, four, or more children.”

However, critics argue these policies undermine individual autonomy, particularly for women, and may have unintended consequences on Russia’s social fabric.

Moscow:

The Kremlin said Friday that it was “working hard” to reverse declining birth rates in Russia, warning that “disastrous” demographic trends were putting the country’s future at risk.

Russia has faced a myriad of demographic challenges since the collapse of the USSR, including an ageing population, an outflow of men due to the conflict in Ukraine and the lowest fertility rate in 17 years.

“It is now at a terribly low level — 1.4 (births per woman). This is comparable to European countries, Japan and so on. But this is disastrous for the future of the nation,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told a media festival.

“Anyone with many children is a hero. We live in the largest country in the world. And there are fewer of us every year. And the only way to cope with this is to increase the average birth rate,” Peskov said.

Russia had a population of about 148 million people at the breakup of the Soviet Union in 1991, a figure that now stands at around 144 million after a protracted period of high deaths and low births in the 1990s.

The country’s birth rate has not recovered since Soviet times despite President Vladimir Putin’s government offering generous payouts and mortgage subsidies to large families.

Recent problems include large numbers of Covid deaths, hundreds of thousands of men fleeing the country to avoid being mobilised to fight in Ukraine, and migration into Russia hitting a ten-year low in 2023.

Russia’s population could drop to 130 million by the 2040s, demographers have forecasted.

When asked whether young families could still have faith in the future, the Kremlin pointed to similar demographics in other countries.

“This is unfortunately a trend,” Peskov said.

“The situation will remain difficult for some period of time, but the government is working hard on this issue, and it is one of the top priorities of the President of Russia,” he added.

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