Modern fertility trends in Russia and the impact of the pro-natalist policies

Modern fertility trends in Russia and the impact of the pro-natalist policies


Archangelskiy V.N.

Cand. Sci. (Econ.), Head of the Sector at the Center for Population Problems Studies at the Economic Faculty of the Moscow State University; Leading Researcher of the International Research Laboratory for Demography and Human Capital, Russian Academy of National Economy and Public Administration, Moscow, Russia archangelsky@yandex.ru

Zinkina Ju.V.

Cand. Sci. (Hist.), Senior Research Fellow, Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration, Moscow, Russia. juliazin@list.ru

Korotayev A.V.

Dr. Sci. (Hist.), Head of the Laboratory for Monitoring the Risks of Socio-Political Destabilization, National Research University “Higher School of Economics”; Chief Researcher at the Institute for African Studies of RAS, Moscow, Russia. akorotayev@gmail.com

Shulgin S.G.

Cand. Sci. (Econ.), Vice-Head of the International Research Laboratory for Demography and Human Capital, Russian Academy of National Economy and Public Administration, Moscow, Russia sergey@shulgin.ru

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For citation:

Archangelskiy V.N., Zinkina Ju.V., Korotayev A.V., Shulgin S.G. Modern fertility trends in Russia and the impact of the pro-natalist policies. Sotsiologicheskie issledovaniya [Sociological Studies]. 2017. No 3. P. 43-50




Abstract

In the 1990s Russia, along with many Eastern European countries, hit lowest-low fertility levels (TFR lower than 1.3 children per woman) which were persistent throughout the early 2000s despite some small growth of TFR. This spurred the introduction of pro-natalist policies, the most prominent of which was a large lump-sum payment on the birth of a second or a higher-order child, the “maternity capital”, in 2007. This had an immediate impact upon fertility. In order to assess the impact of pro-natalist policies upon the TFR dynamics let us calculate an estimate what the TFR in 2015 would be if there were no such policies. The annual increase of TFR for second and higher-order births in 2000–2004 was about 0.02. If this increase had persisted in 2007–2015, the TFR for second and higher-order births in 2015 would have equalled 0.731, while in reality it was 0.990, or 35.4% higher. The TFR for all births would have been in this case 1.518, while in reality it was 1.777, or 17.1% higher. We can take these figures as estimates of the effect of the pro-natalist policies realized in 2007–2015. Notably, the increase is observed not only in TFR, but in fertility rates of real cohorts of women as well.


Keywords
fertility; demographic policy; pro-natalist policy; support for families with children; maternity capital; birth order; medium age of the mother; fertility in real cohorts

References

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Content No 3, 2017