Kremlin Increasingly Using Repressive Measures to Try to Boost Birthrate, Shukyurov Says

Paul Goble
    Staunton, Dec. 19 – Until the start of Vladimir Putin’s expanded war in Ukraine, the Russian authorities sought to boost the country’s birthrate by offering various incentives like maternal capital to lead more women to have more children. But since then, Aby Shukyurov says, they have increasing turned to repressive measures and more are on the way.
    The Russian demographer who now teaches in Paris says that Moscow has made this change both because of the failure of incentives to significantly raise the birthrate and because of the Kremlin’s increasing propensity to see repressive measures as inherently more effective (reforum.io/blog/2024/12/19/aby-shukyurov-repressii-voshli-v-demograficheskie-programmy/).
    In the last two years, Moscow and the regions have banned Childfree propaganda, prohibited abortions in private clinics, and limited access to abortion pills. These efforts, however, have not had a significant effect. Indeed, while the number of abortions continue to fall, the number of births has not gone up.
    In the next year, Shukyurov suggests, the Russian authorities appear likely to take three additional repressive steps in this area: defining fetuses as persons and thus making abortion murder, imposing special taxes on those who don’t have children, and making it more difficult for couples to get divorced.
    None of these measures will be popular, but more importantly from the point of view of the authorities, none of them is likely to lead to an increase in the Russian birthrate, which has long been falling as in other countries because of urbanization and other changes arising from social modernization.
    If the Russian government really wanted to increase the population, Shukyurov continues, it would be far better advised to spend money increasing the life expectancy of Russians and especially of Russian men. But such efforts would be expensive. Moreover, for the time being, Kremlin policies in Ukraine are contributing to a decline in male life expectancy.