Paul Goble
Staunton, Jan. 14 – The Kremlin’s pro-natalist policies are backfiring at least in one respect, observers say: Officials are giving special benefits to already large families from Central Asia because they are more likely to have additional children than are indigenous ethnic Russians who have fewer and don’t qualify for these arrangements.
As a result, local and regional officials can point to increases in the number and size of large families, something the Kremlin now evaluates their performance on; but this is achieved by boosting births among non-Russians rather than among ethnic Russians, increasing the relative size of the first community relative to the second (nakanune.ru/articles/123035/).
Some ethnic Russians, already concerned about the declining share of the population of the Russian Federation their nation represents, are alarmed; but so far, they have had little luck in getting officials to modify pro-natalist policies and the evaluation of their success to that the benefits flow first to the ethnic Russians and not to Central Asians.
And Russian anger on this point is likely to grow as members of the titular nationality see that the number of Central Asian children in their schools is rising faster than that of ethnic Russians – and that this is taking place as a result of policies put in place by a government that claims to be doing what it can to make Russia more Russian.
Thursday, January 16, 2025
Kremlin’s Pro-Natalist Policies Pushing Up Fertility Rates among Central Asian Immigrants, Making Officials Look Good but Likely Increasing Non-Russian Share of Population
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