Share of Russians who Say They Don’t Want Children has Tripled since 2005, Polls Show

Paul Goble

            Staunton, May 23 – The percentage of Russians who say they do not want to have children has risen from six percent in 2005, during Putin’s first term, to 18 percent now, according to VTsIOM polls. Over the same period, those who say that having children is their main motive for marriage has fallen from 39 percent to 25. 

            Commenting on this change, Nikolay Yaremenko, chief editor of the Rosbalt news agency and an instructor at Moscow’s Finance University, argues that there are five reasons for this change and that Moscow must take them seriously (rosbalt.ru/news/2025-05-22/trevozhnaya-demografiya-pochemu-rossiyane-vse-chasche-ne-hotyat-imet-detey-5395370).

            First of all, he says, there are economic reasons. “The birth and education of a child in present-day Russia is a colossal financial burden.” The cost of housing, education, medical services and “even the simplest goods for children” is constantly going up, and potential parents don’t see any prospect that this will change anytime soon.

            Second, the Russian government provides far less than it did in terms of social infrastructure. As a result, the burdens fall on potential parents; and ever more of them do not believe that they will be able or at least want to bear those burdens so that they can bring more children into the world.

            Third, Yaremenko continues, there has been a significant shift in the values of the population in the direction of individualism and a desire for self-realization, a trend that has further reduced the attractiveness of having children however much the authorities may encourage Russians to do so.

            Fourth, there are psychological factors at work, including fears about what conditions will be like in the future. And fifth, in addition to all these things, the media helps create a model of parenting that few real people are prepared or even able to meet. Consequently, they refuse to have children.

            To ignore these shifts and the reasons behind them, as the government is now doing, the commentator says, “means to ignore the voice of a significant part of its own population.” What needs to happen instead, Yaremenko argues, is to analyze what is going on and take steps so that parenting is no longer “a feat but a joy.”

            Doing either won’t be easy, he suggests, but the government needs to “adapt itself to a world in which traditional life trajectories are no longer the only possible ones,” however much the rulers would prefer otherwise.