Targeted Government Financial Support and Outright Bans Won’t Reverse Collapse of Fertility Rate in Russia, Experts Say

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Mar. 30 – The Russian government acts as if targeted financial support of potential parents and outright bans of abortion will be sufficient to reverse the country’s rapidly declining fertility rate, but Russian experts say that such actions are insufficient because they do not address deeper trends that would have to be overcome for birthrates to rise significantly.

            And one of them, Yan Vlasov, the vice president of the Russian Patients Union, says that unless officials recognize this and address these other causes rather than assuming money and bans are enough, the population of the country will fall by more than half to 70 million by mid-century (nakanune.ru/articles/124513/).

            He adds that any family policy must recognize that a family involves multiple generations and not just “he, she and the dog.” Moreover, it must recognize that the share of young people whose physical and/or psychological state does not allow them to have children is both large and growing in Russia.

            There are many reasons for this, Vlasov says. “In schools there are no standards for food and among school graduates only a third are health. Children now sit for hours with their computers and don’t move around, and without movement, their hormonal balance suffers.” All this needs to be addressed rather than giving money and banning abortions.

            A second specialist, Mariya Milyutina who works as a gynecologist and reproduction expert, adds that “the level of testosterone among young men [in Russia] now is lower than it was 40 years ago and the quality of activity of sperm ahs fallen by ten times over the last 50 years.”

            She says that has led to less sexual activity among young people than among their parents. Unwanted pregnancies are thus fewer, but so too are pregnancies overall. Instead, young people turn to computer games and the like and won’t have more children or even can’t at current levels of sexual activity.

            And a third expert, Moscow psychologist Yevgeniya Ogarkova says that socio-cultural factors are at work as well. Many young people find it far more difficult to cope with the challenges of adulthood especially under capitalism than their parents did and thus decide not to have children.

            Moreover, many young Russians grew up in single parent families and don’t have any desire to repeat the experience. Some 40 percent of children are being raised in single parent households and unless that changes, a large share of them will decide not to form families and raise children either.

 

            Improvements in the economy and especially toward a more predictable future will help, but what won’t, the experts are unanimous in saying, is banning abortions. They should be the woman’s choice, and they warn that if abortions are banned in medical facilities, women will still get them at risk to themselves and to the chance they will ever be able to have more children.