Moscow Must Double Share of Spending on Demography to Three Percent of GDP if Birthrates are to Stop Falling, Just Russia Party Candidates in Tatarstan Say

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Aug. 26 – Russians are not having children because housing prices are so high and future earnings are so uncertain, candidates from the Just Russia Party in Tatarstan say; and the only way to boost the number of births is to double government spending on demographic issues from the current 1.5 percent of GDP to three percent.

            That can be done, they acknowledge, only by making the income tax rates more progressive and imposing special taxes on major corporations and banks, steps that the Putin regime won’t take but calls for which are not only popular but the only way forward if Russia is to see its fertility rate rise instead of continuing to fall (business-gazeta.ru/article/709813).

            At a recent campaign rally, Just Russia Party candidates in Tatarstan said that just how dire the demographic situation in Russia is becoming are currently being obscured by Moscow which is simply no longer releasing data but argued that enough is known about birthrates and the factors affecting them that it is clear what needs to be done.

            The candidates said that over the last five years, the only reason the population of Tatarstan has grown is as a result of the influx of migrants. Among women living there, the fertility rate has fallen dramatically to 1.4 children per woman per lifetime, high for Russia today but well below the replacement level of 2.2

            The average age at which women in Tatarstan are giving birth has risen dramatically as well, the candidates say, up from 26 in 2005 to “more than 29 today,” something that has by itself depressed the number of children such women have further. The Putin regime is trying to encourage women to have more children, but its approach isn’t working.

            The Just Russia candidates concede that part of the reason for the decline in the number of births is a reflection of the fact that women now in prime child-bearing cohorts were born in the 1990s when there were fewer births. Thus, today, there are fewer women who are in a position to become mothers.

            But that isn’t the reason those who are potential mothers aren’t doing so. Having a child and even more having several is the quickest path to poverty given the skyrocketing costs of housing, the absence of enough child care facilities, and the need for young people to get started on their careers before they think about having children.

            The Just Russia candidates call for introducing a law specifying that those who have parents should be paid a minimum amount, making maternal capital not a one-time payment but a continuing one, eliminating housing debt by cancelling mortgages of those who have children, ensuring the payment of alimony, and increasing benefits for children.

            Doing all these things may be expensive but they are necessary if the population of the Russian Federation is going to slow its decline, the candidates say. They call for doubling the amount Moscow spends on demographic programs and taxing those who are better off and big business and banks to get the necessary money.

            What is important about such calls is not that they are likely to lead the Kremlin to fulfill them but rather that they are an indication of the judgment of opposition politicians about how people really feel and what these politicians think will appeal to them as part of their parties’ programs.

            Because the candidates in this case are from Tatarstan, their appeals have an obvious ethnic dimension; but because they cast them in terms of demography rather than ethnicity they avoid the kind of sanctions such candidates would likely  be subject to if they posed them in more ethnically specific ways.