Addressing an audience at the Eurasian Women's Forum in St. Petersburg on Wednesday, Russian President Vladimir Putin praised government policies aimed at helping women achieve the ultimate balance — professional success while also being the center of a “big family.”
He went on to joke that Russian women can manage it easily, and still be “beautiful, gentle and charming.”
His comments are the latest in a series of government officials trying to reverse Russian policy. birth rate declines by appealing to patriotism and promising financial incentives to influence prospective parents.
Russia’s fertility rate — which measures the average number of children a woman gives birth to during her lifetime — is hovering around 1.4, below the population replacement rate of 2.1. Kremlin officials have called Russia’s statistics “catastrophic,” and it comes at a time when higher mortality rate among young Russian men because of the war in Ukraine.
Earlier this month, a lawmaker told state media that just as Russia decided it needed to launch a special military operation in Ukraine, it also needed a “special demographic operation” at home to ensure the country’s future.
The urge to reproduce
In some regions, full-time students who become new mothers will receive financial compensation, while in Moscow, health authorities are expanding free access to fertility testing and treatment.
Russia's strategy to grow families is part of Putin's broader push toward more traditional, conservative values. In an effort to reach younger generations, new courses are being launched for students in grades 5 through 9.
A course published online in August said its aim was to instill positive attitudes toward large families. It is part of a state narrative that encourages women to be mothers to the country.
Some women find it annoying and distracting.
“Even for women who already have children and want to have more children, [the language] “It’s sad,” said Lada Shamardina, a Russian journalist for the independent medical publication Medivestnik.
Women “believe that having children should be their decision alone,” she said.
Shamardina spoke to CBC News from Istanbul, where she moved after the start of Russia's full-scale invasion in February 2022.
While abroad, he continued to cover Russia's efforts to encourage a baby boom, which in addition to incentives included restrict access for abortion.
Low birth rate
According to data published by Rosstat, the country's statistics agency, 599,600 children were born in Russia in the first half of 2024 — 16,000 fewer than in the same period in 2023 and the lowest since 1999.
While Russian officials have expressed concern about the birth rate for years, in recent months lawmakers have made broadly panicked statements about the importance of procreation.
In early September, Yevgeny Shestopalov, the health minister for the Primorsky Krai region, told Russian news media that having a busy career was no excuse for not having a family, and that people could choose to “create offspring” during work breaks.
A few days later, Zhanna Ryabtseva, a deputy in the Russian State Duma, said that 18- and 19-year-olds should consider having children, because “the best family is a student family who then live life together.”
To help with that, Russia's Karelia and Chelyabinsk regions launched a program where women under the age of 25 who are full-time students can receive a lump sum payment if they become new mothers.
In Russia's Karelia region, which borders Finland, students with babies can receive the equivalent of $1,500 Cdn.
In Chelyabinsk, a region in Russia's Ural Mountains, the payment is nearly $15,000 Canadian, and can be spent on housing, education or medical services.
Access to fertility testing
Earlier this week in Moscow, women between the ages of 18 and 40 began receiving referrals for fertility testing as part of a new citywide program.
The women were invited to take a test that measures the amount of anti-Mullerian hormone in their blood. This hormone, produced by the ovaries, reflects a woman's ovarian reserve, or the number of healthy, immature eggs in her reproductive system.
If tests show that women have low ovarian reserves, they will be offered further treatment, including the option of freezing some of their eggs.
Shamardina believes the free testing is an excellent service for women interested in family planning. However, she notes that some of the reaction on Russian social media has been negative, as women have begun receiving unsolicited invitations from Moscow health authorities to get tested.
Responding to an article published on the social media platform Telegram, one woman posted that the initiative made her feel like a substitute for the state, while another compared the plan to a Margaret Atwood novel. The Maid's Talewhere women are forced to produce offspring for the political elite.
““I think the main problem is that people in Russia, and most women in Russia, don't trust our government,” Shamardina said. “All these topics are very intimate … and I think women are afraid to open this information to the government.”
CBC News spoke to a young woman living in Moscow who received an invitation to take the test. She said it made her “very angry.”
The woman, who contacted CBC through Shamardina, asked not to be identified because she is critical of the state. She said the program's premise was positive, but that launching it without warning women was problematic.
“This creates a feeling of coercion and a violation of personal boundaries,” she wrote to the CBC via messaging app.
“The topic of family planning has become a sensitive one…. The mass media regularly urge Russian women to give up their careers and have children, and openly criticize those who do not put family first.”
The politics of family values
Although the birth rate in Russia is still higher than that of many Western countries, including Canada (which stands at 100%), 1.33), Putin said Survival of the Russian ethnic group depends on women having at least two children.
But during more than two decades in power, he has made it clear that he would prefer to see a larger family.
The country awards families with “parental glory” who raise seven or more children. Lilia Syropyatova, 40, and her husband Maxim, 43, received the award in 2019, and they and their nine children met with Putin.
“Giving birth to a child is a duty,” Lilia Syropyatova told CBC News, which contacted her via social media.
The couple, who live in Yekaterinburg, now have 11 children aged between two and 20.
“Without people, there would be no countries, and for there to be people, there needs to be children,” Syropyatova said.
In 2022, Putin restored a Soviet-era honorary award called Mother Heroinethat recognizes and respects women with 10 or more children.
“They think they have to return Russia to the 19th century, when every woman had seven children,” said Alexey Raksha, a Moscow-based independent demographer who spoke to CBC News via Zoom.
“The main propaganda and message in the media is that women should start having children earlier.”
Questionable strategy
Raksha said some countries are trying to increase their birth rates, but the moves have a different tone in “non-democratic countries” like Russia, where the government equates a larger population with state power.
He said the government would continue to try to encourage women to have more children through public messaging, but believed the campaign would not succeed.
The government's demographic efforts are part of a broader strategy to build a society based on more conservative values aligned with Orthodox Christianity.
Putin — who has two children with his ex-wife and reportedly has more with his alleged girlfriend, Alina Kabaeva, who has approved by the West — often portrays Russian values as superior to those in Western societies. He accuses Western countries of rejecting “moral norms”“and become a devil.
Raksha said the family studies classes were an attempt to try and “brainwash” society, and that it was “nonsense” to think they would correct demographic trends that had been predicted years ago.
He said the main driver of the current low birth rate dates back to the 1990s, when there was a significant decline in annual births in the years after the breakup of the Soviet Union.
Fewer babies means fewer women of childbearing age now.