Minus 5 percent: Russian women refuse to give birth because of the pension reform

Not so long ago, Novye Izvestia published a forecast by independent demographer Alexey Raksha, in which he warned: in ten years, 142 million 779 thousand people will live in our country. This means that the population of Russia will decrease by 4 million by this time! According to the author, which he cited during the discussion of this publication, Russian women are afraid not of pregnancy and childbirth, but of responsibility, loss of freedom and habitual way of life, fear of unreliable relationships, dismissal, lack of money, lack of housing, lack of grandmothers, lack of available nurseries and kindergartens, uncertainty in the future, inappropriate qualities of the chosen one...

No wonder the public organization "Council of Mothers" in the fall of 2020 proposed to impose a tax on childless Russians, by analogy with the one that was in Soviet times. The chairman of the board of the organization, Tatyana Butskaya, said that it should be collected from both sexes: “We are talking about those who deliberately refuse the decision to have a child. They don't like it, let them pay the tax and don't like it further. Either he loves children and gives birth, or he doesn’t love and pays for what he doesn’t love”.

According to her, the amount of the payment will be approximately 500 rubles per month.

And here is another confirmation of Rahkshi's findings. It was found by journalist Pavel Pryanikov in one of the scientific reports made at the XI Ural Demographic Forum. It is an unexpected but logical view of demographers on yet another consequence of the "pension reform", that is, raising the retirement age in Russia:

“The event that took place in mid-2018, which can be called the reason for the decline in the total fertility rate in 2019, is the increase in the retirement age. It is this that can be considered the reason for the refusal of women to give birth to (another) child, which was reflected in a decrease in the indicator by 5% per year.

The negative impact of raising the retirement age on the birth rate is explained by the fact that, firstly, the extension of working life by 5 years will not allow grandparents to fully help in raising and looking after children, which is the most important factor in the birth rate for some of young girls, which is proved by Scientific research. In addition, the continuation of work by older people will aggravate the situation on the labor market, increase the difficulties in finding employment for young people, which may increase their fear of losing their jobs due to childbirth and refusal to give birth.

In general, the pension reform destabilizes the socio-economic situation in the country, which also reduces the birth rate. On the basis of these factors, it is possible to predict a further decline in fertility rates in Russia".