Sociologists: one-child family turned out to be stronger than appeals to give birth more often

The attempts of the Russian authorities to somehow develop "family policy and the growth of the birth rate", to make the family a "national idea" are useless, demographers prove in their studies. For example, Aleksandr Zhavoronkov, an analyst at the Institute of Sociology of the Russian Academy of Sciences, in his work "Relationship between family orientations of the population and assessments of judgments about children, family well-being and measures of state support for families // Similarity and difference in value orientations of husbands and wives based on the results of a simultaneous survey of spouses," to which the blog refers The "Tolkovatel" gives the following figures and judgments:

- Setting of real behavior - in orientations towards one-child and childless existence. The norm of a childless or small family dominates regardless of the type of family in terms of the number of children (53% of those surveyed).

- Low income is accompanied by a significant (95%) increase in the proportion of people with a large orientation. Among the stratum with an income above the average, the share of those oriented toward a childless family is increasing (with 90% significance).

- The share of those oriented towards a three-child family concerns only 9% of the population.

- The total fertility rate (TFR) in the ensemble of the studied families is 1.591. This indicator monotonically increases with a decrease in the scale of territorial agglomerations from 1.503 for families in cities with a population of 1 million or more to 2.179 among villagers. According to Rosstat, the TFR value in the years of our study in the general population was 1.542, and in 2019 - 1.504 children per family (with a drop among the urban population of the Russian Federation to 1.427 and an increase among rural residents to 1.754).

- In one of my works, I quoted the answer of a mother of two children to a question asked in 1978: “Now, please, note under what conditions would you personally in your family want to have a third child, if such a question arose before you? ". The answer was exhaustive and I repeat it here (it is relevant today): “Stability and stability not only in food prices, but in everything, high wages, prospects for the children themselves, their future, pride in their family, my last name, good family relations ... "

Today, the situation has changed little. According to political scientist, Doctor of Philosophy Dmitry Mikhailichenko, Russian society does not have an acceptable image of the future, and the level of futureshocks (fear of the future) is growing:

“Sistema's political strategists insist on the need to formulate an image of the future within the framework of the current electoral campaign and note the urgency of the problem, but experienced functionaries understand: it is better not to get involved in this topic.

So we got a kind of half-hearted statement: the president drew attention to the problem, but did not reveal it, therefore, the whole country will think it over and the train of critical interpretations will increase. And since the problem concerns everyone, the deep people will ponder under what conditions he can have 2-4 children, what he will feed them for and how to dress them.

Of course, a sharp increase in the birth rate in the future 3-7 years is impossible. And the designated image of the future becomes a kind of ideal, but difficult to implement construct.

However, even worse options are possible here. The highest birth rate in African countries (Niger, Somalia, DR Congo and further on the list). In these countries, there is no pension provision and a high birth rate is a chance that children will be able to provide for their parents in old age.

Russia is far from Africa, and certain standards of social policy are preserved in it. But the current level of pensions and wages in the regions is such that the growing level of poverty is an invariant of the image of the future in Russia.

Russian sociality and the processes of differentiation taking place in it are increasingly reminiscent of India, with its caste thinking. In this country, 1-2% of the super-rich, about 10% of educated people, with a more or less decent lifestyle, and everything else is total poverty of the deep people.

But in India, the elites know how to occupy the deep-seated people and make them work for the good of the country, while Russia with its rent-based way of life does not really need it and is poorly supported by the state. Therefore, Russia will solve demographic problems at the expense of migrants from Central Asia and increased birth rates in the republics of the North Caucasus. This is a trend towards changing the civilizational foundations of Russia..."

Developing the topic, political scientist Roman Alekhin adds:

“The issue of the image of the future worries a lot of people, because on the basis of understanding the future, we build our present. However, the image of the future can be formed on the basis of ideas or on the basis of goals. The difference between an idea (fantasy) and a goal is whether there is an achievement scenario or not. What the President said: "a strong, prosperous family in which two, three, four children grow up - in fact, this should be the image of the future of Russia" - this is just an idea, because there was not even a hint of the existence of any or a script for its implementation.

(...)

Those who say that in order to make a decision on the birth of a second and third child, it is necessary to increase the income of families accordingly. In this case, money has no direct influence on such a decision. Parents are most afraid of uncertainty. It is uncertainty that scares and depresses most people. Income is important, but understanding is more important - will there be at least today's prosperity tomorrow. And there is no such understanding.

And, of course, it is important for parents to understand that a child will be born in a welfare state, where he will be safe and able to develop as a full-fledged member of society. And here the state should establish health care, especially for children, education and, in general, a comfortable environment for the development of a child. But this is not the case, and our children continue to die without waiting for timely medical care or become disabled, in kindergartens, like schools, queues, there is no infrastructure for playing sports and the diversified development of the child.

It is precisely about stability and about clear goals and objectives for the development of these areas that we need to talk to the President, as well as set specific tasks for the executors. This will be the best image of the future, in which parents will want to see more of their children..."