Why do Russians continue to die out?

2024 Author: Seth Attwood | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-16 15:55

I highly value Putin's demographic policy. Moreover, I believe that in Russian history there was no ruler who did more to increase the birth rate than the current President.

But the last Message (more precisely, its demographic part) disappointed me greatly. I am sure that the measures outlined in it will not work. Worse, they can have a negative effect. Below I will try to explain why.

The demographic failure is indeed the most serious challenge facing Russia today. In 2017, there were 134 thousand fewer of us, in 2018 - by 217 thousand, in the past - by about 300 thousand, and this peak may continue until the early thirties, until the matured “children of maternal capital will come to the aid of the uncrowded parental generation of the nineties..

During this time, the population of Russia may decrease by a good ten million. In making demography the number one issue, Putin is no doubt right.

The main reason for the beginning of the failure is understandable and has long been predicted by experts - this is the so-called "echo of the nineties".

In the context of the outbreak of a social catastrophe, the birth rate in Russia from 1988 to 1999 fell by half, from about 2.5 to 1.2 million people. These people, who have grown up and become parents themselves, are simply too few to close the demographic gap. In theory, there is only one way to overcome the natural decline: the average number of children in a Russian family should reach the milestone of two and a half (today about one and a half).

A debate has been raging among demographers for a long time: is it possible to raise the birth rate with the help of material incentives? Both the author of this article and the author of the Presidential Address are on the side of the party that believes that it is possible. There is evidence of this in foreign practice, but the most convincing is ours, domestic.

The introduction of maternity capital in 2006 made it possible to sharply reverse the demographic trend and ensure an increase in the birth rate for ten years ahead. By the most conservative estimates, matcapital has brought the country three million additional lives.

It would seem that positive experience has been accumulated, which should be developed further, increasing the scale of incentives.

Does the country have money for this purpose? There are, and considerable ones. So, last year alone, the international reserves of the Russian Federation grew by almost 85 billion dollars, which are still gathering dust idle in the storerooms. If we consider that the annual expenses for the payment of materiel are equivalent to only five to six billion dollars, it becomes clear that sufficient financial resources have been accumulated to solve the demographic problem.

Actually, Putin proclaimed this: storerooms are being opened, the money will be used to support new births. So what's the mistake?

The matcapital program was ingenious in its simplicity and accuracy. In the early 2000s, a rare Russian family had more than one child. The idea that for complete happiness one would have to have two was widespread, but people did not dare to step towards the material difficulties expected at the next birth.

To be or not to be a second child? - this is how the main demographic issue was formulated for the overwhelming majority of compatriots.

The authors of the program answered it. Matkapital began to be given not at every birth, but precisely at the second (if there is no second child yet), that is, in the very case when both desire and doubts reach a maximum. A maximum of doubts meant that it was here that government assistance was most needed, and a maximum of desires meant that the program would be effective.

The fact that the capital was not "smeared" over births of all orders, but concentrated on the second, made it possible to make its size tangible. And the fact that it could be received once, and not taken in a teaspoon, like monthly child benefits, played a decisive role. After all, the birth of a child means an immediate and deep revolution in the family budget, so here it is not a “financial dropper” that can be convincing, but only a large one-time infusion.

All this worked perfectly and, thank God, was extended from year to year, despite the rather harsh criticism of the anti-demographic lobby.

And suddenly the President, the father and patron of the created effective incentive system, emasculated it with his own hands. How? It's very simple - I transferred the entire burden of material support from the second child to the first. And this measure will not give the expected effect. After all, our hope and saving goal today is not a one-child, but a three-child family.

All normal people with normal life values give birth to their first child, regardless of any material difficulties. If they haven’t got the fashionable “child-free” strategy into their heads, then you can be sure that a child in this family will definitely appear, a little earlier or a little later.

Who is the incentive for first births designed for? Those who deliberately chose childlessness? For them, the amount of maternity capital is unlikely to be convincing.

Especially when you consider that the cost of raising a child from cradle to adulthood, even for an average Russian family, is estimated at 4 million rubles, and the fashion for "child-free" often affects the wealthy strata of society.

I agree that mother capital at the first birth will help those who postpone this birth until better times, when the family will become stronger on its feet. Yes, the so-called "calendar shift" effect can be expected here. Next year, a number of first-borns will be born, which, without support, could be expected two or three years later. But from the fact that the family quickly became one-child, it does not at all follow that it is more likely to become two- or large-scale.

On the contrary, when the time comes to think about the second child, the need will again arise to overcome the arising material barrier. And here the state will shrug its shoulders: before, in this case, you were entitled to half a million, but now only one hundred and fifty thousand … Those who have already received half a million and realized that compared to the cost of a child, this is not so much, much more the modest sum of the catching-up, second mother capital is unlikely to inspire parenting exploits.

What will we get in the end? The first children will be born a little earlier, but, as a rule, in the same families where they would have been born without government support. On the other hand, fewer second children will be born than before, and the size of a typical domestic family will not grow, but shrink. Despite the increased government spending (see table).

It turns out that the amount of government spending will increase by a good hundred billion, and the effectiveness of these investments will decrease. I believe that the erroneousness of the plan will become obvious in three or four years, when the effect of the calendar shift in the firstborn will be exhausted, and the number of second births will begin to decline.

Why did the President and his team make such a mistake? Probably, their attention was attracted by the paradoxical, at first glance, fact that the number of first births in our country is decreasing faster than the second and third.

Perhaps for the first time in our history, fewer first children were born in 2018 than the second. And here the linear logic of an official preparing a federal program could work: where the problem is most acute, we throw money there!

But the first children are born less than the second, not because the first births began to cause more material difficulties than the second. It's just that the generation of the nineties is giving birth to the first-born, which is small in number in itself, and the second and third children are the generation of the eighties, which is much more populous.

On the contrary, it is this last large generation of those born in the USSR that is our last hope to reverse the trend of extinction. There are many compatriots of this age, and if you help them decide on a second and third child, only they are able to pull the country out of the demographic hole.

What strategy should be chosen, from the point of view of the author of the article? The answer, in my opinion, is contained in the mood of our fellow citizens. To have or not to have a first child? is a question that is usually not in doubt. To have or not to have a second? - is already a serious dilemma, which is resolved by the majority in the affirmative, if there is any help. To have or not to have a third? is a real challenge and requires particularly strong support.

Therefore, it is pointless to spend maternity capital on the first child. The capital for the second child should have been kept in the same volume, and even increased: after all, people's needs are growing faster than inflation, and the indexation of the amount established in 2006 alone is clearly not enough for the material incentive to continue to function effectively.

But at the third birth, it would be worth paying double the amount in comparison with the second, - only then the majority who have already acquired a second child would have decided on the third.

The success of the lump-sum increase in support, which increases with each subsequent birth, is also confirmed by world practice. Two countries using similar methods - France and Sweden - have become the European demographic leaders, significantly ahead of those EU partners (for example, Germany) who simply distribute benefits like cakes, regardless of the order of birth. We chose the exact opposite tactic, shifting the entire burden of state care to the first child. I am convinced that this is a mistake.

The only hope is that the country's leadership is determined to fight for a high birth rate. This means that the mistakes made cannot go unnoticed, and life will sooner or later force them to correct.