2024-01-11 19:14:00
He must change the attitude towards large families
This year, by decision of Russian President Vladimir Putin, has been declared the Year of the Family. The country will take measures aimed at supporting families, in particular large families. The Cabinet of Ministers has already announced the development of a document on demographic and family policy, and experts, in a conversation with URA.RU, expressed the hope that Putin’s Decree on securing the legal status for families with many children, expected this year, will help resolve many pressing issues of families and change their status.
Currently in Russia there is only one Decree on supporting large families, which is more than thirty years old. Chairman of the State Duma Committee on Family Protection, Issues of Paternity, Maternity and Childhood Nina Ostanina told URA.RU about this. We are talking about Decree No. 431 of May 5, 1992 “On measures for social support of large families.” The document does not establish a unified legal status for families with many children, but introduces this very concept and also contains a description of the benefits due. The expected Decree of President Putin, according to the deputy, should change this situation and expand the list of ways in which the state can support families with three or more children. This, according to Ostanina, will help remove the barriers that stand between Russian families on the path to having many children.
Putin, at a meeting with members of the Human Rights Council, said that the status of large families should be all-Russian, not local
Photo: Vladimir Andreev © URA.RU
At a minimum, the high probability of the emergence of a new federal document is indicated by Putin’s repeated statements about this. At the beginning of December 2023, at a meeting with members of the Human Rights Council, the president was made a proposal on the need to federalize the concept of “large family.” “Moscow has certain financial opportunities, but in other regions of the country there may not be such opportunities <…> Of course, there should be a status, and it should be all-Russian, not local, we’ll definitely think about it,” the head of state replied.
Less than a month later (after the Year of the Family was declared), Putin instructed the government and regional heads to establish a unified federal status for large families. The President indicated a key task: to revive the traditions of a large family. “People are asking for it. This is a fair request and a fair demand, with corresponding benefits and support mechanisms that will be guaranteed, and guaranteed uniformly throughout the country,” the head of state said then.
Mishustin said that the Cabinet of Ministers will develop a document on demographic and family policy
Photo: Vladimir Andreev © URA.RU
The government responded publicly to this after the New Year holidays. Russian Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin, at an operational meeting with deputy prime ministers on January 9, promised that in the Year of the Family, the Cabinet of Ministers would develop a document on demographic and family policy for the period up to 2030. It will replace two others: on state family policy until 2025 and demographic policy until 2025.
“The government is expecting proposals from the regions by February 1. Then a single comprehensive plan will be formed,” Ostanina believes, adding that this will lead to a clarification of what the federal government will undertake. At the same time, the State Duma deputy adds that the exact content of the document is difficult to predict.
“But the two basic measures that families need today, both large families, those with one or two children, and young families with no children yet, are a guaranteed source of income and housing. What will it be: a preferential loan or social housing? It’s hard to say, we’re looking forward to the decree of the head of state,” the parliamentarian said.
She added that there are successful foreign examples, which, among other things, the authorities should rely on when resolving family issues. The parliamentarian cited the example of France, which has more than 15 benefits of various types “from registration in the early stages of pregnancy to the provision of financial assistance to a family for raising a child who does not attend kindergarten or nursery.” Another example given by Ostanina is China, where the authorities offer an apartment for each subsequent child, since the country’s “one family, one child” policy has led to a population decline.
Chesnokov called the “family car” program a positive example of supporting large families
Photo: Sergey Rusanov © URA.RU
But the head of the organizing committee of the project “Demographic Platform.RF”, member of the Coordination Council of the Public Chamber of the Russian Federation for National Projects and National Conservation, Sergei Chesnokov, recalled that Russia already has a number of measures in place to support large families: “One of the most successful is maternity capital. But for it to work for large families, it is necessary that families with three or more children have maternity capital in connection with the birth of the third and subsequent children, so that it is significantly larger than for the first and second child. Another good measure is the “family car,” where a family with more than three children needs a car that is not five-seater, but larger, because it is no longer convenient to seat three children in a seat.”
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The presidential decree and the government document should help Russians decide to have three or more children, says Viktor Poturemsky, director of political analysis at the Institute of Social Marketing. “These are economic issues and everything connected with them – housing, education, preparing children for school, clothing. The second part is what is connected with culture, traditions, and the perception of family. Grandparents, parents, children – for various reasons, experience serious pressure associated with social circumstances. Therefore, the culture of traditions is on the one hand, and the economy is on the other. That’s all that affects [на принятие решения стать многодетными, прим. URA.RU]. But, as you know, direct economics does not create large families,” the expert emphasized.
Chesnokov, in a conversation with the agency, complemented Poturemsky, noting that it is important to develop culture and family values, and not just stimulate families financially. “Now the government has realized that there should be a priority not on incentive measures, but on motivating ones that develop culture, since barriers mainly exist in culture. We need to weave a culture of pregnant women, large families, young families, a culture of care for the younger generation by the older generation, a culture of marriage,” the expert believes.
Experts in a conversation with URA.RU pointed to Israel’s successful experience in the culture of large families
Photo: Vladimir Zhabrikov © URA.RU
Several interlocutors of URA.RU pointed to the experience of Israel, where from the 90s to approximately 2016, the birth rate increased sharply. There, on average, each family had two or more children, which provided the country with natural population growth. A study by the Institute for Demographic Research indicates that it was cultural (rather than economic) changes in the country that allowed this result to be achieved.
This idea is echoed and developed by the Chairman of the Supervisory Board of the Institute of Demography, Migration and Regional Development, Yuri Krupnov. “Returning to large families is not a matter of measures, measures and the creation of road maps. This is a matter of a radical revision of the country’s socio-economic and ideological policies. These are questions of a different urbanization – the transition to low-rise buildings from high-rise buildings. This is also a question of a new accelerated reindustrialization of the country,” he explained.
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