Russian President Vladimir
Putin has announced new financial incentives to encourage Russians to have more
children to boost the population.
Putin in an annual
address to lawmakers said “Russia’s fate and its historic prospects depend on
how many of us there are,”.
Russia is seeing
falling birth rates because the generation becoming parents now were born in
the 1990s when the birthrate fell drastically due to economic uncertainties.
The Russian leader,
who has two daughters, said he wanted to boost the number of births from the
current average per woman of 1.5 to 1.7 by 2024.
“Our historic duty is
to ensure stable population growth,” he said.
He named poverty as a
key factor in limiting family size and offered new financial incentives to give
birth.
He vowed to give a
popular one-off payment for parents who have a second child — this year worth
around $7,600 — to those who give birth to a first child as well.
Putin introduced the
payouts in 2007 to all families where the mother has a second baby or further
children.
The total payout for
families with two children which can be
spent on the child’s education or improving housing,would be increased to
around $10,000 at the current exchange rate while it is to continue at least
until 2026, he said.
Putin also announced
plans to extend child benefits for poorer families to children aged up to
seven, from the current age limit of three.
