Russia is paying teenage girls to have babies: Why cash incentives alone won't reverse the global fertility crisis

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Russia is paying schoolgirls to have babies in a bid to boost its plummeting birth rate, but experts say cash incentives alone can't reverse the global fertility crisis. Here's why pronatalist policies may be more ideological than effective. read more
Russia's President Vladimir Putin meets with patients as he visits the new children's clinical centre named after Leonid Roshal outside Moscow, Russia, August 21, 2024. File Image/Sputnik via Reuters
In a move that has sparked both alarm and applause, certain regions in Russia have begun offering schoolgirls over 100,000 roubles (around £900) to have children and raise them. This initiative, recently expanded to ten regions, a shift in Russia's pronatalist policy- one that initially targeted only adult women earlier in 2025.
The program is part of President Vladimir Putin's broader strategy to address a critical demographic downturn. Russia's fertility rate stood at just 1.41 births per woman in 2023, well below the replacement rate of 2.05 needed to maintain a stable population.
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The decision to incentivise teenage childbirth has proven divisive. A national poll by the Russian Public Opinion Research Centre found 43% of citizens in support of the policy, while 40% disapproved. Yet the very existence of such a measure underscores how urgently the Russian state views the population crisis.
Putin has long equated population size with geopolitical strength, seeing a growing citizen base as a symbol of national power on par with military might and territorial dominance. Ironically, though, the war in Ukraine, a campaign launched in part to expand Russian territory has further deepened the demographic crisis.
An estimated 250,000 Russian soldiers have died, and the conflict has triggered the mass departure of hundreds of thousands of young, educated Russians, many of whom could have been future parents.
Paradoxically, though, his efforts to increase the physical size of Russia by attacking Ukraine and illegally annexing its territory have also been disastrous in terms of shrinking Russia's population.
The number of Russian soldiers killed in the war has reached 250,000 by some estimates, while the war sparked an exodus of hundreds of thousands of some of the most highly educated Russians.
Many of them are young men fleeing military service who could have been fathers to the next generation of Russian citizens.
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But while Russia's demographic situation is extreme, declining birth rates are now a global trend.
It is estimated that by 2050 more than three quarters of the world's countries will have such low fertility rates that they will not be able to sustain their populations.
It's not only Russia Putin is not the only world leader to introduce policies designed to encourage women to have more babies. Viktor Orban's government in Hungary is offering a range of incentives, such as generous tax breaks and subsidised mortgages, to those who have three or more children.
Poland makes a monthly payment of 500 złoty (£101) per child to families with two or more children.
But there's some evidence this has not prompted higher-income Polish women to have more children, as they might have to sacrifice higher earnings and career advancement to have another child.
In the United States, Donald Trump is proposing to pay women US$5,000 (£3,682) to have a baby, tied to a wider Maga movement push, supported by Elon Musk and others, to encourage women to have larger families.
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Experts said that reversing demographic decline is inherently complex, largely because the decision to have children is influenced by a wide range of factors. These include personal goals, financial stability, confidence in one's ability to raise a child as well as broader societal, cultural and religious norms. As a result, the effectiveness of pronatalist policies has been mixed globally, with no country yet finding a simple or universally successful solution to falling birth rates.
One country seeking to address population decline with policies, other than encouraging women to have more babies is Spain, which now allows an easier pathway to citizenship for migrants, including those who entered the country illegally.
Madrid's embrace of immigrants is being credited for its current economic boom.
Looking for particular types of families But governments that adopt pronatalist policies tend to be concerned, not simply with increasing the total number of people living and working in their countries, but with encouraging certain kinds of people to reproduce. In other words, there is often an ideological dimension to these practices.
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Incentives for pregnancy, childbirth and large families are typically targeted at those whom the state regards as its most desirable citizens.
These people may be desirable citizens due to their race, ethnicity, language, religion, sexual orientation or some other identity or combination of identities.
For instance, the Spanish bid to increase the population by increasing immigration offers mostly Spanish speakers from Catholic countries in Latin America jobs while opportunities to remain in, or move to, the country does appear to be extended to migrants from Africa.
Meanwhile, Hungary's incentives to families are only available to heterosexual couples who earn high incomes.
The emphasis on increasing the proportion of the most desirable citizens is why the Trump administration sees no contradiction in calling for more babies to be born in the US.
While ordering the arrest and deportation of hundreds of alleged illegal migrants, attempting to reverse the constitutional guarantee of US citizenship for anyone born in the country and even attempting to withdraw citizenship from some Americans.
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Which mothers do they want? The success or failure of governments and societies that promote pronatalism hinges on their ability to persuade people – and especially women – to embrace parenthood.
Along with financial incentives and other tangible rewards for having babies, some states offer praise and recognition for the mothers of large families.
Putin's reintroduction of the Stalin-era motherhood medal for women with ten or more children is one example. Sometimes the recognition comes from society, such as the current American fascination with 'trad wives' – women who become social media influencers by turning their backs on careers in favour of raising large numbers of children and living socially conservative lifestyles.
The mirror image of this celebration of motherhood is the implicit or explicit criticism of women who delay childbirth or reject it altogether.
Russia's parliament passed a law in 2024 to ban the promotion of childlessness, or 'child-free propaganda'. This legislation joins other measures such as restrictions on abortions in private clinics, together with public condemnation of women who choose to study at university and pursue careers rather than prioritise marriage and child-rearing.
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The world's most prosperous states would be embracing immigration if pronatalist policies were driven solely by the need to ensure a sufficient workforce to support the economy and society.
Instead, these attempts are often bound up with efforts to restrict or dictate the choices that citizens – and especially women – make about their personal lives, and to create a population dominated by the types of the people they favour.
With inputs from agencies