Russia wants a baby boom, but some women resist becoming a mother for the motherland
Russia wants a baby boom, but some women resist becoming a mother for the motherland
While addressing a crowd at the Eurasian Women's Forum in St. Petersburg on Wednesday, Russian President Vladimir Putin hailed government policy geared toward helping women achieve the ultimate balance — professional success while being the linchpin "of a large, large family."He went on to joke that...
Regional health minister says those who are busy with careers can 'create offspring' on work breaks
While addressing a crowd at the Eurasian Women's Forum in St. Petersburg on Wednesday, Russian President Vladimir Putin hailed government policy geared toward helping women achieve the ultimate balance — professional success while being the linchpin "of a large, large family."
He went on to joke that Russian women can manage it easily, and still remain "beautiful, gentle and charming."
His comments are the latest in a public push by government officials to try and reverse Russia's sinking birth rate by appealing to a sense of patriotic duty and promising financial incentives to sway prospective parents.
Russia's fertility rate — which measures the average number of children born to a woman over a lifetime — stands at approximately 1.4, less than what is considered the rate for population replacement, which is 2.1. Kremlin officials have labelled Russia's statistic "catastrophic," and it comes at a time of higher mortality among younger Russian men due to the war in Ukraine.
You know who else told women it was their patriotic duty to make babies?
These fucks.
What? Authoritarians need their cattle for their system to work? Who'd have thunk?
Let's be honest now, every country wants people to be fucking to produce more workers to exploit. It's the entire point of our fixation on growth: more people = more consumption = good. We see countries like Germany, South Korea and Japan scrambling to get people to jizzing into each other but don't want to give anything up: no diminished work hours at the same or higher pay, no extended parental leave, no free childcare facilities, remote work is looked down upon, working less is looked down upon, etc.
Countries just want more drones that they can throw at the next "patriotic duty" and Russia's current "duty" is to participate in an invasion with no regard for life. All to fulfill the feverish dreams of an increasingly hostile man wishing to restore non-existent former glory.
I have no argument in general for you, you made good points. But it's also so, so at odds with all the messaging around teen pregnancy that I remember so clearly growing up. Wait until you can afford it, wait until you have a career, a home, wait until you're married... From basically 8+, my view of pregnancy was that it fucked up someone's life.
But now, governments want their people to go against all that programming for absolutely no reward and more emotional manipulation (worrying about everything that these tiny humans need, worrying about staying alive and productive enough as one of only two people responsible for the tiny humans, etc). Wtf, why?
How to create a baby boom in Russia or any country.
Step 1: Stop the wars of aggression.
Step 2: Increase pay so that one person can provide for a family.
Step 3: Open borders for trade and travel.
Step 4: Create housing for families do that they can afford.
Step 5: Free quality healthcare and childcare.
Step 6: Invest heavily in schools and pay living wages.
Step 7: Promote massive immigration from countries with a higher birthrate. The citizens of your country know you are full of shit and ain't falling for it
I did step 3 and everyone left, what do I do now?
Acquire large amounts of polonium
Regional health minister says those who are busy with careers can ‘create offspring’ on work breaks
Fuck breaks
The Health ministry demands more meat for the grinder.
I wonder if a birth rate that stays low for a while might be what it takes to avoid future wars? Just in general, across all nations? Funny that the very things that have damaged society's faith in the future might end up mitigating conflicts in the future.
When manpower can no longer be replenished, then wasting it trying to pull off landgrabs can only be sustained for so long. Not just physically, but politically.
If population declines no one needs to do a land grab. There's enough for everyone.
21st century automated warfare won't require as many warm bodies. Few have any real idea what it will be like.
Just a few weeks ago, a Russian soldier blew his own brains out when he heard a drone approaching. I saw it myself. Modern warfare is a gruesome business.
Drones are piloted for now, but this is already changing. Fewer available soldiers won't matter. War never changes.
I don't think anyone with half a brain is earnestly concerned about lower birthrates. Humanity isn't going to disappear off the face of the planet just because birthrates dipped for a bit. These things have a tendency to correct themselves and people aren't going to stop having sex.
Sure, in the long run humanity will adapt and survive, but we will definitely have problems to address in the near-ish term like the next 100 years or so. the main problem will be an inverted age structure; there will be fewer people paying taxes, and fewer people around to take care of the older generations when they are elderly. Many developed nations are experiencing this and worried about it.
and ‘sex’ isn’t the issue; with modern education, contraception, etc you have to convince families to want to have kids. It doesn't seem to be any one particular thing holding people back either, so it's not as simple as subsidizing childcare or making families more financially secure. Countries in europe give lots of financial assistance to raise kids, but their birth rates are still much lower than replacement levels.
I am. Lower birth rates are no big deal now and may be a necessity for the near term, but it’s a worrying trend for the future. As we drop well below replacement birth rate, each generation becomes a lot smaller than previous, giving us an aging population that quickly drops as larger generations die off. This could lead to more disruption, political instability, huge costs as we can no longer afford the infrastructure we’ve built out, and less opportunity for scientific, technical, mental or cultural growth.
To compound this, countries with worryingly low birth rates have found tremendous generational inertia. Once it becomes common for fewer people to choose parenthood, you can’t easily change that.
To me, this is a similar problem to climate change. We’re here in the 1970s trying to reduce pollution but no one cares. Or maybe we’re in the 1990s fighting to get global warming recognized but no one sees any environmental changes. Do y’all need collapsing societies before you recognize the long term trend! Heck, even the “tipping point” ideas have analogies.
If we act now, maybe we can implement some tweaks to slow the decrease or even stabilize it in some future generation
people aren’t going to stop having sex.
Let me introduce you to the internet. But seriously, with economic forces against having children, education and human rights giving people more choice than ever, and a new outlet with online life, these are permanent societal changes that are disrupting that cycle. Birth rate has never been this low across the developed world and continues heading lower.
It's just incentive for developed nations to produce more automated weapons of war.
Imagine being a second class citizen in your own country and your govt says “hey make us more babies for our war machine k thanks”
It's pretty usual around the world tho
I agree that’s true
That’s such a stupid misunderstanding of what it takes to raise children. Sure, you can fuck on your lunch break, but once the kid pops out you can’t squeeze raising a whole ass human in between meetings, asshole.
They just want meat for the meat grinder.
They wouldn't need to increase their birth rate to replacement levels if they end the war in Ukraine and adopt more pluralistic policies and provide better job opportunities and social securities for immigrants.
He won't see today's kids going to school, but he'd like their fathers sinking in debts for them and signing contracts now.