Russia faces shrinking, ageing population; tries laws to combat it

For a quarter of a century, President Vladimir Putin has faced one of Russia’s most enduring challenges — a shrinking and ageing population.

In 1999, a year before he took power, Russia’s birth rate hit a record low. By 2005, Putin warned that the crisis could only be resolved by maintaining “social and economic stability”. Yet in 2019, he admitted the problem still “haunted” the country.

At a Kremlin demographic conference on Thursday, 23 October, he again called raising the birth rate “crucial” for Russia’s future. Over the years, he has offered incentives to encourage large families — from free school meals for those with several children to reinstating Soviet-style “hero-mother” medals for women with ten or more.

“Many of our grandmothers and great-grandmothers had seven, eight, and even more children,” he said in 2023. “Let’s preserve and revive these wonderful traditions. Having many children and a large family must become the norm.”

During the years of economic growth, births rose from 1.21 million in 1999 to 1.94 million in 2015. But those gains are now eroding amid financial uncertainty, the war in Ukraine, emigration of young men, and resistance to immigration.

According to Russia’s Federal Statistics Service, the population has fallen from 147.6 million in 1990 — the year before the Soviet Union’s collapse — to 146.1 million today. That figure includes Crimea’s two million residents since Moscow’s 2014 annexation.

The country is also ageing fast: in 1990, 21 per cent of Russians were 55 or older; by 2024, that had risen to 30 per cent.

Since 2015, annual births have steadily declined, and deaths now exceed births. In 2024, just 1.22 million babies were born — barely above the 1999 low. Demographer Alexei Raksha noted that February 2025 saw the fewest monthly births in Russia for more than 200 years.

To stem the slide, the Kremlin is tightening controls under the banner of “traditional family values,” introducing laws against the “promotion of abortion” and “child-free ideology” while outlawing LGBTQ+ activism.

Officials see these measures as a cure-all. “They believe such values are a magic wand for solving demographic problems,” said feminist scholar Sasha Talaver.

In reality, she added, the state expects women to be “willing and very excited to take up this additional work of reproduction in the name of patriotism and Russian strength.”

As in much of the West, birth rates in Russia tend to fall during economic uncertainty. Young couples living in cramped flats or fearing job losses often postpone having children.

But Russia’s demographic woes also stem from its past. Some 27 million Soviet citizens died in World War II, devastating the male population. Just as the country began to recover, the Soviet Union collapsed and births plunged again.

The number of women in their twenties and early thirties is now particularly low, said Jenny Mathers of Aberystwyth University in Wales, leaving authorities “desperate to get as many babies as possible out of this much smaller number of women.”

The war in Ukraine has worsened matters. Russia has not disclosed its losses, but Western estimates put the dead in the hundreds of thousands. Many young Russians have also fled — to escape repression or conscription.

“You’ve got a much-diminished pool of potential fathers in a diminished pool of potential mothers,” Mathers said. That is a problem for Putin, who has long linked population growth with national security.

Some government schemes, such as “maternity capital” vouchers redeemable for pensions, education or subsidised mortgages, have proved popular. Others are more contentious — like one-off payments of about $1,200 to pregnant teenagers, which critics say could encourage underage pregnancies.

Some initiatives are largely symbolic. Since 2022, Russia has introduced Family, Love and Fidelity Day in July and Pregnant Women’s Day, marked twice a year.

Even so, Russia’s fertility rate in 2024 was just 1.4 — far below the 2.1 needed for population replacement, and slightly under the US rate of 1.6.

Several regions now prohibit “encouraging abortions,” while a 2024 national law bans the promotion of “child-free propaganda.” The vagueness of such wording has encouraged self-censorship — even prompting the reality show 16 and Pregnant to rebrand itself Mummy at 16.

A 29-year-old Moscow woman who has chosen not to have children told the Associated Press she visits a private gynaecologist to avoid intrusive questioning. “Whether I plan to have children, whether I don’t plan to have children — I don’t get asked about that at all,” she said anonymously, adding that public clinics are “a completely different story.”

While abortion remains legal, access is narrowing. More private clinics have stopped performing procedures, and restrictions on abortion pills now affect some emergency contraceptives. State-run clinics impose longer waits and mandatory counselling — delays that can push women beyond the legal window for termination.

Abortions have declined under these policies, though experts note the drop began earlier — and births have not increased.

“The only thing you will get from this is illegal abortions. That means more deaths: more children’s deaths and more women’s deaths,” said journalist and feminist activist Zalina Marshenkulova.

She called the restrictions “repression for repression’s sake,” saying they exist merely “to ban, to block any voice of freedom.”

Allowing more immigrants could offset Russia’s decline, but the Kremlin has chosen a harder path. Officials have stoked anti-migrant sentiment, tightening surveillance and employment rules, and restricting migrant children’s education rights. Many Central Asians who once relied on Russia for work are now leaving amid growing hostility and economic insecurity.

As long as the war in Ukraine continues, Moscow may offer financial rewards for would-be parents, but not the stability families need.

“When people lack confidence about their prospects, it’s not a time for having children,” said Mathers. “An open-ended major war doesn’t really encourage people to think positively about the future.”

The 29-year-old woman who decided against motherhood agreed: “The happiest and healthiest child will only be born in a family with healthy, happy parents,” she said.

With AP/PTI inputs