By Kontur | 2025-07-18

In 2025, the Russian government finds itself in a race against time and biology.

Facing a plunging birth rate, a shrinking labor force and a future demographic collapse, the Kremlin is scrambling to avert a crisis. But its methods, including propaganda-laden school textbooks and payouts to pregnant teens, are raising more concern than confidence among demographers.

Russia's total fertility rate dropped to 1.399 children per woman as of January 2025, the lowest in 18 years, according to Rosstat, the state statistics agency. That number is far below the replacement level of 2.1, and demographers warn it may never recover.

The country is going through a "demographic autumn," which could be followed by a "demographic winter" -- a further deterioration, Valery Fyodorov, director of the Russian Public Opinion Research Center, told state-owned RIA Novosti in June.

Indeed, the outlook is bleak. Russia could lose up to 40 million people by the end of the century, the United Nations projects. Even with optimistic assumptions about migration, the population is expected to fall to 140 million by 2035 and 126 million by 2100.

The war in Ukraine has only accelerated these trends. High military casualties and mass emigration of young men have depleted Russia's reproductive base. Additionally, the country will face a shortage of 10.9 million workers by 2030, Labor Minister Anton Kotyakov warned in June.

A shrinking generation

Russian officials have started sounding the alarm. The number of women of reproductive age will shrink from 34 million today to just 27 million by 2046, Deputy Prime Minister Tatyana Golikova noted in July.

"We are, unfortunately, living along a declining trajectory for our main reproductive group," she told lawmakers, as cited by Vedomosti.

Russia might be experiencing its lowest birth rates since the 18th century, said demographer Alexey Raksha, labeled a foreign agent by the Kremlin.

"March 2025 likely recorded the lowest number of births on the territory of today's Russian Federation since the late 18th to early 19th century,” he wrote on Telegram in May, according to Newsweek.

Rosstat recently stopped publishing full birth and death data, a move Raksha says reflects epic levels of demographic panic within the government.

Incentives or indoctrination?

The Kremlin's policy response has ranged from cash incentives to cultural engineering.

Beginning in September, pregnant university students will receive an average one-time maternity benefit of 90,000 RUB (about $1,150), nearly four times higher than current payouts. Moreover, the government will pay 100,000 RUB ($1,200) to pregnant schoolgirls.

Simultaneously, the authorities are launching a new school subject, Family Studies, which promotes traditional gender roles and glorifies large families.

The textbook, co-authored by Nina Ostanina, a Duma member known for her conservative views, describes a model family where the mother plays the flute, the father designs highways and a fifth child is always on the way -- with the state's help, of course.

Critics call these efforts naïve at best, dangerous at worst.

The measures may lead to an increase in birth rates only among the group that "faces the greatest risks of being unable to properly raise children," psychologist Lyudmila Petranovskaya noted.

"In a stable situation, no one will decide to have a child based on the prospect of receiving a payout. A reasonable person understands that the payout will quickly run out, while a child requires significant resources. A person who is less reasonable, mature, and responsible may not realize this," she said in April, as cited by Okno Press.

Crisis of confidence

Despite lofty rhetoric about national survival and traditional values, the Russian public remains skeptical. Young Russians cite the war, inflation and an uncertain future as key reasons for delaying or foregoing parenthood altogether, according to Russia's Higher School of Economics.

And the state's promises do not always ease the burden: as Petranovskaya the psychologist said, a one-time payout will not offset the long-term costs of raising a child.

"Amounts up to 500,000 RUB [about $6,390] generally have little effect — even when used to encourage the birth of second or third children," Raksha said.

Meanwhile, President Vladimir Putin has continued to promote a return to the "tradition" of large families, urging Russians to have seven or eight children, a vision increasingly disconnected from the country's social and economic realities. In July, he lamented that Russia no longer has "enough women" to sustain the population.

As part of this broader push, authorities have floated tightening abortion laws, despite widespread agreement among policy watchers that such restrictions do little to raise birth rates.

The government has moved to curb dissenting views, with Putin signing a law last year that bans so-called "child-free propaganda," underscoring the state's growing reliance on coercive measures to engineer demographic change.

The authorities are trying to fight demographic doom, but reality casts a vote in these matters. Raising the birth rate depends on creating a sense of security and hope for the future -- conditions the Russian government is failing to deliver.