Women need to have an average of 2.1 children to maintain a stable population. In Russia, the birth rate is 1.4 children per woman, the lowest in 200 years. The fact that hundreds of thousands of young men have been sent to fight in Ukraine in recent years has exacerbated the problem.
"I don't see myself as a mother and I see no reason why having children would make me happier," says IT specialist Maria.
"Maybe I'll change my mind. But the state is doing everything possible to make sure that doesn't happen," she says.
“Ineffective”
In February, the Health Ministry approved new guidelines recommending that health workers refer women who do not want to have children to a psychologist. But women AFP spoke to do not believe that it will work. Maria calls the government's plan to increase childbearing "pathetic."
"Tightening the thumbscrews, making safe abortions inaccessible, brainwashing people, bragging about supposedly huge benefit payments, sending them to a psychologist. It's cruel and completely ineffective," she says.
According to her, women instead need social guarantees, sufficient income, peace and security, and financial resources to acquire housing.
Anastasia, 29, a specialist in child rehabilitation, doesn't want to have children for financial reasons. She earns about 100,000 rubles a month, equivalent to about 11,500 Swedish kronor.
"First, you have to create conditions that make a woman actually want to have children. Not pressure her in every possible way," she says.
“Unwanted children”
According to Anastasia, a contributing problem for many women is that few men in Russia are involved in raising children and that, in the event of a divorce, they leave the children to the mothers.
Irina, a 45-year-old doctor and mother of two, criticizes the plan.
I believe that a woman has the right not to want to have children. Why have children if you don't want to? Why force women to have unwanted children?
But Russian men interviewed by AFP see no major problem with the Health Ministry's recommendation.
"Choosing not to have children? It's unhealthy," says 49-year-old Maxim.
