A new report by open data platform To Be Precise published after Russia’s parliament approved a law earlier this month banning “child-free propaganda” has found that only 2.4% of women and 3.5% of men in Russia would not like to have children.
According to the report, which examined data from Russia’s state statistics agency Rosstat and other open sources, the main reasons people were childless in Russia were “health problems and personal issues”, rather than an unwillingness to have children.
The report comes just over a week after Russia’s lower house of parliament, the State Duma, approved the first reading of a bill banning “child-free propaganda” and introducing fines of up to 400,000 rubles (€4,000) for individuals and up to 5 million rubles (€50,000) for companies deemed to be encouraging people not to have children.
In September, official data from Rosstat revealed that the birth rate in Russia had dropped to its lowest level in 25 years. Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said last month that increasing the birth rate was one of Russia’s “top priorities”.
The Kremlin has scrambled to raise the birth rate by encouraging women to have more children, with Vladimir Putin even calling on women last year to have as many as eight children to revive the “wonderful traditions” of the past.
However, while according to the latest census, 10% of Russian women aged 45–49 had not given birth to a single child, there is no “widespread desire” for childlessness in Russia, To Be Precise wrote.