Putin’s dream of the perfect family

In 2024, a new law was introduced in Russia: You can now receive substantial fines if you publicly express doubts about whether you want children or speak about the negative sides of having them. 

This is considered 'child-free propaganda.' The ban also applies to statements on social media.

That the law was passed in 2024 was no coincidence, according to Jules Sergei Fediunin, a researcher at the University of Oslo. Vladimir Putin had declared it the Year of the Family.

“This is an example illustrating how authoritarian politics extend to the demographic field,” says Fediunin.

He was born and raised in Russia and has researched Russian nationalism for several years. 

Lately, he has focused on population policies, which are high on the political agenda today.

Families received money for a second birth

According to Fediunin, President Putin began to voice concern about demography – and especially low birth rates – as early as when he first came to power in 2000.

In 2006, the authorities launched a pronatalist policy, intended to increase the number of births and promote large families. 

The policy was partly inspired by measures implemented in the former Soviet Union. 

Mothers, and only rarely fathers, who had a second child now received a lump-sum allowance from the state. The money could be used, for example, for education or a bigger home.

Putin was prime minister from 2008 to 2012, but when he once again became president in 2012, the Russian state began actively promoting so-called ‘traditional values.’ 

There was a clear demographic component here, according to Fediunin.

Two or three children as the ideal

“The ideal family would consist of a heterosexual couple with at least two, preferably three children," says Fediunin. 

Despite policies meant to encourage more births, it seemed that the Russian authorities understood that society was no longer like it was a hundred years ago, when it was common to have six or seven children in each family, the researcher explains.

Public campaigns were conducted that banned what the Putin regime described as ‘LGBT propaganda,’ 

In its place, the two- and especially three-child family was presented as an ideal through films and the media. 

Domestic violence was partly decriminalised

New measures were introduced, such as making it harder for women to have abortions. And domestic violence was partly decriminalised.

In parallel, the authorities claimed they were strengthening infrastructure such as nurseries and paediatric clinics. Such services had noticeably eroded since the collapse of the Soviet Union.

“At the same time, Russia is not a strong welfare state, and the country has spent much less on family benefits than most developed countries, including Hungary, which has also had a nationalist and pro-natalist government under Viktor Orbán,” says Fediunin.

No discussion of the war’s impact on births

After the full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, there was what Fediunin calls a ‘reinvestment’ in pronatalist policies

Authorities, the Russian Orthodox Church, several experts or pseudo-experts, and also governors from Russian regions now participate in the public debate, the researcher explains.

The goal is to increase birth rates.

However, there is no public debate about how the war in Ukraine affects Russian demography. 

Many young men lose the chance to have children

Fediunin calls this a paradox.

“It's as if there's no connection at all,” he says.

Of course, a war always has a strong impact on how a country’s population develops, he points out.

“Many men, particularly in their 20s and 30s, are dying and losing the chance to have children. In addition, there's the migration out of the country that the war has brought with it," he says.

If the ‘special military operation,’ as the authorities call the war, is mentioned at all, it's treated like a kind of natural event – something happening in the background and beyond anyone’s control, Fediunin elaborates.

Using national survival as justification

Why is increasing birth rates so important to Putin?

In Western countries such as Norway, families with children also receive financial support, but your sexual orientation does not matter, Fediunin notes. 

At the same time, many Western countries are adjusting pension systems and healthcare services to meet the challenges of an ageing population.

“It's about finding a new balance in a sociodemographic context,” says Fediunin.

When Russia now pursues a very different family policy, the justification is more existential.

“Births are presented as a necessity for the nation to survive. It's said that the country is under threat and that it could actually disappear,” says the researcher.

This is neither a new nor a unique line of argument, he points out, referring to countries in Central and Eastern Europe that have presented similar narratives.

Needs people to be a great power

In reality, however, Fediunin believes Russian population policy is driven by a fear that the country will lose power and influence.

“If you want to be a strong nation and a great power, you need a large and stable or, preferably, growing population. The problem is that this is not easy to fix," says Fediunin.

All societies in the Northern Hemisphere have low birth rates, for several reasons. Immigration is one possible measure, but it comes with social and political costs.

The researcher himself thinks that Putin has become obsessed with the population issue – Fediunin uses the term ‘demographic anxiety.’ 

The anxiety has been heightened by the war in Ukraine, where Russia wants to show the West its strength, according to the researcher.

Keeping a distance from the most conservative

At the same time, the authorities have not gone so far as to ban abortion.

“A ban on abortion is something the Russian Orthodox Church has wanted. The authorities have chosen not to do so because they're proud of the Soviet Union’s role as a pioneer of women’s rights. They do not wish to break with that. It would also be extremely unpopular, and they know it,” says Fediunin.

Russian authorities are treading a fine line here, according to the researcher.

“They're pursuing a conservative family policy, yet keeping a certain distance from the most conservative lobbyists,” he says.

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