7 Billion Humans | Empty Nests in the Aging Developed World: Russian Women Paid to Have 2nd Child | Moscow Maternity Ward, Russia

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Russian Women Paid to Have 2nd Child | Moscow Maternity Ward, Russia

Alyona Kozlova, 23, gives birth at the Moscow Planning Center and Reproduction Maternity Home where about 8,000 babies, or about 20 per day, are born every year. This is the most of any maternity hospital in Russia. In 2009, 117,000 babies were delivered in all of Moscow and a total of 1,800,000 were born in Russia, which is only 27,000 more than deaths that year. Russia is basically at the replacement rate, but there are not as many parents so the state has instituted a number of incentive policies including free housing for immigrants and a one-time payment of over $10,000 for a woman to have either a second, third or fourth baby.

The federal program called “Mother’s Capital” started in 2007 and stipulates that every mother gets this money after having a second (third, fourth, etc) baby. The law also stipulates that Mother’s Capital can be invested into:

1.Improvement of living conditions

2.Education of the child (after the child reaches the age of 3 years)

3.Invested into mother’s pension

At present the government reports that the program has started to work, though some experts disagree. The latest reports from the government’s Ministry of Health Care saw that during first quarter of 2009, 394,300 babies were born in Russia, which is 4% more compared with the same period in 2008.