Putin's ‘Ministry of Sex’: Russia’s Radical Solution to Falling Birth Rates

Russia is deliberating on setting up a ‘Ministry of Sex’ which will be tasked with arresting falling birth rates in the country. The move comes after Russia recorded its lowest birth rate since 1999 in the first half of 2024. A total of 599,600 children were born in Russia in the first six months of this year, nearly 16,000 less than in the same period in 2023.

Discussions around a ministry explicitly dedicated to improving the birth rate comes at a time when many young Russians have chosen to leave the country owing to instability since the beginning of the Ukraine war. Moreover, around 696,410 Russians are said to have lost their lives in the war, according to an estimate by the government of Ukraine.

A Demographic Operation

Nina Ostanina, head of the Russian Parliament’s committee for the protection of families, has said that the country needs a “special demographic operation” to increase its birth rate, Russian media reported. “We must organise ourselves and conduct another special operation, just like a special military operation—a special demographic operation,” Ostanina was quoted saying by the Russian state-owned news agency RIA.

In a bid to improve birth rates, Russia is planning financial incentives for to-be mothers, encouraging couples to be intimate and offering up to 5,000 roubles for first dates and subsidised wedding night hotel stays.

Anastasia Rakova, a deputy mayor and staunch supporter of President Vladimir Putin, has suggested that tests be conducted to examine fertility levels among women. On the other hand, Yevgeny Shestopalov, a regional health minister has made the suggestion that Russians use their coffee and lunch breaks for procreation.      

The Russian government, in 2020, announced tax breaks for families with two children as part of its continuing efforts to shore up birth rates. The problem of falling birth rates has persisted in Russia since the 1990s when the Soviet Union collapsed. 

In 2007, the government introduced a 10-year one-off maternity capital payment programme. The programme paid off for a while until birth rates started plummeting again after 2017.

There are those in Russia who believe Russians deciding to not have children is not a question of money alone. “President Putin’s whole idea that the birth rate can be corrected solely by money is invalid,” a Russian demographer named Anatoly Vishnevsky told the BBC.

Political Uncertainty Driving Down Birth Rate?

Some Russians say continuing political tensions in the country are driving the birth rate down. Exiled Russian businessman Mikhail Khodorkovsky recently ruminated on X about the falling birth rates saying, “I think the reasons are many, but the lack of hope for the future is not the least important.”

A Russian national asked on X that by “conducting a criminal social policy—cutting down on the number of schools and hospitals, not creating new jobs, driving young families into mortgage servitude for many years, depriving us of simple confidence in tomorrow—do the authorities really want to increase the birth rate in Russia?”