Across Europe, as falling birth-rates lead to projections of shrinking populations, leaving policymakers asking if countries can pay people to have more children? In the western half of Europe, fertility rates dropped gradually over several decades as more women entered the workforce and began to postpone having children. In the post-communist states, the change happened differently. There was a sudden drop in fertility after the collapse of communism, brought on not by the social changes but by economic misery and social collapse. At a time when the future was uncertain, childbearing was postponed and birthrates fell precipitously. Over the next years, as the economies of the post-communist states recovered and grew, the same dynamics that had gradually changed the rates over many years in western Europe kicked in, meaning the rates did not recover.
“Europe has become the continent of the empty crib whereas in Asia and Africa they face demographic challenges of the opposite type,” Katalin Novák, Hungary’s minister of state for family, youth and international affairs,
Viktor Orbán’s drive to get Hungarian women to breed has led to a “family-friendly" Hungary with government IVF clinics, generous loans for couples who promise to procreate imminently and lifetime income tax exemption for having four or more children.
In Hungary, the country’s fertility rate – the average number of children per woman – reached an all-time low of 1.23 in 2011 and remains well below the level of 2.1 that is required for population levels to remain constant. In the countryside, the lack of young children is even more starkly felt, as the lower fertility rates are amplified by the migration of people to the cities and abroad.
“In all of Europe there are fewer and fewer children, and the answer of the west to this is migration,” said Orbán in his annual state of the nation address last year. “They want as many migrants to enter as there are missing kids, so that the numbers will add up. We Hungarians have a different way of thinking. Instead of just numbers, we want Hungarian children. Migration for us is surrender.”
“There are political forces in Europe who want a replacement of population for ideological or other reasons,” Orbán recently told a conference which was laced with references to the “great replacement” conspiracy theory, which suggests that shadowy forces want to replace so-called “native” Europeans with outsiders.
Orbán is spending around 5% of GDP on the policies to raise family sizes. Newly nationalised IVF clinics will offer free treatment cycles for all women who want them (as long as they are under 40 and not lesbian), and Orbán recently promised to extend the lifetime exemption from income tax to include mothers with three children. Various loans offer money upfront, based on a future promise to have children. One of these loans provides 10 million forint (£25,400) to young married couples. Each time a child is born, payments are deferred. If the couple have three children within the requisite timeframe, the loan is written off. If they don’t, they have to pay it back.
Across Europe, governments have introduced benefits aimed at stimulating population growth.
In Poland, the ruling Law and Justice party introduced the 500+ policy in 2016, under which mothers received 500 złoty (£99) per child per month from the second child onwards. Last year it was expanded to include all children.
In Russia, a one-off payment of £5,800 to families with two or more children was launched in 2007. In January, Vladimir Putin announced a new package of demographic measures that will cost 400bn roubles (£4.7bn) per year. “Russia’s fate and its historic prospects depend on how many of us there are … it depends on how many children are born in Russian families,” said Putin when announcing the policy.
In central and eastern Europe, the falling birth-rates have been exacerbated by large numbers of people moving westward in search of work, combined with minimal inward migration. In Hungary and other populist-led countries, the shrinking populations have been painted in apocalyptic terms of national survival.
Ágoston Mráz, who heads a pro-government thinktank in Budapest, said the pro-children policy was a response to a longstanding conservative fear of national extinction, as well as an ideological statement. “It’s anti-liberal, it’s a sign that we are not a multi-coloured country, we believe that while everyone is free to do what they want, there is a hierarchy, and a family made up of a husband and a wife is at the top,” he said.
“In Germany, billions of euros are spent on support for immigrants, but here these billions of złotys are spent on Polish families,” said Poland's prime minister, Mateusz Morawiecki. “This is a revolutionary socio-demographic project, and we are proud of it.”
Global population projections released by the UN in 2017 projected that the combined population of 10 eastern European countries would fall from 292 million then to 218 million in 2100, while during the same period the population of west Africa would grow from 372 million to 1.6 billion.
Despite all the investment, it is still not sure whether these policies work.
In Hungary, the fertility rate has risen from 1.23 to 1.48, though it is hard to gauge how much of that is down to specific policies. The upfront payments in the Hungarian system are of particular concern, placing pressure on women to have children they may no longer want. Couples who take out the loan and then get divorced have to pay back the whole amount within 120 days. “... if you’re in a bad or abusive relationship you are even less free to leave it if you’re bound together by these loans,” said Dorottya Szikra, of the Centre for Social Sciences in Budapest. Couples who find out they are infertile are also obliged to repay.
In Poland, a brief spike in births after the introduction of the 500+ policy was not sustained. The Polish 500+ policy is not means-tested, nor are most of the Hungarian benefits. Indeed, some of the bigger loans actually benefit wealthier families, as they require proof of employment and minimum income levels.
Studies show that poorer families tend to have more children than richer families in any case, meaning that boosting birth-rates is about more than financial security.
“We regret we don’t have good birth rate, but that only comes if we improve our economic life,” Zoran Zaev, North Macedonia’s prime minister until earlier this year, told the Guardian. His social democratic government cut family support policies for larger families that had been introduced by the previous right-wing nationalist government. “There are good birth-rates in countries where there is good social care and well-developed economies. These policies change nothing, it just means we spent a lot of money and told our citizens not to work and wait for money,” he added.
Anne Gauthier, a professor of comparative family studies at the University of Groningen, said boosting fertility with government spending “can work under very specific circumstances”. She said the key was continuity of policies over many years, giving people the confidence that the support measures are here to stay. She pointed to France, which despite a recent drop still has one of the highest fertility rates in the EU, as a country that has had a generous and sustainable model. “In Scandinavia we thought they got it right, there was a very comprehensive package, focused on gender equality, that ticks all the boxes, and in the past year fertility is going down. So we are scratching our heads and trying to work out what’s going on,” she said.
One important element is ensuring that women are able to return to the workforce.
“More than 50% of Polish young women have university education and they want to work. The only way to boost birth rates is to make it easier to combine work and family,” said Iga Magda, vice-president of the Institute for Structural Research in Warsaw.
“Traditional families” has become a cornerstone of the Orbán government. Rightwingers from across the world have travelled to Hungary to discuss and praise the country’s family policy.
The social conservatism underlying such policies is evidenced by the fact that much of the support is available only to married couples. Non-married heterosexual couples and single women are also eligible for free IVF treatment, but not lesbians, meaning one half of a lesbian couple must pretend to be single and heterosexual if they wish to qualify.
Funding fertility programmes allows populist governments to show they are taking care of families financially, reinforce their focus on “traditional values” and accentuate fears of replacement by migration from abroad if the “native” population continues to shrink.
“A good state is where the people are not scared of the future and where the population is rising not due to migration from foreign countries,” said the Czech prime minister, Andrej Babiš, speaking at Orbán’s migration conference. “I don’t wish to scare anyone but we must discuss the issue that we are facing extinction.”
Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro has urged women to have six children "for the good of the country".
ReplyDeleteAppearing at a televised event promoting a national women's healthcare plan, Mr Maduro instructed women to "give birth, give birth".