Communism and Nazism decided they could raise children better than a wife and husband. I recall films from the ‘30’s about their baby factories with nurses changing diapers on an assembly line. The idea was that women would have the children and return to work while the state raised the children in crèches. This was dropped by the Germans and the Russians as the children so raised were not the robotic perfect citizens of the state that they wanted. Children raised by the state were useless.
In Russia, grinding poverty and the need to keep the entire workforce fully employed led to free abortions. Preventative measures cost money but abortions have been and remain free in Russia; the average Russian woman having somewhere north of four during her reproductive life. The grinding poverty remains, due largely to the crony capitalism that Putin profits from. (He’s Europe’s richest man. Notice also that Obama’s net worth had risen dramatically while in office.) So, abortion remains cheaper than preventative measures and having children dooms a woman to even less that life has to offer.
The solution isn’t asking or even demanding women have three children. By-the-way, three wouldn’t begin to cover the demographic disaster they’re facing. The solution is allowing the type of economic freedom the United States had during the ‘40’s through the ‘60’s. We no longer have that freedom either, but we have farther to fall than Russia.
>>>Communism and Nazism decided they could raise children better than a wife and husband. I recall films from the ‘30’s about their baby factories with nurses changing diapers on an assembly line. The idea was that women would have the children and return to work while the state raised the children in crèches. This was dropped by the Germans and the Russians as the children so raised were not the robotic perfect citizens of the state that they wanted. Children raised by the state were useless.
In Russia, grinding poverty and the need to keep the entire workforce fully employed led to free abortions. Preventative measures cost money but abortions have been and remain free in Russia; the average Russian woman having somewhere north of four during her reproductive life. The grinding poverty remains, due largely to the crony capitalism that Putin profits from. (He’s Europe’s richest man. Notice also that Obama’s net worth had risen dramatically while in office.) So, abortion remains cheaper than preventative measures and having children dooms a woman to even less that life has to offer.
The solution isn’t asking or even demanding women have three children. By-the-way, three wouldn’t begin to cover the demographic disaster they’re facing. The solution is allowing the type of economic freedom the United States had during the ‘40’s through the ‘60’s. We no longer have that freedom either, but we have farther to fall than Russia.<<<
I think the main reason of Russian depopulation is a way of their housing. Living in a tiny apartments within their massive housing projects is surely not about to have a big family. It wasn’t a case under commies when these project were a government property and authorities were obliged to hand new homes for new families and then hand them larger apartments as soon as these new families extended.
Today these projects are private property and no public housing exist. A 300 sq feet one bedroom in Moscow starts at about $300,000 in a worst area. Any kind of decent (by Russian standard which is pretty low)apartment is no less than $700,000 to a $1 mln and their average annual salary is about $20,000. Mortgage rates are huge. For that reason you can see millions 40 yo “kids” still sitting on their parent’s properties without any chance to have their own.
You can move from Moscow to another city which offer a $150,000 housing but you’ll be extremely lucky to find a $10,000 job there. Living costs are huge at the same time. Food is 50 to 100% more expensive comparing to USA, clothes are 2 to 3 times more expensive. Entry level Chevy Camaro starts at $70,000 and so on.
It is not a good idea to have kids in such environment.
The main reason of Russian misery today is a 1990s failure to adopt the way US developed after WWII.
You can easily draw some parallels between earlier to mid-40s US and late communist Russia.
Both had pretty spartan living conditions for most people and were massive military industrial complexes converting into peaceful life. Both had a huge extra economic capacity which US managed to use to aim into high-quality low-price consumer goods market and improve people’s life quality (guns to butter) while Russia simply wasted and lost.
US has also developed suburban culture for better living condition at little cost and Russia didn’t.