Regional Diversity of Fertility in Russia in 2017 and Its Possible Correlates

Konstantin Kazenin – Director of Center for Regional Studies and Urbanistic, Institute for Applied Economic Studies, Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration, Candidate of Faculty Sciences. Е-mail: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

Aleksey Raksha – Advisor at the Section for Demographic Statistics of the Department for Statistics of Population and Medical Statistic, Federal Agency for State Statistics. Е-mail: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

In 2017, for the first time after the start of the maternity capital program in Russia, fertility decreased in all federal districts and in most of regions of the country. Although the fertility of first-born children was decreasing during several previous years as well, the decrease fertility of second and subsequent children became the common trend for Russian regions only in 2017.

The correlation of regional fertility rates with some economic parameters of regions (employment level; proportion of population with incomes lower than the subsistence minimum; housing conditions) shows that in 2017 regional fertility was related to economic conditions which increase the “demand” of the maternity capital in the region. This relation, observed during the all-country increase of fertility after the start of the maternity capital program, has been preserved when fertility started lowering.

Key words: fertility, regions of Russia, Total Fertility Rate, pronatalism, employment, housing conditions.