More Russian babies
In last years address to the nation, Vladimir Putin declared 2008 to be the official “Year of the Family”. It worked. 58.400 more babies were born in the first four months compared with the same period last year.
Putin’s suggestions were in keeping with broader efforts to address Russia’s demographic crisis. He decried the country’s annual decline of nearly 700,000 people a year, and presented a detailed plan for improving childcare benefits in order to encourage women to have at least the two children needed to maintain a stable population.
Huge advertisements promoting the “Year of the Family” can be seen all over Moscow today, like the one on this photo from across the road from Kremlin. Putin’s address to the nation was in April 2007. If young Russian couples decided to follow the President’s call on making more babies, it’s the results which can be seen in the statistics early this year.
In the first four months, 547,100 children were born in Russia, an increase of 58,400 from the same period of 2007, according to the figures from the Russian Ministry of Health and Social Development. This is an increase by 12 percent. The statistics is presented by Itar-Tass.
As the Russian birth rate grows, the natural decrease situation is also improving. In the first four months of the year, the natural decrease in the population slowed down by 18.1 percent from the same period of 2007.
As of May 1, 2008, Russia’s population was 141.9 million. Earlier this week, BarentsObserver reported that the population in Murmansk Oblast for the first time since World War 2 has dropped below 850,000 people.
