Russia’s baby boom
Well, it seems that offering days off for procreation and other incentives have actually helped to increase the number of births in Russia last year.
The health and social development minister said Friday that in 2007 Russia had the highest number of births since 1991.
“Russia has not seen such a baby boom for 15 years, the highest number of births since 1991,” Tatyana Golikova said, adding that 1.6 million babies were born last year, up 122,750 against 2006.
The official praised presidential maternity incentives approved last year, including higher payments for mothers of children under 18 months, benefits for unemployed mothers and payouts of about $9,500 for the birth of two or more children, so called baby-money
This is good news because the Russians have been afraid that their population will continue to decrease. This is because the population growth rate for their country has been negative. The rate of growth (or decline) of a population is considered the “population growth rate” and is defined by the CIA World Factbook as:
The average annual percent change in the population, resulting from a surplus (or deficit) of births over deaths and the balance of migrants entering and leaving a country. The rate may be positive or negative.
Russia’s population growth rate is -.484% which means that the population is shrinking. Just to show a comparison, the United State’s population growth rate is .894% and India’s is 1.606%. According to these population growth rates, while Russia’s population is shrinking, the United States and India both have growing populations with India’s being almost twice as much as the United States.
