‘To give birth or not to give birth?’: Having children in soviet and post-soviet Russia

Abstract

This chapter explores the intense concern, both in the Soviet Union and in post-Soviet Russia, with the so-called ‘demographic crisis’, and how the authorities have attempted to deal with it in different historical periods. In the present day, it considers Putin’s understanding of its causes, how he has attempted to resolve it, and how this fits in with his broader understanding of the family and gender relations in Russia. In Soviet times there were no reliable sources which could tell us how women themselves viewed these subjects, but this is no longer the case. Accordingly, the chapter analyses discussions on internet sites to discern how important the family and children are for women in post-Soviet Russia, how they explain their decision whether or not to have children, and how their attitudes differ from those of women in the late Soviet era.