Putin Refers Women To Psychologists: How Do Birth Rates Impact Individual Choices?

Earlier this week, Russia rolled out a controversial campaign to refer childless women without the intention to bear children to psychologists. This controversial pro-natalist policy is President Vladimir Putin’s attempt to combat increasingly declining birth rates in the country, which threaten to destabilise the nation. 

A new phenomenon has been brewing behind the world statistics: global birth rates are declining. With Europe, East Asia and Russia being the worst impacted by the decline, and fertility rates even dipping to 1.1, a new low.

Putin does not stand alone in these pro-natalist policies. Across the world, from South Korea, China, Europe, the US and even India, birth rates have been flagged as a demographic crisis. 

However, more often than not, the pro-natalist policies that governments are adopting to “fix” the situation are coming at the cost of the freedom of choice for women.

What does the data say?

Developing nations are continuing to face high birth rates, as children are needed as a labour force and to provide care for their parents in old age. Furthermore, lack of education and accessibility to contraceptives contribute to the birth rate. 

Meanwhile, developed countries tend to have a lower fertility rate due to lifestyle choices associated with economic affluence, where mortality rates are low, birth control is easily accessible, and children often can become an economic drain caused by housing, education costs, and other costs involved in bringing up children. Higher education and professional careers often mean that women have children late in life.

As per UN Population Division data, in 1950, the global total fertility rate was 5, meaning that the average woman in the world would have five children during her childbearing years. In 2025, the world’s fertility rate stands at 2.24 and is projected to drop below 2.1 around 2050. 

Additionally, as per World Bank data, during 2000–25, fertility rates declined in every UN region of the world and in every World Bank country income group. They anticipate that this will most likely continue over the next 25 years, signalling future global depopulation.

Why do governments want more babies? 

With a teeming population of 8.2 billion as of 2025, one would think that a reduction in birth rates would be quite welcome; however, governments around the world have been encouraging their citizens to have children in the face of the decline.

The reason being that a sudden reduction in birth rates will purportedly impact the country’s economy. 

Fewer births and smaller populations naturally mean fewer workers, savers, and spenders, potentially sending an economy into contraction. Stanford economist Charles Jones, in his 2022 paper, argues that the implications of low fertility include a drop in the number of new ideas, which could strangle innovation and result in economic stagnation.

As women bear the burden of high birth rates, governments are coming up with strategies that often take away from the pro-choice agenda. 

Pro-Natalist Policies or Anti-Choice Agenda? 

Recently, Putin, who has long criticised the low birth rates of Russia, has commissioned the health ministry to send women who respond negatively in medical history surveys regarding intent to bear children, to be referred to psychologists. Additionally, monetary incentives will be provided to women, even high school girls, for bearing children as per the Kremlin’s solution to the demographic crisis. 

Russia, with 7.9 million, in the coming quarter-century has been flagged by the IMF to experience one of the highest population losses. The country's fertility rate stands at approximately 1.4, a record-breaking low for Russia.

Russia’s budget for maternal capital in 2026 allocates nearly 567 billion rubles. This sum represents an increase of about 30 billion rubles over the prior year. By providing a family tax payment to over 11 million children, the programme seeks to assist approximately 7.3 million working parents with two or more children, according to a European news daily. 

As per another European news channel, Russian authorities have also been tightening access to abortion and pre-abortion counselling, and promoting so-called “traditional values” while restricting “child-free” and LGBTQ+ expression.

The irony remains that while women who respond negatively to having children are demeaningly referred to psychologists, men who respond similarly face no consequences. 

The Russian government’s move to stigmatise and shame women into having children is not only anti-choice but also deeply sexist, as women alone bear this parental burden. 

Meanwhile, in East Asia, South Korea has been facing the worst demographic crisis that has been in the making for nearly a decade. While it seems that the nation might be seeing the end of the crisis as the last two years mark a rise in fertility rates, the numbers are still shockingly low, making them the world’s lowest birth rates.

In 2024, the average number of babies a woman is expected to have during her reproductive life stood at 0.75. In 2025, the number rose to 0.80. 

The Guardian interviewed Park Hyun-jung, the director of the population trends division at the ministry, who claimed she “cannot clearly analyse the correlation” between government policy and the growth in birthrate. She, however,  noted that young people appeared to be influenced by policies aimed at “removing penalties from marriage and childbirth”.

Over the course of two decades, South Korea has invested hundreds of billions of dollars in pro-natal initiatives, such as hefty cash handouts, housing subsidies, longer parental leave, and childcare assistance. These days, some companies pay up to 100 million won (£51,500) for each birth, as per the news report. 

A similar situation can be seen in Hong Kong, where birth rates have dipped to record lows of  31,100 births in 2025. To combat this, the government has incentivised potential parents, such as offering a HK$20,000 (US$2,555) “baby bonus”, in recent years. However, in a survey by the South China Morning Post, most Hongkongers said they would choose not to have babies, owing to financial pressure and the long-term responsibility of having a child.

The US, too, has adopted monetary strategies to promote birth rates. As per a new federal law, children born between 2025 and 2028 potentially qualify for a thousand-dollar investment account, termed the “Trump Account”. 

India’s North vs South Birth Divide

In India, pro-natalist ideologies are unfolding in certain states. South Indian states have a lower population and birth rates compared to the north, a figure that has scared southern politicians such as Tamil Nadu Chief Minister MK Stalin, who have repeatedly called for increased fertility rates.

In March of 2025, Stalin, in a very direct statement, called for Tamil Nadu residents to “Give birth to a child immediately.” This statement came at the height of the delimitation debate in India, which threatened equal parliamentary representation of southern states due to the population disparity between the north and the south. 

Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister N. Chandrababu Naidu declared, “We will launch a robust policy on population growth soon. Population is our strongest economic resource. The world is increasingly reliant on countries with large populations”.

Andhra Pradesh’s fertility rate is approximately 1.5, which is well below the national average of 2.1. To revive the birth rate, Naidu’s government has implemented a “Population Management Policy”. This policy includes state-supported IVF treatment and incentivising the birth of second and third children in families. 

The new policy offers incentives such as ₹25,000 at the time of birth for families with a second or third child, ₹1000 per month for nutritional support for five years for the third kid, and free education for all children up to the age of eighteen.

Additionally, the government is considering two months of paternity leave for males and ten months of maternity leave (up from six months) for women having a third child.

While the official reason is pinned on the impact on labour and state economics, the effects of declining southern population are deeply political and rooted in the federalism of the country. 

These pro-nationalist tendencies are visible in the legal structure of the nation, as the Indian Penal Code of 1860, a colonial legacy, criminalised abortion under Sections 312 to 314, reflecting a moral and religious opposition to abortion and birth control. These provisions were retained almost unchanged in the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita (BNS) of 2023. As a result, abortion continues to be criminalised in the country, permitted only as an “exception” under the Medical Termination of Pregnancy Act, 1971, according to The Indian Forum. 

The fact remains, the global strain from declining birth rates has led to world governments incentivising and monetizing child birth, and when that fails, the government resorts to harsher methods and campaigns to stigmatise the pro-choice of women as anti-natalists. Women once again bear the burden of these policies. 

While the figures and statistics flood newscycles to paint opinions, it is the freedom of women that is really at stake in the demographic crisis.