Traditionally valuable: Putin noted the desire of Russians to have more than three children

The authorities will continue to improve the mechanism of preferential loans to families with children, develop measures to support student parenthood and maintain the maternity capital program — these are just a few topics that were raised on October 23 at the first meeting of the Council for the Implementation of State Demographic and Family Policy. Russians want to have three or more children, and the task of the state is to facilitate this, Vladimir Putin said in his opening speech. At the same time, one of the reasons why families decide not to have a child remains the housing issue, Deputy Chairman of the State Duma Anna Kuznetsova told Izvestia. What steps the authorities are taking to increase the birth rate is in the Izvestia article.

Putin called the birth of a child a personal decision of every family.

Family support and creating conditions for as many children as possible to be born in Russia are the most important areas of all national projects, Vladimir Putin began a meeting of the council.

— In the modern world, the decline in the birth rate has become a global trend and a global challenge. No, of course, not in all countries, this is well known, but many, primarily economically developed countries, have faced this, and Russia, unfortunately, is no exception in this sense," the president noted.

The Council, which includes 30 people, was established in 2024, and was headed by Federation Council Chairman Valentina Matvienko. Meetings, following which proposals are sent to the President on the formation of a list of instructions, should be held at least once a year. On October 23rd, the members of the council met for the first time since its formation.

One of the tasks facing Russia is to increase the number of large families. More and more citizens in the country are interested in having three or more children, the president said. In this regard, he recalled peasant families, where, despite the low income, there were 7-10 people each. The President noted that value orientations play an important role here.

— According to sociologists, more and more of our citizens say that they would like their families to have many children. If in 2005 our citizens thought that there should be 2.4 children in a family, now there are more than three. Nevertheless, this is a very important trend," Vladimir Putin said.

The head of the Russian Federation called on families to think about children at a younger age, including because motherhood and fatherhood are happiness, and happiness should not be postponed for later. In this regard, the President stressed the importance of supporting student families. Among other things, we are talking about the creation of mother and child rooms at universities, as well as child care groups at higher educational institutions. It is necessary that young people do not choose between parenthood and study or work, Putin noted. At the same time, he stressed that the decision on the birth of a child should remain a private matter for everyone.

To support working parents, the president also instructed to think over the development of a nursery system in Russia. The opportunity to leave a child under the age of three under the supervision of a specialized institution will help a woman not to fall out of the production process, not to lose her qualifications and return to the profession as soon as possible. At the same time, Russia is already preparing changes on the priority admission of students' children to kindergartens, announced Valentina Matvienko.

Economic measures to support families

Maternity capital remains the most effective measure of family support in Russia. In 2025, it amounts to more than 690 thousand rubles for the first child and more than 912 thousand for the second, if the maternity capital has not been previously registered.

— [The program] turned out to be very successful. Of course, we need to think about improving this mechanism. We try to maintain and index it. But I only ask you to think about one thing, so that the desire to direct maternity capital to solve various tasks, and there are always many tasks, especially for families with children, there are countless of them, as they say, but the most important thing is not to disperse it into secondary things," Vladimir Putin said.

Discussing the possibility of improving the program, Valentina Matvienko proposed to reorient maternity capital for having many children, the birth of a third and subsequent children.

Among other economic measures to support the birth rate, the president noted the family tax payment. Starting in 2026, parents with low incomes and having two or more children will pay an income tax of 6%. There are also regional support measures, the council members noted.

— Many regions, including St. Petersburg, are now introducing additional payments for women who are just getting registered, they receive additional funds to maintain the necessary standard of living for their family. But this is, of course, a lot of money, it's difficult to talk about whether it's worth introducing such a practice everywhere," Svetlana Chupsheva, Director General of the Agency for Strategic Initiatives for the Promotion of New Projects, told Izvestia.

Solving the housing issue

One of the main reasons why young families are postponing the birth of children is the issue of purchasing their own homes, Deputy Chairman of the State Duma Anna Kuznetsova told Izvestia.

— We are coming to the final analysis of a huge study conducted by the State Duma. One of his points is the relationship between the number of children, motivation and the possibility of having another child with housing conditions. Without excluding other factors, it is important to understand that no decision will be made without creating housing conditions for the birth of the next child. We have the value of [family], stronger than many other countries, but in order to realize it, we need to create conditions, especially in large cities. It's not just about housing, but also about logistics and additional education. The housing issue can be solved in various ways, but it is necessary to evaluate the existing measures. For example, a family mortgage. We see how prices have increased, and it has become impossible to save up for a down payment. It was the lack of loans that caused the child's birth," the politician said.

Now Russians have the opportunity to get a family mortgage with a rate of 6% if they have small children. The authorities will continue to improve housing lending tools, the Russian leader stressed during the council meeting.

One of these improvement options may be to reduce the cost of loan servicing: "The more children, the lower the rate," suggested Valentina Matvienko. She also drew attention to the fact that family mortgages in most cases become "metropolitan mortgages", since most of the real estate is bought in large cities — Moscow and St. Petersburg. In this context, she suggested that efforts should be focused on encouraging families to buy housing in the regions of Russia as well.

The expert community, however, sees negative effects, despite the current support measures.

— In the current configuration, the provision of preferential mortgages of any format leads to the fact that due to the increase in prices, which developers and builders instantly win back, real people have no advantages. Because both before the introduction of preferential mortgages, the monthly payment was 50 thousand rubles, and after. But at the same time, if before the introduction of preferential mortgages, loans were taken for 12-15 years, now in many cases for 30," economist Valery Korneev tells Izvestia.

According to him, a safe way for the market to provide citizens with children with housing is to build real estate on state land by state companies, and then provide this area to buyers in installments without interest.