Do Regional Pronatalist Policies Work? Evidence from the Russian Federation

Michael Zaslavsky, University of Wisconsin at Madison

Research on the effects of pronatalist policies has heretofore largely focused on policies of national scope, ignoring the proliferation of region-specific pronatalist measures within countries. Such an oversight is significant given that fertility rates within countries have tended to diverge over time. I examine the effects of sub-national pronatalist policies on fertility in the Russian Federation, where several regions have been implementing such programs since the early 2010s. I combine unique data on regional policies, age-order specific fertility rates, and region-level socioeconomic variables to assess the impact of regional pronatalist policies from 2010 to 2022. Using a difference-in-differences design, I evaluate whether these regional policies have affected fertility rates beyond the national policy in place since 2007, as well as the heterogeneity in the effects across regions.

Keywords: Fertility, Population Policies, Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights, Spatial Demography

See extended abstract.