Fertility Concern in Finland and Russia: Economic Thinking and Ideal Family Size in the Rhetoric of Population Policies

• Main Author: Anna-Maria Isola
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Population Research Institute of Väestöliitto 2008-01-01
• Series: Finnish Yearbook of Population Research
• Online Access: https://journal.fi/fypr/article/view/45035

This article deals with fertility concern in Russian and Finnish population policies. The article points out that some commonly known discourses are persistently used as arguments in fertility-related population policies. In Finland, these include, for instance, discourses on ageing nation and economic competitiveness. Russian policymakers use a crisis discourse that consists of three sub-discourses: demographic crisis, reproductive health in crisis and family crisis. The Russian government implements pronatalist population policies, whereas Finnish authorities hesitate to use the term population policy because of its emphasis on reproductive rights on the one hand, and the negative associations of population policy on the other. Russia has both population and family programs, as well as a new law with a speci? cally pronatalist emphasis. Conversely, Finland uses family policy as a tool of population policy.