Kemerovo Region Offers Financial Incentives to Pregnant Schoolgirls Amid Demographic Crisis

Authorities in the Kemerovo region of Siberia will provide financial assistance to schoolgirls who give birth, as reported by Russian state media on Tuesday. This initiative marks at least the third regional effort to combat the country’s demographic challenges, as the Kremlin seeks to encourage population growth.

According to a regional government decree, legal guardians of qualifying schoolgirls will receive a one-time payment of 100,000 rubles (approximately $1,200) if the girl is at least 22 weeks pregnant as of January 1, RIA Novosti stated.

The financial aid is intended for full-time students enrolled in “general, vocational, or higher education institutions” who are registered at a maternity hospital, as outlined in the decree.

At least eight other regions in Russia have rolled out similar incentives, although it remains unclear if they extend to school-age girls or only to university students, noted RIA Novosti.

The Kemerovo region follows the Oryol and Bryansk regions in specifically including schoolgirls in their pregnancy incentives. Last week, Oryol region Governor Andrei Klychkov defended this program by citing a recommendation from the Russian Labor Ministry dated February 2025.

According to the exiled news outlet 7×7, at least 40 Russian regions have committed to providing female university students with a minimum of 100,000 rubles for childbirth starting this year.

These payments for schoolgirls are part of a wider strategy to tackle Russia’s demographic crisis, which has intensified in the three years since the onset of the full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

President Vladimir Putin has made increasing birth rates, which have dropped to a 25-year low while mortality rates have climbed, a priority.

The Kemerovo region, with a population exceeding 2.5 million, has been experiencing population decline for at least 25 years.