As 2025 starts, Russia ends its reputable “Year of the Family.” However the state has been selling what it calls “traditional” or “pro-family” values for greater than a decade – and appears more likely to proceed.
“Traditional” values are actually central to the theory of “Russian-ness” that the government promotes, portraying itself as a defender towards many Western societies’ extra liberal perspectives on gender, sexuality and reproductive rights.
“Today some countries are cynically destroying the institution of the family, and common, simply normal human values are cynically broken down and replaced by false ones,” Putin stated in January 2024, launching the Yr of the Circle of relatives. “Traditional family values drop out of favor in these countries. But we, on the contrary, will preserve, strengthen and pass them on to future generations.”
Some of the fresh measures striking conventional values into apply used to be a November 2024 regulation introducing fines for what the legislators name “the promotion of the child-free ideology”: any subject material observed as discouraging Russians from having children.
An deliberately obscure word, “traditional values” got here to the middle of the state ideology after 2012, when Putin got here again to place of job for his 3rd presidential time period amid large protests. Ever since, political and spiritual leaders on the nationwide point have usally voiced their significance – in particular in mild of Russia’s declining inhabitants. In 2023, Russia’s delivery fee used to be simply 1.41 youngsters in keeping with lady, the bottom in 17 years – and neatly beneath 2.1, deemed the “replacement level” for a solid inhabitants.
Global consideration at the Russian conventional values marketing campaign has a tendency to concentrate on nationwide leaders’ flashy statements that concentrate on electorate at house and conservative enthusiasts in a foreign country. As a pupil of Russian politics, on the other hand, I do know federal insurance policies aren’t the whole image. The Kremlin would possibly set the time table, however regional governments are usally the place the federal narrative of circle of relatives values transforms into insurance policies with broader achieve.
Russian President Vladimir Putin poses with an Orthodox priest and his circle of relatives whilst giving awards to {couples} with massive households on Might 30, 2019.
Mikhail Klimentyev/Pool Photograph by the use of AP
Federal imaginative and prescient
One of the vital major national-level insurance policies selling conventional values are one-time executive bills for the delivery of a kid. Named “maternal capital,” the preferred receive advantages used to be presented in 2007 for people giving delivery to, or adopting, their 2d and next youngsters.
Since 2020, bills had been introduced for each kid. Present bills for the firstborn quantity to about US$6,000, or kind of 10 months of the median per 30 days wage. The bills are regulated to be essentially used on youngsters’s training or housing.
Federal makes an attempt to limit abortion, alternatively, fall wanting the rhetoric followed by means of church officers and politicians. Broadly mentioned proposals from the latter come with disposing of abortion care from the loose common well being care program or requiring a father’s consent.
Makes an attempt to introduce any sweeping restrictions on abortion had been ultimately grew to become down by means of federal lawmakers. Below present regulation, abortion may also be carried out for any reason why till 12 weeks of being pregnant. Ladies who have been raped can get admission to abortion services and products till 22 weeks, and the process is authorized for scientific causes at any level. The one fresh federal restriction has been stricter regulate on medicine used for scientific abortions.
Every other center of attention of the government’s “values” marketing campaign, and the only receiving essentially the most world consideration, is a sequence of repressive rules concentrated on LGBTQ+ folks. Discussing homosexuality used to be classified “propaganda to minors” and become a punishable offense in 2013. Intercourse-change remedies and converting one’s gender in reputable paperwork have been outlawed in 2023, and that very same yr, the Splendid Court docket declared “the international LGBTQ+ movement” an “extremist organization.”
Youths react outdoor Russia’s Splendid Court docket development in Moscow on Nov. 30, 2023, after justices declared the world LGBTQ+ motion an extremist crew.
Natalia Kolesnikova/AFP by the use of Getty Pictures
Those and similar legislative measures have made Russian LGBTQ+ folks a goal for violence. Many have left the rustic. However different projects towards LGBTQ+ rights are most commonly symbolic, just like the November 2024 regulation banning adoption to international locations the place gender transition is felony. Russia has no longer allowed adoptions to the U.S. since 2012, and simply 2.6% of all adoptions have been to households in a foreign country in 2021, making that legislative exchange rather inconsequential.
Native rules
Whilst the government broadcasts its anti-LGBTQ measures, regional government appear to concentrate on pro-natalist insurance policies, encouraging childbirth via increasingly more creative measures.
From 2016 to 2018, 5 areas presented advert hoc transient bans on abortions for a symbolically selected day or week, reminiscent of Global Youngsters’s Day. In 2023, a minimum of 4 areas banned abortions in non-public clinics, and the measure has been advisable in additional areas. In line with a present estimate, nearly 1 in 5 non-public clinics that used to supply abortions in Russia have stopped doing so.
Since 2023, greater than a dozen areas have presented fines for “encouraging” a girl to have an abortion – resulting in considerations amongst docs that their beef up for a affected person’s determination might be construed as encouragement. Different areas are discussing such regulation.
Some of the intrusive insurance policies relating to abortion has been applied within the Belgorod area south of Moscow, the place girls are usally confused to get approval from a clergyman and a psychologist earlier than they are able to get an abortion. Whilst no longer a felony requirement, it seems that to be a casual regional advice that public hospitals attempt to apply.
A banner on a bus prevent in St. Petersburg reads: ‘A prospective mother thinks: What do I do now? Will I be able to handle it? Where to find support?’ on Oct. 23, 2023.
AP Photograph
Areas don’t depend solely on repressive measures, regardless that. As nationwide leaders categorical worry over Russian girls deferring childbirth to prioritize training, some areas have projects that inspire previous pregnancies, in particular amongst faculty scholars. These days, a minimum of 11 of the 83 Russian areas have instituted particular one-time bills to feminine faculty scholars who’ve youngsters.
In the end, maximum areas have their very own “maternal capital” bills with more than a few quantities and necessities. For instance, within the Novgorod area of Russia’s northwest, folks will obtain a regional subsidy of round $3,700 along with the federal $6,000 for his or her first kid.
‘Values’ vs. truth
A few of the ones coverage measures are in reality at odds with voters’ personal tastes, that are usally some distance much less “traditional” than the state desires to imagine.
Restrictions on LGBTQ+ rights are an exception: Through the 2000s, public attitudes have been impartial at best possible and feature deteriorated as state propaganda vilifies LGBTQ+ folks.
However the Russian inhabitants isn’t, in truth, very conservative with regards to different problems round intercourse and circle of relatives making plans. Critiques on premarital intercourse, get admission to to abortion, divorce and circle of relatives making plans are a lot more liberal. Nearly two-thirds of Russian voters oppose abortion bans. In a 2019 ballot, the common choice of youngsters that women and men referred to as preferrred used to be 2.6. The typical choice of youngsters they themselves anticipated to have used to be 1.8 – a some distance cry from the massive circle of relatives promoted by means of the state.
General, Russian society’s conservatism is a lot more nuanced and muted than what the state propaganda tries to color.
What’s extra, the rustic isn’t homogeneous. Positive spaces, just like the North Caucasus, display nearer adherence to those so-called conventional values in the case of getting married more youthful and beginning households quicker. Maximum areas, regardless that, are firmly within the class of what demographers name “second demographic transition”: Folks get married and feature youngsters at a later age, use birth control, and feature fewer youngsters.
Why the native projects?
Those attitudes would possibly provide an explanation for why nationwide government’ conventional values insurance policies center of attention on broadly favored measures like kid bills, in addition to repressive regulation that makes use of the LGBTQ+ group as a scapegoat. They care about common beef up and don’t be expecting the ones measures to impress mass backlash.
Regional governors, alternatively, extra usally experiment with doubtlessly unpopular measures to check the nationwide speaking issues – in particular, discouraging abortions. Regional governors are extremely dependent at the Kremlin’s benevolence, and such projects is also otherwise of demonstrating loyalty and compliance. Expanding the delivery fee is a federal coverage objective persistently communicated to regional government or even integrated within the governors’ formal efficiency signs.
The government has used areas to roll out unpopular coverage projects earlier than. Throughout COVID-19, for instance, coping with the pandemic used to be in large part delegated to the regional government.
Regional pro-natalist insurance policies additional reveal the often-overlooked huge variations between portions of Russia. A citizen’s enjoy of the force to behave in step with “traditional values” would possibly range relying on which town and area they name house.
