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

Authors

• Anna-Maria Isola

DOI: https://doi.org/10.23979/fypr.45035

Keywords:

fertility, fertility concern, population policy, rhetoric

Abstract

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.