The Russian Federation Council is preparing a bill for a monthly salary for stay at home mothers raising three or more children, with pension contributions and seniority counted. According to Valentina Petrenko, the initiative may be economically beneficial for regions and, senators hope, will support birth rates during the crisis.
A bill is being developed in the Federation Council of Russia that provides for the payment of a monthly salary to stay-at-home mothers raising three or more children. It is also proposed to make pension contributions from these payments and count the workers’ length of service.According to Valentina Petrenko, chair of the Federation Council Committee on Social Policy and Healthcare, work on the bill has already begun, and the economic and social feasibility of such a step is currently being calculated.
Today there is a practice in which social welfare authorities offer some types of work to large-family stay-at-home mothers: cleaning areas, municipal services, tree planting. Now the Federation Council proposes to use the funds allocated for organizing these jobs to pay salaries to mothers with many children.
“If a woman leaves three children at home and goes out herself to plant a tree, there will be no benefit from that at all. We have so far carried out calculations for 18 regions of the Russian Federation. According to these calculations, in some regions there is a 4.7-fold savings in funds if a mother raises three children at home and receives a salary for it. At the same time, pension contributions will be made and length of service will be counted,” Valentina Petrenko said.
The senators were prompted to develop the bill by statistics showing that the number of abortions has increased in recent months. In Petrenko’s view, a salary, pension contributions, and length of service will encourage Russian women to continue the family line even in a crisis.