By Irina Stasova
Our country has every chance to halt the population decrease earlier than 2015. Since June, the natural decline in the population of Belarus has decreased to six thousand people. According to Anatoly Tozik, Deputy Prime Minister of Belarus, the national programme of demographic security will be conducted ahead of time if this trend continues. This announcement was made at the state reception of women in the Council of Ministers devoted to Mother’s Day.
“According to the state programme, we have a super-strategic mission, the dwindling population is planned to be halted by 2015. The natural decline in the population was covered this year by a migration gain. Between January and August 2013, 11,639 people came to our country, and 4,808 people left it,” the Prime Minister stated. “These facts declare a stable situation in Belarus, and confidence of Belarusians in the future. We managed to create a definite atmosphere which forces society to also participate in solving these demographic issues. The system of social support has played a significant role there.”
According to the Deputy Prime Minister, if it were possible to save people whose lives come to an end prematurely, the migration gain would not be so important. According to the statistics, 13,000-15,000 people die each year because of external factors. On the whole these are people of working age, young people, and children. 7,000 were lost because of external factors between January and August of this year.
Now specialists aim to pass another important milestone. Currently, 66 percent of families in Belarus have only one child, and the strategic mission of the government is to improve the wish of parents to have a minimum two children. The Big Family project, aimed at supporting families with children, will help the government to manage it.
“Currently, various different new family support programmes are being considered. One option is the Big Family project. A new national programme of demographic security of Belarus which will function from 2016, and new ways of support that can be used in 2014 and 2015 are currently being worked out,” stated Marianna Shchetkina, Minister of Labour and Social Protection. “Next year the second Republican Family of Year contest will be held. It is worthy of note that, this year, there has been an increase in the population in Belarus. We managed to strengthen the institution of ‘family’ thanks to the support system which exists in the country.”
