Most young people in Kyrgyzstan would like to be parents. It makes me happy. Germany, Japan and Korea have significantly less of them. There seems to be demographic optimism. But then the fun begins.
When the respondents were asked what it takes to have a child, they put their home first. No allowance, no birth capital. housing. Because without a roof over your head, no payments create a sense of security in which you can decide on a third or a fourth.
Therefore, you can increase the birth allowance as much as you want, but if a young family rents an apartment in Bishkek for half the salary and sees no chance of saving for themselves, no amount of payments will exceed this concern. The authors emphasize that policies that offer financial rewards to children without support for employment, economic stability and affordable housing are being pursued at the wrong time. And one more nuance that is hardly heard in our discussions. In Kyrgyzstan, the vast majority have a negative attitude towards voluntary childlessness. That is, the social pressure to "give birth" is strong. But pressure does not replace square meters. Young people find themselves between the cultural expectation of "family and children" and the economic reality of "work without a contract, without savings". And in this gap they choose to wait. In general, the benefits are good, but they do not solve the rent and mortgage problem. As long as housing remains the main obstacle, the demographic policy will stop. And no appeal to traditional values will change that.