Childcare benefit statistics reveal declining birth rates

April 4, Pozirk. The number of children under three years whose parents qualify for childcare benefits plunged by 45.6 percent over the past eight years from 348,585 in 2016 to 189,658 at the end of 2024, according to Pozirk‘s analysis of data from the National Statistics Committee (Biełstat).

Belarus’ population fell by 1.1 million to 9.1 million on January 1 from 10.1 million on the same day in 1995, a period which coincides with Alaksandar Łukašenka’s 30-year rule, an earlier analysis showed.

Births fell from 87,602 in 2019 to 65,000 in 2023. The Ministry of Health has kept birth and death data secret after the COVID-19 pandemic hit the country in 2020. The government released births data for 2023, but withheld numbers for 2024, 2022 and 2021.

The disputed 2020 presidential election and the crackdown that followed forced up to 500,000 Belarusians to leave their country by January 2024, independent researchers warned.

Belarus’ demographic crisis is expected to end by 2030, Valeryj Kavalkoŭ, deputy social security minister, said in October. People born in the early 2000s, when birth rates were rising, will start their own families soon and give birth to more children, Minsk Novosti cited the official as saying.

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The Viewer

Population decline is a major long-term challenge for Belarus

Belarus' population decreased by one million since 1995, but the government does not have a clue how to reverse the trend. Hundreds of thousands of emigrants are still included in the population, so the real decline is even steeper. Population …

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