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“It should be noticed that many Azerbaijani families do not want to have more than one child because they are not sure that they will be able to feed them, maintain properly and provide them with education. To date the child has become, pardon me for the cynicism, an “expensive pleasure”, how much money is spent on food, diapers, kindergarten, etc. Often these costs cannot afford even people with average incomes, not to mention the low-income families,” the Azerbaijani paper Zerkalo reports.

According to the article demographers believe that in 20-30 years Azerbaijan will face problems with aging of population. According to statistics, during 2012, the rate of births in Azerbaijan amounted to an average of 479 babies a day. This means that compared to last year, the average fertility rate decreased from 19.3% to 19.1%. In Azerbaijan, there are 1.3 million families that have children under 18. Some of these families (529,000), have two children. In the same time, in towns and villages the figures are identical.
There are 261 000 families in Azerbaijan that have three children and more than 126 000 (10% of all families) have four children.

The author points out that if the government wants to increase the birth rate in Azerbaijan, it should take care of the financial side of the problem and to pay normal child benefit and not the ridiculous amount of money that is provided now, to take care of the free kindergartens and nurseries, etc. The article brings the example of Russia, where “maternity capital” is given for the birth of each child which gives the parents at least some confidence that they will be able to bring up their children normally, and not just to give birth to a child, who is doomed to a perpetual need.

The author also notes that increasing the birth rate can help the fight against unemployment. He notes that the unemployed cannot risk giving birth to children but if they are given a job, the problem will be solved the family will get a stable income, and they will give birth to children.

“The current Azerbaijani youth is really against of having several children in the family. Most of the couples want to have only one child, while back in the Soviet times there was almost no family with less than 2-3 children. Then, the material welfare for some reasons was not taken into account too, even in the poorest Azerbaijani families many children were growing. Today even among those who are well-off there are many who have only one child,” the material says.

The article says that a lot of money is spent on providing the child with the most necessary things. That’s why, people in Azerbaijan are afraid of having many children, The Mirror writes.