Minister for Family Care and Demography Milica Đurđević Stamenkovski, popularly known as Milica Zavetnica, has been extremely busy in recent weeks. She spent the meeting at the rally of the Serbian Progressive Party in Sremska Mitrovica and barely had time to say a word about the students in the blockade, she went to Germany to speak at the pre-election convention of the far-right AfD party.
But she also deals with issues from her own department. Thus, in mid-February, she announced new measures for family care and demographic renewal. The most important news is that - on March 1, a public tender will be announced on the improvement of demography and population policy. For now, it is known about this competition that local self-government units will be able to participate, and the first condition for their application will be the establishment of councils for family and demography in those areas.
As Milica Đurđević Stamenkovski announced, "the councils will monitor statistical data, the migration balance and have insight into the social and existential conditions and challenges faced by single parents and families with multiple children, single and elderly households." She said that the state allocated 2025 million euros for this project in 420, intended for local governments, and that "the beginning of the process of demographic renewal is our most important national task."
There is no more information about local councils for now. The Ministry of Family Care and Demography told "Vreme" that the statistical data that the local councils will monitor will be publicly available and will be updated at least once a month. However, monitoring statistical data at the local level sounds more like the work of a department of the Republic Institute of Statistics, so it is not entirely clear how important this measure is for raising the birth rate. The Ministry also says that the councils will have a certain autonomy and that their composition will be determined by the presidents of the municipalities, that is, the mayors - which leaves a lot of room for the arbitrariness of the local powerful. Only the Ministry will have a supervisory role in all of this.
Apart from dealing with statistics, what exactly will be the task of the council? Even in this case, for now, there is no concreteness. In the very extensive response of the Ministry, it is stated that the task of local councils will be "to establish direct communication with families, recognize their needs and challenges, and initiate measures that will contribute to a better quality of family life".
What has been done so far in terms of demographic renewal and family care during the mandate of Milica Đurđević Stamenkovski and her predecessors?
LESS AND LESS CHILDREN BORN
The Ministry of Family Care and Demography was created in 2020, and before the current minister, it was headed by Radomir Ratko Dmitrović and Darija Kisić Tepavčević. They have in common, first of all, that they all tried to raise the birth rate with material incentives. It was accompanied by unsavory slogans such as "Enough words - let's stop", "Give birth, don't delay" and "Love and baby - the first thing we need!".
Did they succeed in their intention? In 2024, 60.311 babies were born, 502 fewer than a year earlier, according to the data of the Republic Statistical Office (RZS). This is, at the same time, the lowest number of live births since 1900, although in the meantime Serbia has gone through two Balkan wars, two world wars, a crisis during the nineties and bombing.
In November of last year, new measures were adopted to improve the birth rate: from January 1, one-time assistance for the first child is 500.000 dinars, for the second 600.000 dinars in 24 installments, for the third and fourth 2.280.000 and 3.180.000 dinars, both in 120 monthly installments. Parents whose children were born on January 1, 2024 or later have the right to an increased parental allowance, and the increase in incentives was announced by the President of Serbia, Aleksandar Vučić, after calculating that it will cost the state an additional 120 million euros.
This, indeed, is a big jump compared to the amounts of a few years ago. For example, first-born children, born after January 1, 2020, received a one-time payment of around 100.000 dinars from the state. Nevertheless, the accompanying campaign caused stormy reactions in the public. For days, there was an advertisement in which, among other things, a girl persuades her parents to give birth to a brother, explaining that she will receive 600.000 dinars for it, and the father seems much more excited about the money than the new ones.
IT'S NOT JUST ABOUT MONEY
Although the increased amount of the parental allowance is commendable, it is not an ideal pronatal measure, Jelena Ćirić Nikolić, editor of the "Bebac" portal, told "Vreme".
"It's not always about money. It is also about the conditions in the maternity wards, but also about the conditions in which those children will be raised. That is, what kind of support parents have in this society. The situation in kindergartens is bad, there are usually no places in bigger cities. You can enroll the child in kindergarten when he turns 12 months old, and the mother returns to work a month earlier. It's a technical thing, and it would help families a lot. How can a mother return to work if there is no kindergarten?".
In addition, parental allowance is limited to a maximum of four children. Those parents who decide to have more than four children should not expect this kind of incentive for the fifth and every subsequent child. At the same time, Article 25 of the Law on Financial Support for Families with Children stipulates that those families in which all children are regularly vaccinated and regularly attend elementary school, i.e. preschool, will have the right to assistance. Such provisions of the law are discriminatory against the most sensitive social groups, and especially against the Roma community.
VICTORIAN CIRCLE
According to the data of the Republic Institute of Statistics, at the beginning of 2023, 6.641.197 inhabitants lived in Serbia, while ten years earlier there were over half a million more people on the territory of Serbia. Despite all the incentives of the state and the establishment of a ministry that will deal with population policy, the natural increase is still negative. On average, in the past two years, Serbia lost about 8.300 people a month, and about 5.000 babies were born. Translated, this means that Serbia lost around 40.000 inhabitants last year, that is, a city the size of Sombor "disappeared".
It is interesting, however, that the fertility rate, that is, the number of children per woman, is increasing in Serbia. In 2012, it was 1,45, while in 2023, this number was 1,63, and it increased in all regions of Serbia. The problem, however, arises because the number of women who can give birth is decreasing. The vicious circle looks roughly like this: as there are fewer and fewer people in Serbia, this means that there are fewer and fewer women with the ability to give birth, and therefore fewer and fewer babies are born. As long as the fertility rate is less than 2, the population will decrease, at a slower or faster rate.
The editor of the "Bebac" portal explains that, however, the goal should not be just to have as many children as possible.
"We are talking about the need for more births, and the law makers do not see the needs of parents at this moment. The goal should be that families who already have one child decide on another, which is increasingly not the case. Parents realize that it is really difficult to bring everything out, to properly raise a child and provide him with an adequate quality of life. This whole climate affects the decision, as a trigger that can prevail in whether you want another child or not", explains Jelena Ćirić Nikolić.
THEORY AND PRACTICE
Finally, we return to the announced local councils for the family and demography as a rare example of state measures that are not limited to paying new and expectant parents.
"Local councils can be a positive innovation if they are imagined as resource centers where parents can be informed about their rights, where they can get help in harmonizing work and parenthood or similar. It would be nice to include organizations that deal with parenting. We will see if it will really fulfill its purpose", says our interlocutor.
For now, she doubts it. As he says, until now things that could improve the life of mothers and pregnant women have not been taken seriously enough.
Additionally, according to research by the Center for Investigative Journalism of Serbia (CINS), 97 percent of their interlocutors who experienced obstetric violence did not report a violation of their rights. This can also influence women's decision not to have more children. Minister Milica Đurđević Stamenkovski, on the other hand, at the beginning of her mandate, accused mothers who testify to obstetric violence of being "part of the global agenda against childbirth in Serbia", and then she "solved" the problem of lack of air conditioning in the midst of tropical heat in maternity hospitals by buying five ventilators.
"Is the point, in general, that we have a steep demographic growth?", asked the interlocutor of "Vremena".
"We should work to have educated children with normal living conditions and maintain the current number of inhabitants. Because of the economy, it is important that the number of babies born does not fall dramatically. But we must improve their living conditions. The point is not just to give birth to children, and the families are poor", concludes Jelena Ćirić Nikolić.
Child support problem
"A measure that is often forgotten is the child allowance for children up to the age of 18 or up to the age of 26 if they are developmentally disabled. Those amounts are shamefully small for this country", says Jelena Ćirić Nikolić.
Child benefit is a social policy measure, not an aid paid to every family with children. The law stipulates that families whose total monthly income does not exceed the sum between 13.000 and 17.000 dinars are entitled to child allowance, depending on whether it is a single-parent family and whether it is a child with developmental disabilities.
As of January 1 this year, the child allowance amounts to about 4.300 dinars for a child for whom the right has been realized, 5.590 dinars for single-parent families and guardians, 6.449 dinars for a child with developmental disabilities and 7.739 dinars for a child who meets the requirements on several grounds. Therefore, the maximum amount of child allowance that a family can receive is less than 8.000 dinars per month. In addition, this family must have an average monthly income that is six to eight times lower than the average monthly salary in Serbia.
The interlocutor of "Vremena" explains that, even when you look at parental allowances ranging from several hundred thousand to several million dinars, they only seem imposing at first glance.
"However, when we look at how many installments are given and what the monthly amounts are, these are not sums that would significantly change the living conditions of a family. For example, you don't get any help for a second child after two years. Some European countries have decided to give all children up to the age of 18, say, 200 euros each. There is a really significant difference between two years and 18 years of life with those figures", he adds.
One of the examples of European countries that are more serious about child allowance is Germany. In this country, every child up to the age of majority, in some cases up to the age of 26, is entitled to a child allowance of 250 euros, regardless of the family's economic situation.
