FROM BAD TO WORSE?

The demographic situation in Azerbaijan seems to have begun to attract the long-awaited attention of legislators. "Ripples" from the parliamentary debates on the law "On reproductive population" are spreading wider and wider. The media reports most often on parliament's ideas about the need to raise the minimum marital age for women and to ban early marriages and the disclosure of the results of ultrasound tests on the sex of the child. In short, interest in demographic problems is on the increase, and this cannot but make us happy, because the situation here, to put it mildly, is far from rosy. As highlighted in Azerbaijan's Concept of National Security, the shortage of human resources is one of the threats to our security. There is also a UN prediction, according to which the country's population may begin to shrink from 2035. In other words, the situation is critical. This is why we can only welcome the willingness of parliamentarians to take demography seriously. Furthermore, it should have been dealt with not "today", nor even "yesterday", but "the day before yesterday." In any case, two important points are somewhat discouraging: the discreteness of the proposed ideas and, in my opinion, insufficient work on them. For example, the idea of increasing women's marital age to 18 because, they say, there are cases of young wives being subjected to domestic violence, I must say, should be rejected... According to this logic, it would be easier to set the following condition: if you want to marry, get a black belt in karate and then there will no violence! On the other hand, some MPs argue that the main reason for the rising number of divorces is early marriages. But is this true? Of the 96,000 marriages contracted over the past year, 5,000 were contracted by young people under 18, which is about 5 per cent. So, early marriages are unlikely to be the main cause of divorces. Yes, they are more fragile, but does this mean that the family can be strengthened by raising the age limit, rather than by a psychological support service, for example? After all, raising the age limit will not change the motivation for violence, the atmosphere in the family or the surrounding environment.

A long time ago, I read somewhere that the US had decided to grow tomatoes with firm skins, so they would not be damaged by machine harvesting. Agronomists had quite a bit of trouble with this, but the goal was achieved. Then they wanted all vegetables to ripen at the same time - this would facilitate care. When they solved this task, there was another: to grow tomatoes almost of the same size, then there would be the same number of tomatoes in each box. They solved that problem as well, although there was one "but". The tomatoes lost their taste. This means that common sense and a simple desire to solve a complex problem (this is clear from speeches by some of our legislators) do not always lead to the expected outcomes. Let us accept the obvious: when it comes to people's fates, we should act systemically rather than spontaneously or by intuition, study the situation and forecast its development. And here we have quite a few "white spots".

Supporters of raising the marriage age appeal to international conventions signed by Azerbaijan, under which persons below 18 are considered to be teenagers... I do not think that this point should be mandatory. According to the Soviet Family Code, the marriage age could be reduced, but by no more than 2 years. Given that the age limit was 18 at that time, the possibility of marriage before 16 was excluded. And this rule was implemented differently in the various republics. In the RSFSR, Belarus, Moldova, Lithuania, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan, it was possible to reduce the age limit by no more than 2 years, while in Ukraine, Azerbaijan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan - by no more than one year. In Georgia, no reduction of the age limit was allowed, while in Kazakhstan, Latvia, Kyrgyzstan and Armenia, it was allowed only for women and by no more than one year.

Now let us view the current situation in the world. It is not as uniform or standard as the supporters of international conventions obviously believe. In Greece, the minimum age for marriage is 14 for women and 18 for men; In Britain - 16 and 16, Hungary - 14 (14), Venezuela, Ireland, Uruguay, Bolivia and Colombia - 12 (14), Italy, Portugal and Mexico - 14 (16), and in Japan - 16 (18). So, let's get rid of all our inhibitions: we are not "white crows" at all. Do we have to live according to all European norms? Then imagine that we have legalized prostitution like Holland, same-sex marriages like the UK, and banned minarets like Switzerland. Shall we repeat all this?

Don't get me wrong: I am not in favour of early marriage - I am against raising the marriage age limit. Please note: international organizations consider the age of 15 to be normal for starting a sex life. Under programmes that UNICEF, the UN Population Fund and others are implementing in different countries, including Azerbaijan, sex education (including the free distribution of contraceptives) starts at 15. What pattern of behaviour may emerge today? Early sex - early pregnancy - early marriage - increasing birth rate. And what might be the consequences of the policies pursued by international institutions? Early sex - late marriage - late child - declining birth rate. That is, with active assistance from outside, we are exacerbating the already complex demographic situation. Why?

Some MPs say that early childbirth is dangerous for the female body. I will not argue, but I should remind you that France raised the minimum marital age for women to 18 in 2005. Previously, French women could marry from 15 (this rule was imposed Napoleon in 1804). So, for 200 years young French women were not physically able to create healthy families, but still created them and gave birth! What is the reason for changing the age limit? Early marriages and a high birth rate among migrants, which worsened the demographic and ethno-cultural situation. Experts say that there is a threat to the foundations of French civilization. In other words, raising or lowering the age limit may have far-reaching consequences. Do our MPs know about this?

Are there no other ways to fight negative phenomena? From 2000-2008, mothers aged 15-17 produced 22,600 children. In other words, 22,600 schoolgirls, who were not even 17 married (rather, they were forced to marry) in Azerbaijan. That is, we are talking about mass violations of the law. The child in such a family has no rights at all: it is impossible to send him to a kindergarten, call a doctor from the clinic, vaccinate him, and he will not be accepted in school. Is this a normal situation?! If they justify this by the fact that these marriages were "sanctified" by mullahs, I note: in the absence of a certificate, the Registry Office bans the kabin (religious marriage). How many criminal cases were filed against this background of thousands of illegal marriages? What has been done to deal with the offenders? I have no answer to these questions. And why should we assume that the new law will be respected any more than the old one, which is violated so often?

In Azerbaijan, as well as throughout the world, the sexual revolution took place a long time ago, and 18, alas, does not always mean the start of a sex life for many today. Physiologically, the organism matures earlier and - in the social context - later. To stand on your own two feet and start a family you need more years and resources. Young people have children later and give birth less. And what are they offering us? On the one hand, they want to raise the marriage age, i.e. to worsen the demographic situation in the long run and, on the other, to ban the disclosure of the results of ultrasound tests to improve this situation. Of course, MPs are driven by good intentions, but we know where the road paved with good intentions leads to...

It is much more important to restore order where necessary. Yes, in recent years, we have opened new hospitals and maternity homes with modern equipment and conducted unique operations; in short, much is being, and will be, done. But in rural areas 36 per cent of births occur outside hospitals. Does this improve the demographic situation? If an expectant mother visits one private clinic and then goes to another, she is required to repeat all the tests she has already done and, of course, in their laboratory. What is this, if not extortion?! How about doctors' insistence on referring you to a specific pharmacy or diagnostic centre? It's a conspiracy! And there are many such situations.

We somehow forget that over the last 50 years, our country has been shifting to a European form of demographic behaviour: reducing the family size, birth rate and the number of children... The process has gone too far and it would be wrong to believe that it can be redirected more quickly. As is known, it is a difficult and delicate matter to solve demographic problems. And there is not always a direct relationship between demographic parameters and measures of influence. For example, a growth in incomes and comfort in life does not always lead to an increase in the birth rate. Measures to stimulate the birth rate only help where there remains a potential need for children. Once in Romania they offered incentives to parents who decided to have a second and third child, but in the end ... it was the birth rate of Romanies that increased. Considerable benefits in other countries of Europe largely stimulated the birth rate among migrants rather than among the indigenous population, which may have unexpected results. Thus, Muslims will soon comprise over 50 per cent of Berliners under 20. Judging by opinion polls, in Russia, if I am not mistaken, the expected number of children per family is 1.95, while the desired number is 2.05. That is to say the difference is microscopic, as they have almost as many children as they want. In other words, the demographic potential has been almost exhausted, and I fear that no "maternal capital" can raise the birth rate above 2.3. What this means is not population growth, but the absence of population decline.

How serious is the situation here? According to the State Statistics Committee, there is no reason for concern. In recent years, the birth rate has remained at 2.3 children per woman, which should ensure the reproduction of the population. However, this picture contradicts the information of Moscow demographers who say that since the 1960s, the birth rate curve in Azerbaijan has been steadily rolling down. At the end of the 1990s, it fell below 2.0, but did not stop. In 2003, the birth rate reached 1.7 children per woman. The reason is simple - we slowly but surely shifted to the European type of demographic behaviour with its low birth rate. So it is a trend and, thus, a population decline can be expected in the near future. This is, in fact, confirmed by the State Statistics Committee itself. Judging by the population pyramid of 2008, we have fewer women aged 0-14 years than 20-29 years. The 20-29 year-old mothers (and this is the most active parturient group) will be replaced by fewer women. And there will be no replacement of generations (and reproduction of the population).

Times have changed, and demographic behaviour has changed with it. The sexual revolution occurred in the country as in the rest of the civilized world, but society did not notice it. Sometimes, adultery is not considered to be immoral, that is to say few condemn the so-called civil marriages, while sexual minorities have become "rampant" as well. Families with several children already arouse more sympathy than approval, and a woman with 3-4 children is considered to have too many children. The number of illegitimate children is growing: in 1970 they accounted for 3.1 per cent and in 2004 almost 20 per cent. And the difference between rural and urban behaviour is barely noticeable here: 4 per cent. Among 24-29 year-old women, the birth rate has fallen from 2.1 to 1.7 over the past 20 years and in the 25-29 age group - from 1.9 to 1.1. This is much lower than required for the simple reproduction of the population, and these groups carry almost the entire burden of child-bearing.

The demographic situation is becoming more and more disastrous. It is not only that today's figures are bad. The trick is that behind them are new behaviour patterns and trends that are devastating for demographic processes. And it seems that these changes are irreversible. Behind these trends we can see a greater degree of personal freedom and rejection of old behavioural clich?s. But "we threw the baby out with the bath water". The wave of Western civilization, which covered Azerbaijan, blurred the national peculiarities of the unofficial code of marriage. We have become more liberal and are largely focused on new priorities, which inevitably affect family and marital behaviour. And this is against the backdrop of a million refugees and men's active labour migration, which only exacerbates the negative demographic trends.

But our demographers stubbornly avoid this topic for some reason, at least publicly, while, for example, in Russia, the Vishnevskiy Centre recently produced about a thousand (!) models of the demographic situation. Why do we not have our own predictions, why do we have to rely on estimates from outside on these vital issues? By the way, apart from the UN, the CIA also prepares demographic scenarios. Whom should we believe and do we have to "believe" anyone? We are talking about the survival of the state and you need to know, not to believe but to know for sure.

In fact the fate of the country today depends on demographic issues, and they need to be addressed. In this context, of course, the MPs' initiative is very important. However, there is one important precondition. Laws are effective when there is a strategy and when it is based on objective information about current processes. We have little idea of how the situation and population will change and of whether there is a chance to stem the decline in birth rate. There are no reliable studies on this subject. (Although international institutions conduct studies, everything often boils down to "standard" and inaccessible reviews. For example, ADRA, which conducted a survey on reproductive health in 2001, denied that it had been held - Auth.). That's why it is necessary to correct the situation. And to this end it is, above all, necessary to conduct studies and establish a national population policy, and it should be based not only on material incentives. Motherhood, fatherhood and family values must become real, not declared priorities of our society. It is necessary to exploit the dwindling potential of the need for children in every way. In other words, the demographic situation needs to be corrected as soon as possible, and it should be done with knowledge of the issue.