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This study aims to highlight the changes in fertility patterns of Russians which occurred after the USSR's dissolution or disintegration, taking a long historical perspective. After that disruption, thirty cohorts were born and raised who never lived under the Soviet system. Fifteen more cohorts (those who were born between 1975 and 1990) remember that system only as a part of childhood, but their adult life started after the iron curtain had fallen and a flood of new ideas and practices spilled into all spheres of life. At the same time, the increased concern among the Russian elite about the declining population and low birth rates led to the adoption of a pronatalist family policy based on monetarist approaches reinforced by conservative-traditionalist ideology. Our main research question asks: To what extent did state social and family policies in Russia, which are based on the ideology of traditionalism and conservatism, derail or slow down the modernization of the quantitative and structural parameters of fertility patterns within the Second Demographic Transition context? Our analysis is based on indicators from period and cohort fertility tables, specific for age and parity. Extrapolations are used for Russia's female cohorts born 1971-1994 to arrive at expected ultimate fertility outcomes. Our evidence, obtained from the comprehensive analysis of fertility tables, reveals that the transformation of the Russian fertility model continues to be in line with the Second Demographic Transition common to developed countries, and that two decades of active pronatalist policy in the context of strengthening the conservative family ideology did not stop the modernization of fertility patterns. Online Appendix: https://www.comparativepopulationstudies.de/index.php/CPoS/article/view/626/402

Russia has a history of pronatalist policies dating back to the 1930s. Two sets of pronatalist measures were implemented during the past 40 years. The one designed in the early 1980s proved to be a clear failure. Instead of raising fertility, completed cohort fertility declined from 1.8 births per woman for the 1960 birth cohort to 1.6 for the 1968 cohort. The government of President Putin became concerned with the dire demographic conditions of high mortality and low fertility in Russia in the 1990s and early 2000s. A comprehensive set of pronatalist measures came into effect in January 2007. The period total fertility rate increased from 1.3 births per woman in 2006 to 1.6 in 2011, which the authorities view as an unqualified success. An unbiased demographic evaluation as well as analyses of Russian experts reveals that apparently the measures mainly caused a lowering of the age at birth and shortening of birth intervals. It appears that any real fertility increase is questionable, i.e. cohort fertility is not likely to increase appreciably. The recent pronatalist measures are likely to turn out to be a failure.

Bien que les systèmes politique, économique et social de la France et de la Russie diffèrent considérablement, les deux pays ont, depuis le milieu du XXe siècle, mené des politiques démographiques et familiales fondées sur des mesures incitatives. Les trajectoires maritales et familiales de leurs populations ont des traits communs : le mariage n'est plus la seule forme d'entrée en union et l'âge à la naissance du premier enfant a augmenté. Néanmoins, les apparentes similitudes masquent des divergences dont certaines sont profondes. L'étude du calendrier des premiers événements de l'âge adulte (achèvement des études, départ du domicile parental, premier emploi, première mise en couple et naissance d'un enfant) et des conditions dans lesquelles ils se produisent montre comment le passage à l'âge adulte a évolué au fil du temps en France et en Russie. Elle révèle également la complexité et la diversité des changements qui ont affecté les générations nées depuis le milieu des années 1930.

This article analyses the transformation in the mode of partnership formation in seven countries of Eastern Europe. The aim of the study is to provide an up-to-date account of the switch from direct marriage to non-marital cohabitation as it has progressed from the 1960s to the mid-2000s, using data from the Generations and Gender Surveys. Unlike previous analyses of partnership formation, we examined the extent to which crossnational variations, in the onset and scale of transformation characteristic of the Second Demographic Transition (SDT), could be linked to nuptiality regimes that existed in the region in the 19th and early 20th centuries. With few exceptions, the results support the notion of correspondence between historical and contemporary patterns. Forerunners in the transition to partnership formation outside marriage tend to come from areas which exhibited a late/low prevalence of marriage; the latecomers are typically situated east of the Hajnal line. Thus our study corroborates earlier findings pertaining to the legacy the historical marriage patterns, extending them further, from the onset of the first to the second demographic transition. Our results are also in line with idea of the spatial continuity across successive waves of demographic innovation demonstrated in several studies for Western Europe. The findings reported in the article make a similar argument for Eastern Europe. In a broader framework, the results point to diversity of pathways along which family and fertility characteristic of the SDT have evolved. In view of the evidence presented in the article, Eastern Europe seems to embody two variants with regard to synchronism between a shift from direct marriage to non-marital cohabitation and postponement of childbearing.

On s'intéresse dans cet article à la transition vers de nouvelles formes d'union et aux déterminants culturels et structurels ayant conduit à ce processus dans trois pays : la France, la Lituanie et la Russie. Chacun a connu des évolutions très différentes au cours du XXe siècle : la transition a été régulière en France, retardée en Lituanie et distordue en Russie. Aujourd'hui, un seul facteur explicatif de l'union libre subsiste en France, la religion. En Lituanie et en Russie, où les nouvelles formes d'union se sont répandues plus tardivement, la transition est encore à l'oeuvre, et les « précurseurs » de ces nouveaux comportements maritaux se caractérisent par des spécificités à la fois culturelles et structurelles.