The maternity capital's impact on birth intervals in Russia : Survival analysis of the transition from the 1st to 2nd child

From 2007 up until now, Russia’s period fertility rate (TFR) increased at a relative constant pace. This increase coincided with the implementation and execution of pronatalist measures, mostnotably the maternity capital program. In this study, two distinct time periods (pre- and postpolicy) were compared in order to discover the effect of this program on fertility. This study is based on data from the Russian Generations and Gender Survey (GGS), conducted in 2011. Employing event-history analysis for the transition to a 2nd childbirth, this study assesses whether the maternity capital policy has had an impact on the interval between the 1st and 2nd birth and the overall 2nd birth risk. Moreover in this study I aimed to determine whether the 2nd birth risk was different according to woman’s educational level and ages at the time of 1st birth (entry into the 1st motherhood) in the policy period. The analysis pointed out that the transition to the 2nd birth event did not precipitate due to the introduction of maternity capital. Moreover my research indicated that the introduced policy did not increase the overall risk of having a 2nd child. The analysis of the interaction between the post-policy period and woman’s education or age at the 1st birth also did not reveal any significant difference