The impression is that during the past week the international structures have started to jointly slam the economic policies of the Armenian government. So while the opposition is preparing to enter into a dialog with the government the flag of criticism is being carried by the internationals.
The society hasn’t yet managed to digest the publication of the Forbes (according to which Armenia’s economy is the second worst on their list) when the new criticism was released and this time by the UN. The report issued yesterday of course doesn’t have as sharp angles and offensive elements as the previous ones but is more substantiated and grounded. This time they focused on birth rates and migration. Even the statesmen speak aloud about these issues. During yesterday’s press conference the UNFPA Armenia Executive Director Garik Hayrapetyan presented the research results of 2009, according to which the majority (68.3%) of 1139 Armenian families surveyed are not planning to have another baby. 16.4% want to have one more child and 13.6% found difficulty in replying. The survey revealed socio-economic conditions as the main reason behind unwillingness to have children. Also, more Armenian women are choosing career over family. According to the results of the same survey 44% of Armenians doesn’t see their future in Armenia. The interesting thing is that the survey was conducted jointly by the UNFPA and the National Statistics Service of Armenia and the attempts of doubting the results would mean that our officials do not believe their own data. “In high-income and low-income economies (like Armenia) there is a decline in birth rates and growth in aging population," said Garik Hayrapetyan. Armenia’s population will decrease to 2.3-2.5 million in 2050, according to the UN forecasts. The tremendous interest generated by the Day of 5 billion on 11 July 1987 led to the establishment of World population Day as an annual event. For more than 20 years, 11 July has been an occasion to mark the significance of population trends and related issues. This year the world population is expected to surpass 7 billion. According to the UN, 78 million people add to the world each year. Vanik Babajanyan, Head of the Demography Division at the Armenian Ministry of Labor and Social Affairs, says to boost the birth rate the ministry decided to encourage multiple-birth families by giving 430 000 drams for the birth of a third and next child. The survey revealed socio-economic conditions as the main reason behind unwillingness to have children. Also, more Armenian women are choosing career over family. Expert Ruben Yeganyan noted, in turn, that the demographic situation is not in Armenia’s favor, since neighboring countries are and will be experiencing population growth. “The governmental policy is ineffective and incapable to resolve the demographic problems,” he said. If the spouses don’t wish to have babies because of non-materials matters (for example, health matters or career growth) then it’s wrong to blame the state. But when speaking to young people it becomes clear that the main reasons, which keep them from marrying or having children, are finance-related. In this case, the state only has to provide a possible support for these young people. And what does the state do here to boost natality. It is supposed to provide certain financial support. In particular, for 2011 our state has allocated 4 billion 675 million AMD for families, who’d have three or more children. Last year the funds amounted to 4 billion 200 million AMD. These data were provided by Vanik Babajanyan. The latter also added, “Of course, the amount of this support is not so high and there are many issues to be overcome to encourage actual natality in Armenia but the state is applying a series of states to improve the situation aimed at improving the apartment conditions of newly established families. In Armenia we have been having the free of charge system of birth support. State projects are being implemented to provide young people with free apartments, etc. For example, for each third and next child the state allots 430,000 AMD. For first and second children this amount is 50 thousand.” First of all, although birth delivery is free of charge but any father, who more or less respects himself finds his duty to show some “attitude” to the personnel of doctors. This is kind of acceptable because has elements of voluntarism. However, no matter how hard we try to persuade us that the country doesn’t have funds we also confess that 50,000 is absurd. First, it will be impossible to solve any issue with that money. So the allotment of this amount doesn’t help the families with anything in terms of encouraging natality. And secondly, in order to receive this money quite many efforts should be spent, receive a birth certificate for the baby; then go to the passport department, receive a social card for the baby, take documents from the clinic, etc. Only perhaps the organizers will know why it’s not possible to allot this money to the families at the natal clinic without having them run to different doors before that. The greatest absurdness is that the women, who are on a natal leave, should get a letter from the passport desk and the workplace for the monthly 18-thousand USD welfare. The ones, who have been through this process, will probably agree with my words. So there are many people, who don’t even bother to go get that 50,000 AMD and so they leave this money to the state. So can the state raise the welfare amount for babies? If we take into account the fact that in 2010 44,800 children were born in Armenia then the increase of this welfare will be an extra burden for the state in the amount of 2.2 billion AMD. It seems that this is a lot but when we see that how much money is spent on the visits of delegations to different countries and how much money is being pocketed as a result then it becomes hard to believe that the state cannot afford. And this becomes even more important when we see that the number of population of our neighboring country is drastically growing. And finally the UN research has another interesting factor. The research was conducted in 2009 when Tigran Sargsyan was already a Prime Minister and the impact of the global crisis reached its peak in our country. But when 44% of the youth don’t see their future in Armenia it means that besides the material matter there is a more serious issue. People lack trust to their own country.