“We have repeatedly conducted sociological surveys asking families what they think is needed to increase birthrate. They put housing in the first place. The government has already adopted a relevant resolution this year. As many as 12,000 large families will move into new apartments this year. The target for the next year is the same. If we keep pace I think that the government commitments will be fulfilled by 2021. I think this is a very important stimulus,” Irina Kostevich said. The poor birthrate is associated with a decrease in the number of women of childbearing age, late marriages, a high number of divorces, she said. “We must work to stimulate the birthrate and increase the prestige of family and family values. This why we and the Education Ministry have suggested the family life basics course for schools,” Irina Kostevich noted.
Approaches to the family capital program will also be revised. “We are going to prolong it. The matters we are still to decide on are the terms, the recipient and the size of the family capital. If we decide to revise the age criteria when the family capital can be uncapped (today it is 18 years old), this will become a good stimulus for large families,” the minister said. It is expected that child benefits will be revised upward and will be pegged to the number of children. “Family expenses increase with every new child.
Our major goal is differentiation, which is to look into ways to support low-income families with many children. A large family is our priority,” Irina Kostevich said. In her words, all the key tasks of 2018 were fulfilled. “Real disposable incomes rose by 8% as against 2017. We did well and set forth ambitious tasks for this year as well,” said Irina Kostevich. She named the areas the ministry is going to focus on this year. These will include the promotion of the declarative principle both in employment and in social services, improvement of remuneration of labor in the public sector, pensions, the national qualifications system, implementation of measures under the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities.
Written by belta.by
