This text is an automatic translation from Русский. It was generated by AI and may contain inaccuracies.
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This text is an automatic translation from Русский. It was generated by AI and may contain inaccuracies.
Read original →Analyst Denis Nugaev assessed the effectiveness of tiered mortgages for families with children. How reducing the rate to 4% for large families affects birth rates and who will become the primary borrowers.
Unlike a flat preferential rate, the tiered scheme could potentially work specifically to stimulate the birth of a second and third child, rather than merely improving housing conditions for already established families. According to the latest census, the majority of families with children in Russia are families with one child: they account for about 55% of all families with children. Roughly a third of families (about 33%) are raising two children, while families with three or more children make up only about 12%. Analyst and author of the Telegram channel«Data distributor» Denis Nugaev emphasizes:
"Conceptually, preferential mortgages for families with children ('family mortgages') with a tiered rather than flat rate scale are more effective. If the ultimate goal is to increase the total fertility rate (TFR) in society, it's necessary to facilitate the birth of second and subsequent children in every way possible, and to encourage families to decide to have them. The principle of 'the more children in the family, the lower the rate' is appropriate. The idea of issuing mortgages to families with three children at 4% per annum deserves support—it's potentially beneficial."
In its current form, the federal "Family Mortgage" program provides a preferential rate of 6% per annum for families with children—including those with a child under 6 years old, a disabled child, and in several other cases. The government compensates banks for the difference between the preferential and market rates, and the program itself has been extended until 2030. Since 2018, more than 1.5 million families have been able to purchase housing through this program. However, as Nugaev notes, due to loan size restrictions—up to 12 million rubles in Moscow and the Moscow region, St. Petersburg and the Leningrad region, and up to 6 million in other regions—the real effect on the fertility rate (TFR) may be limited.
Changing the mortgage rate scale by itself is unlikely to radically expand the circle of program participants: family mortgages will continue to attract the same groups that are already able to take out housing loans. We're talking about families in an active expansion phase—when children already exist and incomes allow planning for major long-term financial obligations.
"Demand for family mortgages will remain among the same groups: married people aged 35–40, mainly with two children, less often with one. Median income slightly higher than the average for the economically active population—that is, net earnings of 100,000 rubles per parent. Geographically, demand is above average in the North Caucasus and Far Eastern federal districts, lower in the three federal cities."
Mortgages are most often taken out by families precisely at the age when the decision to have a second or third child is already directly linked to the ability to improve housing conditions and reliably service the loan.
Housing support measures do indeed influence families' demographic behavior, but their contribution cannot be considered in isolation from other life conditions—income levels, accessibility of social infrastructure, and the ability to balance work with raising children. According to the expert's assessment, mortgage incentives play a noticeable but far from pivotal role in the decision to have a child:
"Over its existence, preferential mortgages could have roughly generated several tens of thousands of additional births. This is third place in terms of real demographic effect among support measures (if we take additional births that would not have otherwise occurred as the KPI) after Matkapital and the 450,000 mortgage subsidy for a third child. Matkapital gave the country +2–2.5 million children, the one-time subsidy +150–200 thousand births, Family Mortgage +20–40 thousand."
While housing incentives do work, they fall short of other demographic policy instruments in scale of impact. The greatest effect, according to the expert's assessment, comes from large one-time payments for the second and subsequent children, as well as mechanisms for expanding living space—for example, trade-in of current housing for something more spacious. Next come "second-order" factors: accessibility of kindergartens, medical care, and education, which directly affect families' readiness to maintain their accustomed standard of living when having another child.