Economists from the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago discovered a curious paradox last December.
When men’s wages rise, families have more children. When women’s wages rise, there are fewer children. This was the conclusion reached by Danish and American researchers who studied tax data and families’ career trajectories.
Researchers believe that an increase in men’s income reduces financial risks for the family — it becomes easier to decide to have a child. An increase in women’s income raises the cost of motherhood: maternity leave means a pause in one’s career, loss of wages, and falling behind in the labor market.
Economists call this the price of a child.
This results in a strange demographic formula, where rising wages for men increases birth rates, while rising wages for women decreases them.
Now to Russia. The total fertility rate in 2025 amounted to 1.374 children per woman. The historical minimum continues to be updated, and the average age of first childbirth in Moscow exceeded 29 years.
We have also long transitioned to a new model, where you first get an education, start working, build a career, resolve financial matters — and only then have children.
And here an uncomfortable question arises.
Society has for decades fought for women to be able to build careers on equal terms with men. And this is right. But the side effect turned out to be one that no one had anticipated: the more successful a woman is, the higher the cost for her to decide to become a mother.
This does not mean that women’s wages should be lowered. This means that the system is still structured in such a way that a woman is forced to choose between career and child. But a man is not.