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EESTI ELU reedel, 7. augustil 2020 — Friday, August 7, 2020
Estonians starting to have more kids — because they can family policies in the world, as noted in a recent UN report. For a year and half, Estonian While many first world coun parents receive fully paid paren tries are becoming childless, tal leave, depending on their Estonians are finding ways to salary before getting pregnant, halt their long decline in with a maximum of three aver fertility. age salaries. At the same time, When a group of young New they are still allowed to earn extra if they wish to do so. York documentary filmmakers came to Estonia to report about Either parent can take the leave. its digital society, they ended up Their previous job is retained wishing they could move to this for at least three years. If the small and dark Nordic country. mother has another child within Not because of Estonia’s e- 3 years, her benefits will con governance solutions. Instead, tinue to be the same. This pro they were more interested in vision tends to stimulate parents having kids here – it’s family to have shorter birth intervals. policy. “The combination of rela “Estonia is starting to get tively long leave and full re oticed in recent years,” said placement of previous salary in n Allan Puur, Estonia’s leading Estonia is even more generous demography expert at Tallinn than the leave systems in the University (TLÜ). Puur has Nordic countries, where the been working with the parlia leave is either shorter or with mentary committee that deals full wage replacement,” the UN with population issues. The report concluded. committee – with a slightly Understandably, in such a dramatic name, the Study small country, every child Committee to Solve the Demo counts. And you can sense it in graphic Crisis – was formed in Estonia’s maternity wards in 2017 and has been closely public hospitals. They are al cooperating with researchers most magical places. There are and experts in the field. baths, exercise balls and other Their goal is to ensure that equipment in many birthing the Estonian nation, language rooms. Mothers can dim the and culture are preserved. In a lights and bring their own country of only 1.3 million, this music to relax better. Each birth is a real challenge. Luckily, is marked on a public board in Estonia has one of the best the corridor with pride. And all
ERR, Marian Männi, Research in Estonia, 2020
Burial chambers uncovered under Padise Monastery ERR, August 2020 Archeological digs conducted at Padise Monastery in north western Estonia have un covered many historical find ings, including a set of burial chambers, albeit bereft of bones, and cobblestone paving dating back to the Middle Ages. The burial chambers date from a time when monks were still living at Padise, but were found to be completely empty. The reason for this is that in the first half of the 17th century, after a new local landlord had moved in, the chambers were emptied of those at rest, in order to create a more “baroque” environment or at least to enable an easier night’s sleep.
Marje Kidron, head of the monastery, said on Viker raa dio’s morning show “Viker hommik”: “Who would want to stay in a bedroom where there are skeletons under your floor?” The monastery was used for accomodation for about 300 years, and in addition to the burial chambers, pieces of carved stone, floor tiles and cobblestone paving dating back to the Middle Ages were un covered. The historical findings can be seen at an exhibition in situ, at the monastery, allowing visitors to see and experience a glimpse of everyday life there. Kidron added: “The archeo logical excavations have still uncovered relatively few find ings and written materials have not stayed intact. All that we know of the monastery is derived from examples of other monasteries and the context, so all of this has to be seen and experienced firsthand.” She added that there has been a lot of interest in the monastery. The establishment was re-opened on May 2, and since then 14,000 visitors have passed through its doors.
Padise Monastery. Photo: ERR, Tõnu Tunnel
Kidron acknowledged: “These special locations, where you are given an opportunity to look inside – even if there is not much left from the monastery days – are few and far between. I think curiosity to look inside is what brings people here.”
this, of course, is for free. Estonia’s new family policy launched in 2004, the same year the country joined the European Union. Initially, the duration of leave was one year. In 2008, it was extended to 1.5 years. The total fertility rate jumped from 1.37 in 2003 to 1.72 in 2008. In other words, closer to two children per woman. The positive impact of the parental leave scheme was clearly evident during the eco nomic recession between 2009 and 2010 when, despite the upsurge of unemployment and deteriorated economic pros pects, the fertility rate stayed at the level of 1.70–1.72. Many women with one or two children made use of the generous parental leave to with draw from the labor market, have another child and return to work later, when the peak of recession had passed, Puur explained. In July 2017, another impor tant family policy measure was introduced to encourage parents to have a third child by giving them additional benefits. During the next two years, the number of third births increased by more than 20 percent compared with the period before the measure. Population experts say that whether fertility rates are rela tively close to two births per woman or far below that level matters greatly, especially in countries where people tend to leave in great numbers. This was the case in Estonia after joining the European Union, although massive emigration has since halted. Since 2015, Estonia has shown positive net migration. To get a more realistic ac count of fertility levels, demo graphers use cohort fertility rates instead of the total fertility rate, which can be biased up or downwards depending on how the childbearing age changes, Puur explained. For Estonia, the
cohort fertility rate shows that women who are approaching 40 years of age have had 1.80–1.85 children on average. For ethnic Estonians, the average number of children amounts to 1.90. (Around one third of Estonia’s population consists of Russian-speaking immigrants and their descen dants, who have somewhat lower fertility rates.) This means that Estonia is slightly above the modern fer tility target of 1.8 children per woman. If this rate is sustained for an extended period of time, it would lead to a moderate annual population decline of 0.4 percent, according to the UN report. In that case, the govern ment would still be able to tackle it with adjustments in the labor market, pension systems, healthcare and social security. Or it could even be offset by accepting moderate levels of immigration. By contrast, a long-term total fertility rate close to 1.0 would result in a population shrinking by 2.4 percent annually as well as drastic population aging. Such a pace of decline would be challenging even for govern ments accepting many immi grants or implementing radical reforms to their social security and pension systems, the UN report states. Such very low birth rates are not just hypothetical. Birth rates in Malta, Spain and Italy are the lowest in the EU – below 1.3 children per woman. Outside the EU, similarly low fertility levels are also found in a number of East Asian coun tries, including Hong Kong, Japan, South Korea, Singapore and Taiwan. It is still early to say whether Estonia’s family policy will produce results that are sus tained for a longer time period and the total fertility rate will one day reach the dream num ber: an average of 2.1 children per woman. Thus far, however,
Government of the Republic of Estonia
Estonia and Latvia plan to jointly develop an offshore wind farm renewable energy goals and creates new opportunities for Stenbock House – Today, the other offshore farm develop government supported the ments,” he said. signing of a memorandum of According to Taavi Aas, it is understanding between Esto important to build the wind nia and Latvia by Minister of farm together, because it pro Economic Affairs and In vides an opportunity to apply frastructure Taavi Aas, with for support from the European which the two countries plan Union for a cross-border pro to develop a joint wind farm ject. “This, in turn, makes it in the Gulf of Riga. cheaper to build other wind According to Prime Minister farms in the area, as other pro Jüri Ratas, in order to meet the jects in the same area would renewable energy target set for also benefit from the grid infra 2030, investments must be structure to be built for the made in various renewable farm,” said Aas. The two countries will jointly energy sources, and offshore carry out studies to determine wind energy has a growing and the best location for the con increasingly important role to struction of an offshore wind play. “The offshore wind farm farm between Estonia and area developed jointly by Latvia in the sea, taking into Estonia and Latvia is a unique account wind conditions, plans, project that contributes to the existing projects, environmental achievement of the countries’
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the measures have worked. “Besides learning from the best practices of other countries, we have to experiment with new solutions on our own,” Puur said. Estonia has quite a unique history when it comes to its population. Estonians started having fewer children during its national awakening period in the second half of the 19th cen tury. It was during this period that Russian Tsar Alexander II gradually granted Estonian peasants the right to an educa tion, property and the liberty to move within Estonia and abroad. By the end of the cen tury, 96 percent of Estonians were literate. But the cribs now stay empty. By the turn of the 20th century, small families with around two children became the new norm. It has been estimated that the “population explosion” that rapidly brought the world popu lation from about 1.6 billion to 6 billion during the 20th cen tury didn’t affect Estonia as much and only increased the number of people by 1.6 times. This was extremely low growth compared to many other countries. In various developed countries, the increase was 1520 times. The 20th century was not kind to Estonia. The country was hit with world wars, Nazi and Soviet occupations, deportations and an exodus to the West in 1944. And of course it affected parents’ desire to bring babies into this world. In the 1950s and early 1960s, both Estonia and its neighboring Latvia had one of the lowest fertility rates in the world; this resulted in Estonia and Latvia being the only coun tries in the world that now have fewer p eople than before World War II. In short, it’s a miracle that Estonia even still exists. And it seems this small country is do ing everything it can to keep it that way.
protection, and all other factors. Once the necessary studies have been carried out and the permits have been obtained, an auction will be held for the offshore area with a building permit and the winner will be able to build an offshore wind farm there. “An open competition en sures equal treatment of market participants, the lowest possible price of renewable energy for consumers, and the efficient use of our marine resources,” said Aas. “Additionally, a large off shore wind farm will contribute to the region’s security of elec tricity supply and help attract foreign investors.” The capacity of the proposed offshore wind farm is up to 1,000 MW and the expected completion time is 2030. The wind farm would produce approximately 3.5 terawatthours of electricity per year, which is approximately 40 per cent of Estonia’s annual elec tricity consumption.
