Estonia’s example

"Like most developed countries around the world, Estonia has a critical shortfall of children that, if not reversed, will lead to a sharply aging and shrinking population,” reported The Wall Street Journal of October 20-22, 2006 forwarded to Parsiana by entrepreneur Perveez Aggarwal. Sounds familiar? Perhaps the Parsis could take heart if they heeded the eastern European nation’s example. Estonia’s efforts to reverse the trend and address the declining birth rate is being closely watched around the world, as per the Journal.

Estonia made a dramatic shift from laissez faire to aggressive activism in an attempt to stop the downward spiral. The government stepped in and began paying women to have babies. Working women who take time off after giving birth get their entire monthly income for as long as 15 months, up to a ceiling of $ 1,560 (in a country where the average monthly salary is $ 650), while non-wage-earners get $ 200 a month. This perk, known locally as ‘mother’s salary,’ has encouraged several women to have babies. The birth rate, which had collapsed to 1.3 in the late 1990s from 2.2 just a decade earlier, improved within two years to reach 1.5, though this is still below the 2.1 children needed to stop the population from shrinking. It will take years to see the full impact of the ‘mo­ther’s salary’ scheme, but a beginning has been made, the Journal reported.

The Bombay Parsi Punchayet (BPP) has introduced a Benefit for the Third Child scheme for Zoroastrian families. However, there is a stipulation that the total family income should not exceed Rs 30,000 per month as Zubin Phiroz Wadia of Salsette Parsi Colony discovered when he applied for the benefit. Not being aware of the limit, he had been ‘pained’ by the rejection of his application and complained bitterly to the BPP about it, forwarding the correspondence to Parsiana. However, BPP chairman Minoo Shroff’s prompt response and clarification satisfied Wadia, who wrote that he was "thankful to the BPP for the same.”