Marek Jürgenson: Government putting pressure on families with children

Instead of improving Estonia's fiscal position by dialing back the sprawling state apparatus and ending the practice of pouring money into concrete, the government has gone with cutting child benefits and hiking taxes, both of which will deliver a blow to large families.
Families with children have traditionally been held in high regard as it is parental care that ensures new and active generations on which a country's development and survival rest. Estonia's birthrate hit a record low of just 11,588 children born in 2023, the poorest result since 1919.
The modest to say the least birthrate comes down to many factors, the most crucial of which are the government's failed family policy and deepening negative attitudes toward families and children. Poor availability of education, healthcare and other everyday necessities, especially in rural areas, also plays a role.
Unfortunately, the government has taken several poor decisions to make young people prefer opportunities for self-realization offered by a single and childless life. It seems that Prime Minister Kaja Kallas' office is not preoccupied with Estonia's future or new generations whose task it will be to support Estonian statehood in the future.
Child benefits as a cure for state budget woes
Instead of improving Estonia's fiscal position by dialing back the sprawling state apparatus and ending the practice of pouring money into concrete, the government has gone with cutting child benefits and hiking taxes, both of which will deliver a financial blow to large families.
The austerity program introduced this year saw the large family benefit of families with at least three children drop from €650 to €450 and that of families with seven or more children drop from €850 to €650 a month. But that is not all. While the large family benefit used to drop to two-thirds of the sum when the first child turned 19 and from there to one-third when the second child turned 19, starting from 2024, the family loses the entire benefit as soon as the first child turns 19.
Luckily, the standard child benefit starting from the third child of €100, the €80 benefit for first and second children and the €80 single parent's benefit have been left untouched. However, considering [Estonia's] astronomical inflation and cost of living crisis, these sums are no longer sufficient and would need to be at least doubled.
A child needs clothes, school supplies, toys, entertainment, all of which cost money. While we worry about the fact that a third of our children are overweight, we should also think about the price of sporting goods, practice and training camps, all of which helps keep the up and coming generation in good health. These expenses fall to parents, and without state support, many less fortunate children will simply miss out on sporting opportunities. Raising children is not just a private hobby or something on which the government should skimp.
Car tax to really drive the nail home
Estonia's planned car tax, set to arrive next year, will deliver another major blow to large families. Families living in rural areas often have no alternative to owning a car, whereas in a situation where the local shop has gone out of business, the local post office and bank branch have been liquidated, the nearest family doctor office is at the county center and the planned education reform will move the nearest school dozens of kilometers away from where people live, it cannot be considered a luxury when a family is forced to own two cars to get done everything that needs to be done.
Because rural roads have been allowed to fall into disrepair, larger and more powerful vehicles are favored, which will bear the brunt of the planned car tax. This will turn the latter into a way of punishing families with children who are still trying to make sure there would be life outside major cities. The immoral car tax will become an additional burden for already struggling families from next year.
Another cause for concern is the campaign to reform the network of schools, which, according to the government, is necessitated by a shortage of qualified teachers, the high cost of maintaining small schools and the need to boost the quality of education.
Apparently, it is too expensive to maintain small schools and a campaign to close them would help save a lot of money, the coalition tells us. And yet, Henry Kattago, deputy secretary general of the Ministry of Education, recently admitted that closing and merging small schools is not always about saving money.
One is tempted to ask what is it about in a situation where small schools in fact seem to be doing fine in terms of study quality and there wouldn't even be any saving. Is the only aim of the reform for the government to demonstrate its superiority to parents?
The campaign to close schools lacks effects analyses and good reasons, which is why it is no wonder dialogue with local communities quickly escalates to the point of protests. But the government is not about to admit it has failed and will continue ruining families by trying to expedite the reform. The price will be paid by children who have to travel far from home to attend school and their parents for whom it constitutes new problems and expenses.
Unborn children a blemish on the government's conscience
While the government's failed family policy is discouraging young people from having children, Minister of Social Protection Signe Riisalo perceives as problems pressure on young people and scare tactics of talking about the Estonian people going extinct. A strange position from a politician whose first duty should be to protect the interests of children and families and worry about the nation's uncertain future in the conditions of dangerous demographic chaos.
There is still time to stop the crippling processes the coalition's hostile family policy is accelerating. We need a balanced, well-meaning and facts-based program of how to ensure families' social security and make raising children a point of pride again.
Young women need to be given the certainty that they will have every opportunity for self-actualization also as mothers. Families need to feel taken care of instead of coming under attack where having multiple children is ridiculed and family benefits are painted as squandering. Such baseness works to benefit hybrid warfare that we face as a peripheral country and requires a decisive counterstrike. Every child must be wanted, every mother revered and father recognized as that is the only way we'll survive as a country.
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Editor: Marcus Turovski