Large Families in Russia: Historical Transformation and Current State

The article describes approaches to defining the thresholds of large families in both academic research and public policy practice. It examines the historical dynamics of family fertility at the turn of the 19th–20th centuries, which took place against the backdrop of transforming social relations associated with changes in the economic system. Using compiled data from the Soviet (1979, 1980) and the Russian (2002, 2010, 2021) population censuses, the dynamics and structure of large families are assessed. Based on microdata from a Population-based Analysis of the Family Planning Data, the article discusses the reproductive intentions of men and women regarding the issue of having many children and the factors constraining them. The gap between intentions and their implementation is evaluated, including across groups of large families by the number of children. The article also presents the current socio-demographic portrait of a large family in Russia. A statistically significant, though weak, positive correlation is identified between the composition of the parental family and intentions to have many children.