Family mortgage as one of the tools of demographic policy

A number of different public policy instruments are aimed at overcoming the negative demographic situation in Russia, including family mortgage, housing loan program for Russian families with children who can apply for it at a reduced interest rate. The purpose of the article is to identify the current trends in improving the living conditions of families with children, to assess the effectiveness of this tool and its possible impact on changes in the birth rate in Russia. The information base of the study was made up of normative legal acts, information and analytical materials, including data from credit institutions on the mortgage lending market, results of sociological surveys, and publications by Russian scientists. The authors analyzed the causal relationship between the improvement of the state family mortgage program (2018-2024) and the possibility of its transformation into a real tool of demographic policy. They considered the progressive dynamics of changes in the additional terms of the Family Mortgage program in accordance with the national goals, socio-economic conditions and macro-regional priorities. There are highlighted constrains in the implementation of the state program at each stage, as well as promising conditions for increasing the attractiveness of family mortgages, which became the most popular program with state support among Russians in 2023 and remains in demand in 2024 that is declared the Year of the Family. It is shown that within the framework of competition for the borrower, new forms of interaction between credit institutions and developers are emerging, and the Far Eastern region retains its advantages in concessional lending. However, the achievement of the target indicator - an increase in the total fertility rate in 2024 to 1.7 children per a woman - is not ensured by the trend, which confirms the decrease in the number of births in the period 2015-2022. The features of the mentality of modern Russian youth indicate a predominant awareness, but restraint in relation to state support programs with mortgages. The family mortgage program has not yet become an effective tool of the country’s demographic policy.