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MongoliaPro-natal Policies
A larger population has been a long-standing goal of the
government, which provided a series of incentives to encourage
large families. A labor shortage has provided the primary overt
justification for the policy, and economic aid from the Soviet
Union has enabled Mongolia to meet the costs of supporting a
large and economically unproductive cohort of children. Because
the economy of Mongolia was to a large extent integrated with
that of eastern Siberia, where the Soviet Union has suffered
endemic labor shortages, encouraging the growth of the Mongolian
population and labor force was in the interest of the Soviet
Union
(see Socialist Framework of the Economy
, ch. 3).
Reinforcing the policy may be a desire to ensure the survival of
Mongols as an ethnic group and to boost the initially somewhat
questionable legitimacy and sovereignty of the Mongolian People's
Republic by occupying the land and by ensuring that key
institutions and enterprises are staffed by Mongolians rather
than by management imported at the behest of the Soviet Union.
The government and the ruling party put no obstacles in the
way of early marriages, and engagements and marriages among
university students were common. In 1985 there were 6.3 marriages
and 0.3 divorces per 1,000 people. A March 1989 Mongolian
newspaper reported that every twentieth marriage broke up, that
more than 15,000 mothers were receiving alimony from former
husbands, and that 45,000 of the 870,000 children aged 15 and
younger were illegitimate. When resident Chinese laborers were
expelled from Mongolia in the late 1960s as a result of the SinoSoviet conflict, their alleged offenses included the possession
and the distribution of contraceptives
(see Socialist Construction Under Tsedenbal, 1952-84
, ch. 1). Childbearing was
promoted as every woman's patriotic obligation, and exhortations
to fecundity were backed up by a range of material incentives
(see Position of Women
, this ch.). Working women were granted
a maternity leave of 101 days, and the Labor Law prohibited
dismissal of pregnant women and of those with children younger
than one year. Parents received family allowances in cash;
subsidies, paid to families with more than four children younger
than sixteen, could amount to as much as an average industrial
wage. Women with five or more living children received the Order
of Maternal Glory, Second Class, medal and an annual subsidy of
400 tugriks (for value of the
tugrik--see Glossary) per child;
those with more than eight children received the Order of
Maternal Glory, First Class, and 600 tugriks per child. The
medals entitled the mothers to all-expenses paid annual vacations
of two weeks at the hot springs spa of their choice, steep
discounts in fees for child care, and other benefits. Marriage
and childbearing also were promoted by a special tax (of an
unspecified amount) levied on unmarried and childless citizens
between the ages of twenty and fifty. Full-time students in
secondary schools and colleges were exempted from this tax, as
were military conscripts.
The birth needed to bring the current Mongolian population to
2 million was the occasion for national celebration in 1987. The
government's Central Statistical Board determined that one of the
260 babies born July 11 (Mongolia's National Day) was the 2
millionth citizen. Twenty-five of the babies were selected as
"Two Million Babies." The state awarded each of their families
two new residences (probably apartments), the Children's
Foundation awarded each a 5,000-tugrik subsidy (industrial wages
range from an average of 550 tugriks to a high of 900 tugriks per
month), and local governments and the parents' workplaces also
gave gifts.
Data as of June 1989
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