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Guest Essay

By Anna Louie Sussman

Ms. Sussman writes about gender, economics and reproduction. She is working on a book about family building in an age of uncertainty.

For the past few years, I’ve kept a running list of harebrained schemes various governments and officials have proposed to raise the birthrate in their aging countries. Some of the most creative ones come from Russia.

The mayor of a city in southwest Russia encouraged men to “sneak up on their women so that 10,000 children will be born in exactly nine........

© The New York Times