“The last National Assembly increased the monthly maternity benefits from 194 euro to 332 euro, and that is a populist move and does not stimulate the resolution of the demographic crisis,” Zornitsa Slavova from the Institute for Market Economics said for the BNR. “The result is paradoxical – in the poorer regions of the country women will receive more money as maternity benefits than they would if they work,” she said.

According to economists, maternity benefits are no solution to the real problems families have, because they do not come during the period when the child is cared for at home, but after that.

“People would be willing to have children if they feel they have more security throughout the entire period of caring for a child, not during the first or the second year,” Zornitsa Slavova says.