Women in Estonia are women who were born in, who live in, or are from

Estonia Estonia, formally the Republic of Estonia, is a country by the Baltic Sea in Northern Europe. It is bordered to the north by the Gulf of Finland across from Finland, to the west by the sea across from Sweden, to the south by Latvia, a ...

Europe Europe is a large peninsula conventionally considered a continent in its own right because of its great physical size and the weight of its history and traditions. Europe is also considered a subcontinent of Eurasia and it is located entirel ...

Politics

Estonian women first gained the right to vote in 24 February 1918 when Estonia gained independence from Russia. On 26 January 2021, Kaja Kallas became the first female

prime minister of Estonia The Prime Minister of Estonia (Estonian: ''peaminister'') is the head of government of the Republic of Estonia. The prime minister is nominated by the president after appropriate consultations with the parliamentary factions and confirmed by th ...

Fertility

Between 1970 and 1990, the

total fertility rate The total fertility rate (TFR) of a population is the average number of children that would be born to a woman over her lifetime if: # she were to experience the exact current age-specific fertility rates (ASFRs) through her lifetime # she were t ...

(TFR - the average number of children a woman bears) of Estonian women was little over 2 children born per woman. A fast decrease of the TFR occurred after independence. In 1998 the lowest rate was recorded: 1.28 children born per women. In 2001, the United Nations reported through its annual world-population report that "Estonia was one of the fastest-shrinking nations on earth, at risk of losing nearly half its 1.4 million people by mid-century". To prevent this drop in TFR, one of the steps the Estonian government took since 2004 was to start "paying" women by providing them with subsidies "to have babies" known as "mother's salary". After giving birth and during maternity leave, working Estonian women received full monthly income for up to 15 months (equivalent to US$1,560.00); non-working women who gave birth received a monthly subsidy equivalent to US$200.00. The TFR slightly recovered in the subsequent years, but fluctuated by year, and continued to remain below the replacement rate (being 1.54 children/woman in 2014). As in many other European countries, the link between marriage and fertility has been weakened during the past decades: most children today are born outside of marriage (59% of children were born to unmarried women in 2014). The average age of mothers at first birth in 2014 was 26.6 years.

Religion

In the past, according to

Estonian mythology Estonian mythology is a complex of myths belonging to the Estonian folk heritage and literary mythology. Information about the pre-Christian and medieval Estonian mythology is scattered in historical chronicles, travellers' accounts and in eccles ...

, the ancient women of Estonia believed in the female deity and protector of pregnant women in

labor Labour or labor may refer to: * Childbirth, the delivery of a baby * Labour (human activity), or work ** Manual labour, physical work ** Wage labour, a socioeconomic relationship between a worker and an employer ** Organized labour and the la ...

known as Rõugutaja. First woman cleric Laine Villenthal was ordinated in 1967 by

Estonian Evangelical Lutheran Church The Estonian Evangelical Lutheran Church (EELC; Estonian: ''Eesti Evangeelne Luterlik Kirik'', abbreviated EELK) is a Lutheran church in Estonia. EELC is member of the Lutheran World Federation and belongs to the Community of Protestant Church ...

References

External links

Characteristics of typical Estonian woman

Estonian women
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