Surveys show birthrates, depression up

Estonians are heavily stressed at least once a year and the population is falling, but there still is hope for a birthrate increase, according to recently released demographic surveys.

New reports released by the Interior Affairs Ministry show that birthrates are climbing each month after falling throughout the 1990s.

The country registered just over 12,500 births in 1999 and 13,020 births last year.

There are signs that the trend may continue.

Estonia has been participating in the European Family and Birthrate Survey, a Europewide project begun in the late 1980s and coordinated by the United Nations.

The survey is designed to help lawmakers for social policy and planning and includes 25 countries.

As part of the project, the Interior Affairs Ministry last week released a study of people born between 1924 and 1974.

The survey showed that native Estonian families were larger, usually with three or more children, than families elsewhere in Europe, though the country experienced very few annual birthrate increases between 1920 and 1990.

The study also showed, as expected, that women are increasingly concentrating more on work and education.

A poll released June 25 offers insight about the mental health of Estonians.

The poll, carried out by the research firm Saar Poll in April, questioned 270 families nationwide. About 70 percent of the people living in Estonia encounter significant stress at least once a year, the study showed.

The reasons listed for depression are many. Most respondents (77 percent) are worried about the lack of societal justice. About 70 percent worry about the health of their relatives or themselves and about 67 percent are uneasy with the lack of values in the country and about the future of Estonia.

Twenty-three percent of respondents said they never had shared their depression with anyone and 57 percent simply didn't know where they could get help with mental health problems.

Fourteen percent said they would consult a psychologist and the same number said they would see a doctor or call a mental health help line.

Visiting a church, a social welfare worker or a neurologist registered low on the methods to relieve depression.

A quarter of respondents consider mental-health help difficult to reach and 43 percent said they didn't trust most mental health services.