Magnitogorsk Iron & Steel Works (MMK) is going to launch its large family aid program in January 2008. The program aims to improve the living standards and health of the company’s employees as well as their social status and prestige and thus make having many children more popular.

The company currently has data on 281 large families, and the program is to cover families with three or more children under the age of eighteen, provided the employees have no bad disciplinary records. It covers social aid, healthcare, education, and sports through things like monthly allowances, birthday gifts, paying for school and sports uniform and supplies and for children‘s musical or sports education, compensating the family’s public transport expenses and housing bills, free trips to summer camps and company’s health resorts, and vitamins. The company expects to spend more than 12.5 million RUR within the framework of this program, which is believed to strengthen the current program on support of mothers and birth-rate improvement, the company’s press officer reports.