A senior defense official has revealed that Estonia may have to introduce compulsory military service for women within the next 15 years as a result of a steep decline in the number of male births.
Anu Rannaveski, who leads Estonia’s Defense Resources Agency (the institution overseeing the country’s conscription system) warned that shrinking cohorts of young men could make it impossible for Estonia to meet the troop numbers required by its defense strategy by 2040.
Speaking to the public broadcaster ERR, Rannaveski said that by 2040 Estonia is expected to struggle to fill its annual target of 4,100 conscription places.
This target forms part of the country’s long-term defense plans aimed at maintaining a sufficient wartime reserve force amid growing security concerns on NATO’s eastern border.
Estonia, which has a population of roughly 1.3 million, currently requires military service only for men, while women may enlist voluntarily.
However, Rannaveski suggested that demographic trends are making a broader conscription model increasingly likely.
She noted that previous generations saw as many as 15,000 boys born each year, whereas current figures have fallen to around 4,000–5,000 annually.
Although Estonia still has enough eligible men to sustain the present system for now, Rannaveski argued that policymakers must begin preparing for future shortages.
Rannaveski said the debate is no longer about whether women will eventually be included in compulsory service, but rather about when such a change will occur.
Since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, Estonia—one of NATO’s member states bordering Russia—has significantly strengthened its defense preparations.
A number of European countries have already moved toward gender-neutral military service.
Norway became the first NATO member to introduce conscription for both men and women in 2015, followed by Sweden in 2017.
Denmark expanded its conscription system to include women this year, while Latvia has indicated it could introduce mandatory service for women around 2028.
In Poland, military service remains voluntary for women, but female participation in the armed forces has increased considerably. Women now account for about 17% of Polish military personnel, compared with less than 5% ten years ago.
