France baby boom

[bhchao]

France is one of the few countries in Europe that is bucking the European trend of declining birth rates. The fertility rate last year was 2.0 children per woman. That is a significant accomplishment considering that France was struggling with a low birth rate decades ago. As a result, most of the population growth is generated by the rising birth rate instead of immigration.

Germany in contrast has a low birth rate of 1.39, lower than Japan's.

Government incentives to boost the birth rate helped foster the baby boom in France, like up to 3 years paid paternity and maternity leaves, shopping discounts and reduced public transit fares (40 percent off) for large families, tax credits, and subsidized day care centers.

The Socialist candidate Segolene Royal, who might become France's first female president, has four children without ever marrying.

http://www.iht.com/articles/2007/01/29/opinion/edpfaff.php

Thirty years ago, the government of Valéry Giscard d'Estaing was urging the French to have "un troisième enfant pour la France!" But it is only now that they have taken the advice.

The national statistics agency says that in 2006 France had the highest birthrate in Europe. The average number of births by women of fertile age was slightly more than two.

Thus France becomes one of the two European Union states with a positive birthrate; Ireland is the other. The contrast with their neighbors is very marked. Germany, Italy and Spain all have birthrates under 1.4. The rates in the new EU members, Slovakia, Slovenia, Lithuania, the Czech Republic and even Roman Catholic Poland, are below 1.3....

If the new French population trend should presage rising birthrates elsewhere, much angst might lift. However, this may be another "French exception." The increase in French births seems not to be disproportionately due to immigrant births, the conventional inference, but that the native-born are having more babies.....

A factor in the increasing number of children is undoubtedly France's generous social legislation, giving long maternity leaves, with assured return to work with posts and seniority intact. Governments with negative birthrates have investigated the French system, and Germany has just introduced new allowances for parents. "New Labour" introduced such measures in 2001 and Britain had its highest birthrate in 13 years last year.

Another possible birth incentive in France, which may not be copied elsewhere, is its 35-hour workweek. It has been suggested that the French have so much leisure now that they have found nothing more interesting to do with it than have babies, combining fun with demographic patriotism.

Although it is not impossible to emulate France's success, Asian countries struggling with a low birth rate might have difficulty replicating it due to the different cultural values. For example it is rare to see a couple in South Korea have children without marrying first. I heard that Japanese society frowns on mothers who work and raise children at the same time. Japanese women who do are often viewed as selfish. The husband is traditionally viewed as the breadwinner, while the wife is a fulltime housewife. Therefore women professionals in Japan postpone having children or may not bother entertaining the thought of having children at all.

Recently the Singaporean authorities allowed the airing of a sex talk show to encourage Singaporean couples to boost their sexual activities instead of "all work and no play".

A ranking of the countries/regions by fertility rate:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_and_territories_by_fertility_rate

[johnmck]

The extended maternity leave is quite good. If you have more than one child you can take up to 3 years maternity (or paternity, it is open to one of the parents) leave (children start school at 3). The government will pay you 400 euros a month, not a huge sum but often enough to make a difference when deciding if you can afford another child, you can then (in theory) return to your old job after 3 years.

This does not cost the government any money as they will be paying you less than they would have paid (unemployment benefit) the person who replaces you at work.

We have two children and while this did not impact our decision to have them (both were welcome surprises), it did allow my wife to take three years off to bring up the second child.

[onebir]

This does not cost the government any money as they will be paying you less than they would have paid (unemployment benefit) the person who replaces you at work.

This isn't necessarily true, although it's exactly the kind of (annoyingly) simplistic claim the politicians make all the time...

The cost to the government depends on

1) how the mat/pat payments affect how long parents take off after each child

2) the ratio of the two mat/pat payments vs unemployment benefit (taking into account any differences in the tax/social insurance status of the two payments)

3) whether it affects the number of children couples have

4) the net costs/benefits associated with the extra children

5) any impact on the costs/benefits associated from changes in the upbringing of the children who would have been born anyway (eg behavioural/educational differences resulting from more time with parents)

6) whether the person replacing the non-working parent can be replaced by someone who's unemployed (unemployed are likely to have somewhat different skills/experience/ geographical location to the employed)

1&2 are the simplest: if for example a parent takes of 3 years paid but would only have taken 1 unpaid, there'll be a net cost to the government if the mat/pat payments are greater than 2/3 of unemployment benefit. For an unbribed break of 1.5 years, there's a net cost if mat/pat payments are greater than 1/2 of unemployment benefit.

[bhchao]

3 years paid maternity/paternity leave is a dream. 12 weeks is the norm in the US, which is quite insufficient for working mothers who want to attend to child rearing fulltime without jeopardizing job security.

Asking employers to pay the salaries for mothers for a lengthy period of time, and yet have the job lined up for them after their long absence is a huge cost to the employer. Government should alleviate the burden off of the employer's, and work in conjunction with them by helping to pay a substantial amount of the cost.

Something like an offset formula. The government agrees to pay a benefit that replaces a certain percentage of income, while the employer pays an amount minus the amount paid by the government.

Hmm...popping babies and going on affordable shopping sprees for 3 years. To quote The Godfather, the French government made them an offer they couldn't refuse.

[johnmck]

3 years paid maternity/paternity leave is a dream.

Even in France this is a dream (if you ask my wife she will tell you it was a nightmare:D ) If you take 3 years maternity leave your employer does not pay you one cent, he does not pay towards your retirement and he does not pay your medical insurance (in France the state pays the first 75 percent of medical costs, medical insurance the other 25 percent). All you get is 400 euros a month from the state. While legally your employer should give you your old post back, people often find that their post simply no longer exists after 3 years (how many people expect their job not to change over the next 3 years).

Saying that, you can use your partner's medical insurance and when you subtract childcare and other working-parent costs from your salary after deducting tax (and remember tax is high to pay for these benefits), if you are already on a low salary then the reduction in income is not too great.

While this benefit is good, it does cost you money and your career.

[johnmck]

he cost to the government depends on

1) how the mat/pat payments affect how long parents take off after each child

2) the ratio of the two mat/pat payments vs unemployment benefit (taking into account any differences in the tax/social insurance status of the two payments)

3) whether it affects the number of children couples have

4) the net costs/benefits associated with the extra children

5) any impact on the costs/benefits associated from changes in the upbringing of the children who would have been born anyway (eg behavioural/educational differences resulting from more time with parents)

6) whether the person replacing the non-working parent can be replaced by someone who's unemployed (unemployed are likely to have somewhat different skills/experience/ geographical location to the employed)

I agree that it is not straight-forward to predict if a benefit will produce a cost or a saving and even after implementation it is not easy to measure the total cost of saving of the benefit. A lot of it, as your questions show, depends upon what are the sizes of other benefits and also the culture of the work place in the country to determine what type of people will take this benefit. Anyway, I have answered your questions below:

1. The benefit was brought in because it was rare for people to take unpaid leave.

2. Unemployment benefit is not too bad in France, it is definitely more than 400 euros a month.

3. I suspect it does increase the number of children people have.

4. Clearly more children means more costs for the first 18 years and then you start to reap the economic benefits.

5. Generally considered to be a benefit.

6. Not many high-skilled/high-paid people will take 3 years of leave. The change in income is too high and taking the leave will kill their careers. Also most people are surprisingly easily replaced. While I suspect people taking leave will not reduce long-term unemployment it will reduce short-term unemployment.

Also in France unemployment benefit reduces as time passes, typically the state pays you 80 percent of your salary (tax free) for the first 6 months after a redundancy (i.e. you are sacked because you job no longer exists) and only then does it start to reduce the benefit until it reaches a minimum. So by reducing the short-term unemployment the state makes big savings with the 3-year maternity leave.