Making babies for France William Pfaff SATURDAY, JULY 30, 2005
PARIS France's women have always enjoyed a reputation for bold and seductive elegance, and for intelligence, but now they have added to that evidence of a new willingness to combine work and motherhood, and a currently unparalleled ability to do so. Their envied ability to eat what they want and stay slim thus is not the only paradox they present to their contemporaries in a Europe that, overall, confronts a grave demographic decline. Frenchwomen are now having as many babies, proportionately, as mothers in Catholic Ireland. Both countries have the highest birthrate in the European Union: 1.9 children per woman, as against an EU 25-nation average of 1.4 (a figure implying sharp population decline). At this rate, France would become the most populous country in the EU by midcentury. France at the same time has the EU's highest female employment and professional activity. Eighty percent of Frenchwomen between 24 and 49 work, including those with children under 3. In Europe overall, women stay in the work force by not having children. Frenchwomen, as a sociologist, François de Singly comments, "are mothers but also are determined to maintain their professional and educational accomplishments as well as their 'capital de séduction."' Theirs is a model of feminine independence increasingly imitated elsewhere in Europe. This determination is supported by a system of state assistance that makes it possible for working women to have that second or third child without damaging the family budget. It began in the 1970s, in a typical French government technocratic concern for developing the service sector, for which women seemed a prime labor source. Therefore free, full-time municipal crèches, or nurseries for the very young, were expanded. Free public pre-kindergartens and canteens were vastly increased in number, as well as subsidized vacation camps during school holidays. Competition for places in these institutions remains high, and is increasingly subject to means tests, but this has simply pushed the development of cooperative crèches organized by better-off families. This had an important psychological as well as practical effect, legitimating the decision of young mothers to go back to work. There are also state financial incentives - family allowances, support for the volunteer crèches formed by groups of mothers, and family tax benefits, many of which increase significantly with a third child. The result is that more than in any other European country, French families now have three or more children. Germany and Switzerland also give generous family benefits, and in Sweden 77 percent of the children under 6 are in crèches, but birth rates stay well under that in France. While the birthrate of immigrants in Europe is nearly everywhere higher than for women of nonimmigrant origin, the French phenomenon of enlarging families is particularly noticeable in the middle and professional classes. After the 1968 social revolution, the rate of births outside marriage increased dramatically, even though the parents often either stayed together or formed new but relatively stable relationships. Today nearly half of French children are born outside marriage, but increasingly in "recomposed" families, largely free from social disapproval, and continuing to receive state benefits. France's population actually remained stagnant at some 40 million during the century between 1840 and 1940, and in the 1930s even began to decline. Then a sharp upswing coincided with the Second World War. Between 1940 and 2000, the French population increased to 60 million, the largest increase in Europe. The United Nations now estimates a population of 63.4 million by 2025. Frenchwomen now have the second-longest life expectancy in the developed world: 84, next to that of Japanese women. The reasons for change in national birthrates remain obscure, and population projections are notoriously unreliable. Nonetheless, it is not hard to find political and social correlations. The former Soviet Union has suffered a collapse of birthrates since the failure of the Soviet system demoralized millions of people, throwing them into social and economic distress or uncertainty. Suddenly there seemed no reliable future. France, on the other hand, is a high-morale society today, sure of itself and of the ultimate validity of its model of society, despite the chronic pessimism with which the French public responds to public opinion polls. In French society, to be pessimistic is to be intellectually serious. To have babies now is à la mode. http://www.iht.com/articles/2005/07/29/opinion/edpfaff.php [Non-text portions of this message have been removed] Milis Wanita Muslimah Membangun citra wanita muslimah dalam diri, keluarga, maupun masyarakat. Situs Web: http://www.wanita-muslimah.com ARSIP DISKUSI : http://groups.yahoo.com/group/wanita-muslimah/messages Kirim Posting mailto:wanita-muslimah@yahoogroups.com Berhenti mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Milis Keluarga Sejahtera mailto:keluarga-sejahtera@yahoogroups.com Milis Anak Muda Islam mailto:majelismuda@yahoogroups.com This mailing list has a special spell casted to reject any attachment .... Yahoo! Groups Links <*> To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/wanita-muslimah/ <*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] <*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/