Pro-Natalist Policies - Case study France

France has been promoting larger families for many decades up to this very day and they still don’t have a high enough birth rate to save their country from crisis. Due to good health care, sanitation high GDP per capita and good education France has become an ageing population. This can causes many problems when faced with a low birth rate.

About 17% of France’s population is over 65 which may not seem like a lot but when added to the 19% of people 14 and under that leaves France with 36 % of their entire population being dependants. This does not mean that they are being supported by the other 64% because some of that 64% don’t have jobs. This makes it very hard for France to support the dependants and could cause a lot of trouble.

This is why Frances had to develop certain policies to encourage larger families. They figure if they have larger families and the children are brought up and educated well then they will have a larger working population so it will be easier to support the dependants. The French government has many ways of encouraging more births. For example the more children a woman has the less tax she pays. Here are some more examples of encouragement techniques :

A monthly allowance of 180 pounds (which raises when the child reaches 11) 30% reductions on trains and half-price on the metro the carte Paris-familie gives some free entrance to swimming-pools and other amenities,

as well as about £150 a year towards extra-curricular arts and sports. State nursery schools take children from the age of three, and for toddlers there is an

extensive

These methods of encouragement used seem to be working very well in terms of population growth. According to recently gained information from the government France’s population should rise from the present day 62 million to about 75 million in 2050. However even though the population is growing and despite the fact that France has the second highest birthrate in Europe of 1.9 it still might not be enough because the replacement level in Europe is 2.1.

So yes the new policies were successful and yes the population is rising rapidly but how long will this go on for. With France’s birth rate still below replacement level how long can the government keep up these costly policies and will the population really reach to 75million.

This is all possible if France is willing to take the risk and move forward and keep their focus on the youth. Keep them educated and healthy so they can eventually start making money to support the economy.