Hacker News new | ask | show | jobs
by vladvasiliu 1024 days ago
Not sure how long parental leave we have, but here in France most [0] of your other points are available, yet birth rate has still been below replacement for 20 years [1]. So something else may be going on.

[0] While childcare is technically free, my understanding is that, in practice, places are limited, especially in big cities.

[1] https://fr.statista.com/statistiques/512101/nombre-enfants-p...

2 comments

Same in Austria. Theoretically we have very affordable childcare. But in cities there are too few places, so only a small fraction of parents can actually use them. On the country side opening times of childcare are so limited that they are incompatible with most jobs (childcare Mo-Fri 8-12 is better than nothing, but there are very few jobs that are compatible with those times).

The result is that most mothers pause their careers while the kids are small. The consequence is that most couples only have one or two kids.

Childcare is not free in France, it is subsidized but parents pay in proportion of their resources.