By Kang Hyun-kyung
Staff Reporter
In France, unmarried couples and ethnic minorities have more children than their married and ethnic majority counterparts, said a leading French family policy expert.
Prof. Julien Damon of Sciences Po in Paris said the European nation's equal treatment of children from traditional families ― those with male breadwinners and female homemakers as parents ― and out-of-wedlock births played a decisive role in boosting the birthrate there.
Accordingly, he indicates, accepting ethnic and social minorities is key to maintaining the birthrates of countries like France and the United States.
``Over the past century, there has been a significant change in family patterns,'' he said through an interpreter Monday in an interview with three local media outlets, including The Korea Times.
He said a variety of untraditional family patterns such as single parents, unmarried couples and children out-of-wedlock have appeared and that they have a significant impact on birthrates.
Damon visited Seoul for an international seminar on family policy hosted by the Korea Institute for Health and Social and Health Affairs in collaboration with the French Embassy in Seoul.
France and the United States have high enough total birthrates -- the number of children a woman chooses to have-- to replace their population.
Despite having this in common, households in the two nations are based on very different socioeconomic settings in terms of work and family.
The French government is heavy-handed when it comes to family policies as it offers a variety of incentives to couples having children. The U.S. government is laissez-faire in this regard.
Like many European nations, the French government generously spends about 4 to 5 percent of the gross domestic product per year on family policies. The money is spent for free childcare centers, subsidies, and tax breaks for families having children.
Meanwhile, few benefits are available for families having children in the United States. Free daycare centers are hard to find and few subsidies are available for families, except impoverished households.
``The secret of fertility in the United States is that more American women have jobs than their counterparts in France. The United States also has a higher rate of female managers than France does,'' said Damon.
The French expert indicated that those positive elements helped the United States have a birthrate as high as France's, despite the relatively unfavorable environment for women to raise children.
Damon, who has worked extensively with the French government, made the point that ethnic minorities are behind the two nations' high birthrates.
``When you look at the birthrates among white Americans, they are as low as the birthrates of Italy and Spain, which are fighting falling rates,'' he said.
``But the overall total fertility rate of the United States is as high as that of France because ethnic minorities such as Hispanic and African-American families have many children.''
Like America, France also benefitted from ethnic minorities when it comes to climbing birthrates.
Children from migrant families or families with at least one parent being foreign-born account for approximately 20 percent of the births in France, he said.
Korea is an industrialized nation with a declining birthrate and aging population.
To prevent detrimental socioeconomic effects, a U.N. report released in 2000 recommended low-birthrate countries like Korea consider ``replacement migration'' aimed at offsetting population decline by allowing more immigration.
Damon declined to give a direct answer over whether Korea should consider proactive immigration policy as an option to achieve the birthrate needed for generation replacement, saying only that the UN report embarrassed several governments.
``It is true, though, that in France immigrant families from the less-developed world tend to give birth to more children than French people,'' he said.
Local gender specialists uphold the conventional wisdom that the chances of Korea increasing its birthrate will be higher when necessary steps are taken to provide family-friendly policies and supportive measures for gender equality and balancing work and family.
They said Korea is stingy in family policies, as it spends only 0.2 percent of GDP ― in contrast the French government spends 4 to 5 percent of GDP.
Damon was skeptical about the effect of high spending on the birthrate.
``My answer regarding the chances of families having more children after an increase of government spending is 'no.' But to the question of couples having more children when it is easier to work and to divorce the answer is 'probably,''' he said.
The French expert further said there were few meaningful relationships between parental leave and birthrates, which refuted wisdom that is widely held among local gender specialists.
But he shared that women's socioeconomic status has some relevancy. ``Low-fertility countries like Korea and Japan have fewer female managers than the United States and some countries in Northern Europe which have high birthrates,'' he said.
The family policy expert warned that generous spending on reconciling work and family has led the French government to face a grim reality of soaring deficits.
``The dark side of the spending-oriented French model is that we have a relatively high unemployment rate. The government is also struggling with huge deficits, which the next generation will need to shoulder,'' Damon said.
His comments came months after the Minister of Health, Welfare and Family Affairs said she was looking closely at the French family policy as an option to fight the falling birthrate here.
Damon advised Korea to adopt it selectively, hinting that the Korean government should learn a lesson from France regarding rising government deficits.
To cut government spending, the family policy expert said that now was the time for the French government to make a strategic choice.
``I think France is now at a critical juncture where policymakers should make a choice between senior citizens who receive government pensions after retirement and young children,'' he said.
In France, the average age of retirement from work is 57.
``I think French policymakers should think hard if they really need to continue to pay elderly citizens. We would be better off giving more support for newborns and young children,''
France sets aside 1 percent of its GDP for senior citizens who live alone and have no other means to make ends meet without the government support.
An equal portion goes to children aged three or less.
About 15 percent of children aged six or younger in France are raised by single parents.
``The role of grandparents in raising children is much anticipated as a consequence of the increasing number of alternative families, such as single-parent families. This is because these single parents go to work to make money to feed and raise their children,'' Damon said.
A group of social democrats called on the French government to spend more to share the burdens that families with children carry, saying spending on family policies should be regarded as a social investment in the future.