Politics & Current Affairs — December 17, 2010

Favoring Fertility in Europe

Most people want to have children. Societies that don’t accommodate this aspiration run the risk of losing faith in their own future and compromising their economic development.

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In many European countries, working mothers have to contend with social and employment policies that complicate their lives. Swedish daily Dagens Nyheter wonders about how to increase the fertility rate. “Most people want to have children and a society that does not accommodate this aspiration runs the risk of losing faith in its own future and compromising its economic development. Even if the U.S. has managed to combine a high percentage of women in the labour force with a high fertility rate…the American model is hardly appropriate for Europe, where there is a strong tradition of collective solutions for societal problems.

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