France, 1ère puissance éco européenne

[William White]

  Business Week a dit :

France Could Top Germany Due to Babies

Thanks to its current baby boom, France could have the biggest economy in Europe by 2035 and the biggest population 10 years after that, a study says

by Honor Mahony

Business Week

February 20, 2007

France may in the future overtake Germany to become the most economically powerful of the EU member states reaping the benefits of its current baby boom, according to a German study.

Recently scooping the fertility crown in Europe with French women having an average of two children each, France is on course to overtake Germany both in the population stakes and on an economic scale.

According to a study for German daily Die Welt by the economic institute (IW) in Cologne, on current trends, France could have the biggest economy in Europe by 2035 and the biggest population ten years later.

Axel Pluennecke, an expert from the institute, reckons the shift in economic power will become most apparent between 2025 and 2035 as the so-called baby boomer generation goes into retirement and fewer people replace them.

"The resulting deficiency in the workforce will work as a brake on growth," says Mr Pluennecke. "[At that time] the French economy will grow at least twice as fast as the German one," he adds.

France currently has a population of around 63 million with three quarters of its population growth coming from births and the rest from immigration.

The country also has family friendly policies - such as readily available and not too expensive childcare facilities - that make it easy for French women to have children and work, rather than making a choice between the two.

Germany, by contrast, has a population of 82 million but its birthrate is one of the lowest in Europe, clocking in at an average of 1.4 children - the EU average is 1.5 children - with around 30 percent of working women in Germany being childless.

On top of this, women in Germany often have to choose between work and having children, a choice that comes about as much as from the lack of childcare facilities as from social mores with women often expected to stay at home and mind children.

Recently, Berlin has pushed family policy up the political agenda encouraging German women to have children. The current family minister Ursula von der Leyen, who has seven children herself, last year tabled proposals to improve the situation including tax breaks, more widespread childcare facilities and encouraging paternity leave.

However, it is likely to take some time before these are translated into demographic effect with France last year seeing around 831,000 births compared to Germany's 675,000.

  Deutsche Welle a dit :

Report: Baby Boom Will Push France Ahead of Germany

According to a new study, Germany is set to concede its lead as Europe's largest economy to France by the mid 21st century. The reason? The country's declining birth-rate.

Family policy is topping the political agenda in Berlin once again, after German Family Minister Ursula von der Leyen sparked controversy within the ranks of her own Christian Democrat party (CDU) with proposals to make it easier for women to combine careers and family responsibilities.

Her push to create more day-care facilities for the under-threes has drawn harsh criticism from conservatives who accuse von der Leyen of undermining family values.

Others say the time has come to wake up to the realities of a changing world, and a new study carried out by the Institute for German Economics (IW) provides more evidence that Germany's failure to encourage women to start families has serious long-term repercussions for the economy.

Slow-down

While Germany's population decline is currently irreversible, France is seeing a population boost -- and if demographic predictions prove correct, this will put France well on track to become the continent's strongest economy by 2035.

According to the experts, the discrepancy between German and French economic clout will become particularly acute between 2025 and 2035.

"The French economy will grow twice as fast as the German one in these years," IW expert Axel Plünnecke told the weekly Die Welt. This is when Germany's "baby-boomer" generation will reach retirement age and the country will start feeling the pinch of its ageing population and declining birth rate.

"The shortfall in the work-place will put a brake on the economy," Plünnecke said.

France gets it right

To many, the development is an obvious return on the French government's family-friendly policies.

Since 2000, France has seen more births than Germany even though it has some 21 million fewer inhabitants. Last year, France registered 831,000 births compared to 675,000 in Germany, making it one of the most fertile countries in Europe.

This robust reproduction rate is officially encouraged by government programs, including three-year paid parental leave with guaranteed job protection upon returning to the workforce; full-time pre-school starting at age three; subsidized day-care for the under-threes; stipends for in-home nannies and monthly child-care allowances that increase with the number of children per family.

Germany, meanwhile, is still mired in a debate about whether women should be encouraged to work or encouraged to stay at home, with critics maintaining that von der Leyen's recent proposals create a false image that only women who go out to work are modern.

"If you want to give women the chance to work and have children too, you have to provide day care," said CDU parliamentary chief, Volker Kauder. "But I want to emphasize that parents who stay home with their kids from birth until the age of three should not be regarded as belonging to the last century."