Familienpolitik

Today at Slate.com there two related posts addressing both same-sex marriage and child subsidies. In Doug Kmiec’s post he posits that the U.S. should pay people to have children the same way many European countries do. He argues this will encourage our birthrate and promote family values, and, that if same-sex marriage is meant to be in the U.S., the government should not forget that marriage, whether between a man and a woman or between two people of the same sex, should be about procreation. He correctly points out that government support for families in Europe is significantly more generous than in the U.S.

Eric Posner responds by pointing out that the U.S. doesn’t have a population problem. Social Security may need some rethinking, but with an average of 2.1 children born to every woman, we are hardly facing the population crisis that countries like Italy or Germany are. Posner suggests shifting tax benefits for children directly to Social Security and comes out fairly strongly against population growth.

He implies there is something twisted about encouraging otherwise-unwilling individuals into giving birth to otherwise-unwanted children. This disturbs me as well. Children should be wanted, whether by their wealthy or poor parents, or by their gay or straight parents. Some evidence points to increases in fertility rates after child subsidies are instituted. I blogged about Germany’s supposedly successful program here. However, sociologist and author Neil Gilbert, who I interviewed here, claims otherwise.

My own experience living in Germany suggests to me that the generous European programs are not as equalizing as many think. Lengthy maternity leaves and guaranteed right of return to one’s job seem to be pro-family and pro-woman. But it also reinforces the assumption that parenting is really mothering, that good mothers take the full three years off and that the traditional model of the breadwinner father and the stay-at-home mother is the preferred model.

I was told that companies in Germany didn’t like to hire women in their late 20s because it was assumed they would soon get pregnant, take the allotted three years paid maternity leave, and then expect their same job back at the end. One young woman told me that sending a baby to nursery school would be equivalent to child abuse. I am not suggesting that the U.S. has the perfect system for supporting families. But I do believe that family-friendly policies tend not to take into account the potential for mothers and fathers to participate equally in their children’s lives.

Tags: Birthrate, Europe, family policy, France, Gay marriage, Germany, Maternity leave, Paternity leave