THE IMPACT OF FAMILY POLICY ON CHILDBEARING IN FRANCE AND THE UNITED-KINGDOM

France and the United Kingdom are both countries with birth rates which are amongst the highest in Europe, despite differences in marriage and divorce rates, cohabitation and women's economic activity. The similitary in birth rates can be examined in relation to social policy, and more especially to government intervention in family life. Whereas French governments have for a long time pursued a highly visible and active family policy, successive governments in the United Kingdom have tended to leave individual couples and employers to take the iniative, except for those who are unable to meet their own needs. In European terms, the fertility rate in France appears to have been maintened at a fairly high level due, in part, to measures introduced by the government to compensate for the cost of raising a family and to help couples combine family life with employment. In the United Kingdom, on the other hand, couples have achieved a comparable family size, by resorting to individual strategies, often at the expense of continuous and stable working patterns for women.