The French approach of childcare policy in a comparative perspective

1
The French approach of childcare policyin a
comparative perspective
François Héran (INED, Paris), Marie-Thérèse
Letablier (CEE, Paris), Olivier Thévenon
(INED, Paris)
I N E D

• Czech Republic Conference for the Presidency of
  EU
• "Parental Child Care and Employment Policy"
• Session "Parental and non-parental childcare"
• Prague Congress Centre, 5-6th February,2009

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Two achievements of the French system

• The European diversity in demographic
  behaviours and family policies is a fascinating
  laboratory for social sciences, France
  representing a special case
• Total fertility rate around the replacement level
• 2.02 in 2008 (around 2.10 in tempo-adjusted
  measure)
• births to foreign mothers account only for 0.1 in
  this rate
• Quality of the childcare provision
  (availability, affordability, quality, child
  wellbeing)
• ranking recently released by the UNICEF Innocenti
  Research Centre France mark 8, with Denmark,
  Finland and Norway, behind Sweden (10) and
  Iceland (9)
• could improve the child-to-staff ratio in the
  pre-schools

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Total fertility rate in France since 30 years
4
France 1980-2005 the limited impact of
immigration on the national fertility rate
(foreign mothers 8 of the mothers only)(F.
Héran, L. Toulemon, Population societies, 432,
March 2007)
5
Public spending on family branch, of GDP,
2005(OECD Family Database)
Cash
Services
Tax cuts
FR UK SW H FI NO AUS IR CZ CY PT
RO IT JP ES PO GR MX KO
LU DK BE DE IS AT NZ NL SK SV EE
CH LV US LT CA BU MT
6
French policy for family support a combination
of approaches (1)

• "Familialism"
• Support to large families, specific measuresfrom
  the 3rd child onwards
• "Universalism" reduce social/gender
  inequalities
• Alleviating the cost of children for parents
• Reconciliation Work/Family life
• Childcare services designed to meet the need for
  full time childcare, in order to facilitate full
  time work
• Universal access of the children to early school,
  considered as an element of the child wellbeing

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French policy for family support a combination
of approaches (2)

• The compromise between "familistic" and
  "feministic" views "Freedom of choice"
• included in the labels of the benefits provisions
  
• "complément de libre choix du mode de garde"
• "complément du libre choix d'activité")
• Gives choice between care and work
• Gives choice between types of childcare
• not a sharp dilemma between individual and
  collective solutions but a range of intermediary
  solutions (e.g. childminders with 3 children in
  the close neighbourhood)

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French policy for family support a combination
of approaches (3)

• Macro-considerations? Frequently mentioned in
  official statements
• "Demographic challenge", "social contract between
  generations"
• Fertility rate at the "replacement level"
• seen as a positive by-product
• but also considered as an objective per se
• Implicit allusions in the public debate to a
  preference for self-reproduction (instead of a
  reproduction mainly fed by immigration)

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Family benefits in France (1)
Age Name Rules Per month ( 2006)
0 to 20 Family allowance At least 2 dependent children 117 for 2 ch., 150 per add. child
7th month 0 to 3 Basic allowance for young child (PAJE) 1-time payment monthly allowance 841 (1-time) 186 monthly
0 to 6 Complement for the free choice of type of childcare (CMG) If parents dont stop working and use formal nurse out of home 553 to 763, at home 421 to 632
0 to 3 Complement for the free choice of activity (CLCA) If parents stop working (or reduce) to look after the 2nd child and 354 (if basic allowance received)
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Family benefits in France (2)
Age Name Rules 2006 monthly amount (in )
0 to 20 Additional family benefit At least 3 dependent children (not cumulated with basic allowance) 153
6 to 17 New school year benefit 1-time paid for each child going to school 268
0 to 20 Familial support benefit If one or both parents are missing 82 or 110
0 to 3 Lone parent benefit (differential allowance minimal income) 1 child 736 , each add. child 184
Birth Paternal leave benefit Wage compensation (max. 11 day-leave) Daily wage
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July 2006 reform of the "free-choice
complement"

• Gives the opportunity for a shorter but better
  paid parental leave from the 3rd child
• Either 3 years with 354
• Or 1 year with 578
• (monthly, in addition to the basic
  allowance)
• Two objectives
• to give more choice to the parents
• to reduce the negative impact of a long
  interruption on career development

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Recent moves towards public/private partnerships

• 2002 "Integrated service benefit"
• Childcare centres subsidized by the Family
  allowances Fund if they apply national rules
  about fees
• fees should not exceed 12 of household income
  for 1 child and 10 for 2 children
• Incentives to expand the opening hours
• 4-year covenants with municipalities, firms,
  hospitals to promote childcare services
• 4500 agreements signed
• Tax cuts for the companies to stimulate the
  supply of childcare

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Childcare facilities how to cope with the
success?

• Childcare facilities have grown over the last 3
  decades ( 47 000)
• 1998 217 000
• 2006 264 000
• but less than the absolute increase in the number
  of births ( 61 000)
• 1998 769 000
• 2006 830 000

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A basic pillar of the French system the
pre-elementary school

• Pre-elementary school ("école maternelle")
  created in 1881, taken up by the families in the
  70's, mainly run by the municipalities
• 98 of the children at age 3,
• 22 to 35 at age 2 (insufficient supply)
• Same body of teachers as in primary schools
• Additional childcare for working parents
• at lunch times, before/after school hours, on
  Wednesday, during holidays
• offered by the municipalities very uneven
• Free of charge gt strong competitive advantage
  over the private sector

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Impact of the pre-elementary school

• Positive impact on the children
• Improves school performances, esp. in low income
  families (but few studies so far)
• Positive impact on the mothers (Maurin-Goux
  2009)
• Increases their participation in the LF, esp. in
  low income or one-parent families
• Social acceptance
• In spite of strong oppositions in the 50's
• No more discussion about "unworthy mothers"
• Rare example of an institution diffusing
  bottom-up along the social scale

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Public cost of the various forms of childcare in
France (Adema Thévenon 2008) Monthly spending
per child enrolled at full time
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A major issue "Choice" and inequalities

• "Choice" is highly economically and socially
  stratified
• Gender / Social / Local inequalities (poor
  municipalities)
• (Bressé Galtier 2006, Accounting Court
  2008, Adhéma Thévenon 2008)
• Example 1. The less expensive solution
• for parents with income equivalent to Minimum
  wage
• childcare centre
• for dual earner families with 6 times the Minimum
  wage
• home-based "maternal assistant"
• Example 2.
• 56 of children of low income families benefit
  from paid/subsidised care solution
• 91 in high income families (upper quintile)

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"Preference" the final word?

• See Hakim 2000
• From the point of view of social science,
  "preferences" are not primary realities, "fallen
  from the sky"
• Preferences (tastes, choices, values, intentions,
  etc.) have themselves to be explained
  ("endo-geneized") (e.g. through a logistic
  regression)
• For example
• During centuries, a large fraction of peasants
  "preferred" not to send their children to school
• still in the 70's, the working classes
  "preferred" shortened secondary education

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"Individual preference" the final word?

• Many existential "choices" are not real choices,
  or very few (huge litterature)
• choice of spouse or partner
• residential choices (inheritance, housing market,
  etc.)
• dropping or prolonging studies
• choice of a discipline, of an occupation
• baby boom in France ¼ of the births were not
  desired
• Choices, preferences, tastes depend also from the
  choices of the other (social interaction,
  influence, opinion of the parents, of the
  neighbourhoods)
• including in fertility choices (H.-P. Kohler)

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Neither "pure choice" nor "alienated choice"

• Two pitfalls about the theory of choice
• The theory of "Alienated choice" paves the way
  to sociologism and totalitarism
• The theory of purely free or natural choice
  consecrates social inequalities into "natural"
  hierarchies
• For a pragmatic and consensual policy, we need
• 1/ to give more choices to the actors
• not only a sharp dilemma between individual and
  collective solutions, but a wide range of
  flexible and intermediate solutions
• 2/ to identify the factors (assets or obstacles)
  that shape the probabilities of making the
  different choices
• utility of scientific research