Family Policy and Fertility: Do Policies Make a Difference?

In view of persistent very low levels of fertility (as discussed in Part I of this volume), many governments in Europe and other industrialized countries have been asking the questions of how best to support families and, in some cases, how to also encourage young people to have more children? Perhaps ironically, in the 1960s some of the same governments were instead concerned by their rapidly increasing population and high fertility (Gauthier 1996). Today, however, the situation is very different: not only has fertility remained below replacement level for more than three decades in numerous countries, but the spectre of a rapidly ageing population is also raising great worries among governments (Burnett 2007; Cowell 1993; Zeller 2010).' Whether or not governments should be concerned by this situation and whether or not they should actually intervene to raise fertility are however difficult questions which raise complex economic and ethical issues. In this chapter, we do not venture on that terrain but instead focus on the seemingly simple question: Can policies influence fertility?