Family Life

[Richardrawlings]

I have just come across some facts and would be interested in comments as to how accurate these facts seem to be

Apparently
Women who reconcil career and motherhood have more children than if the choice is between career and motherhood!
61% of womwn work outside the home 25% have a qualifiction higher than the bac compared with 20% of men however are still paid less
percentage of working women is expested to incrase to 90% by 2040 and that the french economy is being boosted by the money that they earn
Also there are 125 different allowances for french families

Thanks

Richard

[salamander]

Mmmm! Must be an explanation there somewhere. My first thought (apart from 'how do they manage?') is whether it could be to do with the increase in family allowance when families have 3 or more children, given that the expense of good childcare is a major disincentive to mothers working. Perhaps the extra income from additional family allowance could make it more viable?

Is this subject to do with your exam studies? It must be wide-ranging and very interesting ...?

[letrangere]

25% have a qualifiction
>higher than the bac compared
>with 20% of men however
>are still paid less

That's an interesting one too.

M

[Foxtrot]

With regard family allowance, I think it has been very cleverly balanced, both encouraging mothers to maintain their jobs but often part-time. From the end of your maternity leave for your second child (and above)to their 3rd birthday you can take parental leave and work part-time. Your employer can refuse the part-time bit saying that your position isn't suited to part-time work - in that case you can take full-time parental leave.

When I went back to work after baby number 2, I worked 4 days a week and I got about 250 (tax free) allowance a month for the day I didn't work. I went back onto full time work when Alexandre turned 3 but was already pregnant with baby number 3. So, after my maternity leave (100% pay for 26 weeks) I went back onto a 4 day week with one day parental leave.

Where I think the system is clever is that when Charlotte turns 3 in 2006 I will probably stay on a 4 day week because it will cost me more to put 3 kids into child care, albeit subsidised, on a Wednesday when there's no school, than the 20% extra salary that I'd recoup by working full time. The niggly question though is whether this 1 day absence will motivate my employer to take on someone else. There are alsready 3 of us (out of 12 employees) that have made this choice.

Oh yes, I meant to ask where you got the figures from...

Katie