Specially for the Day of Family, Love and Fidelity, the dating site for serious relationships eDarling has collected statistics for European countries (as well as in Russia). Where in Europe is the family in the usual sense preserved, the inhabitants of which countries want to have children and what influences their decision?
Sociologists throughout Europe have been sounding the alarm for years - the population of countries is aging, women decide to have children later, and not all spouses agree that an ideal family requires the presence of someone else. What factors influence the people of different countries in the issue of having children?
Flexible employers are the key to success
One of the top countries in the list of the desire to have children, Denmark, can not yet boast of an ideal situation with fertility. The average age of the birth of the first child is 29 years. And more than half of the children in marriage are born with the help of IVF, since many Danes cannot get pregnant on their own. A few years ago, sociologists sounded the alarm: starting from school, the Danes are given a lot of information about how to protect themselves from unwanted pregnancies, and they don’t talk at all about the happiness of being parents. As a result, more and more people are growing up with the knowledge that pregnancy should be feared and avoided.
However, the situation began to change for the better. According to The Guardian columnist and mother of three Lucy McDonald, who lived for several weeks as a typical Danish mother, the high desire to have children in the country is strongly influenced by low crime and unemployment - in the same UK, both indicators are higher, and the desire to have children decreases accordingly. But this is not the only reason: a flexible policy regarding working parents allows Danes to decide to have children more quickly. Compared to other European countries, there are very few women in Denmark who are solely concerned with children and do not work at all. Part-time work is also not common, mothers work full time.
They manage to combine family and career thanks to the flexibility of employers. For example, most employers officially allow parents to leave work early several times a week to spend time with their children. The state helps with paying for a kindergarten, where a child can stay from morning to evening, and it costs four times less than a kindergarten in London, and bosses allow parents not to take sick leave and stay at home on the first day of their children's illness. The minimum paid parental leave is three months, the maximum is three years. Moreover, the vacation period can increase by one month if the father takes it.
Which countries are having babies earlier
Russia, Slovakia and Hungary are among the European countries with the highest desire to have children and the youngest mothers. According to Eurostat, in general, residents of eastern countries want children more and have them earlier due to established traditions and upbringing. In these countries, women see no problem in devoting themselves to the family and not working, while not all Western Europeans are ready to give up their careers.
In Russia, however, a Western trend is beginning to be traced - women, especially residents of large cities, postpone the birth of their first-born children until later. According to Rosstat, over the past 5 years, the proportion of those who became a mother for the first time after 30 years has increased to 40%. The government additionally tried to stimulate the birth rate in Russia with maternity capital and benefits, however, in large cities, the amounts paid are not able to have a significant impact on the well-being of the family, therefore, they had little effect on the birth rate. By the way, a similar situation has developed in Germany, where rather generous material assistance from the state could not force women to give birth to more children. Why?
Why money isn't always stimulating
Most kindergartens and primary schools in the country are open until 1pm, preventing either parent from working full time. Steffan Kroenert, professor of sociology at Berlin's Institute for Population and Development, believes that society still has a strong negative attitude towards working mothers, who are called "crow moms." Such a label many Germans hang on women who send their children to nursery early in order to be able to continue working. Professor Kroenert believes that the only thing that can increase the birth rate is a sufficient number of childcare facilities, easy access to them and a reduction in social pressure on working mothers. Moreover, in his opinion, such measures will help increase the birth rate not only in Germany, but also in all European countries where this problem exists.
What influences your desire to have a baby?
Material prepared with the help of dating site experts for finding a serious relationship eDarling.ru.