Role of State and Company in French Family Policy

The main purpose of this paper is to describe in detail the role of the state and corporations in France's fertility promotion policy since the 2000s and to find out what limitations there are from the perspective of gender equality. France has long been pursuing family policies to encourage childbirth, and has recently expanded the home childcare system by respecting freedom of choice in raising children. The cores of French family policy are government financial support for childbirth and childrearing, expansion of childcare facilities for work-family balance, and equal sharing of roles between men and women in childrearing and care. In particular, in order to achieve work-family balance, France has developed policies that promote this along with companies, guaranteeing a family tax credit system, deduction of corporate childcare facility operating expenses from corporate tax, and financial support for the establishment and operation of childcare facilities within companies. Based on this, French companies have been supporting parent workers through prepaid voucher systems as well as in-house daycare centers in order to achieve work-life balance. These changes in France have greatly contributed to maintaining the highest birth rate and female employment rate in Europe. However, the system of free choice of childcare method eventually led low-income women to return to their homes, and various systems within companies are mainly used by female workers, so work-family balance has limitations that add to the burden on women. In the end, the various institutional foundations for encouraging childbirth in France do not contribute to changing the grand proposition of maternal responsibility for raising and caring.