They’ve had all kinds of discussion in the German media about how to improve their birthrate and it usually comes down to needing better preschool provision and a change in cultural attitudes that a) make employers unwilling to hire young mothers and b) mean that a lot of women, particularly in the West and in rural areas, are still judged as ‘Rabenmütter’ (bad mothers) if they work instead of devoting themselves to their children. They still haven’t got their act together and actually, you know, fixed the problem though.

But culturally, sexism is still a massive problem in France – much more than anywhere else I’ve lived. As a woman, you constantly get comments about your looks, wolf whistles, etc. on the street, which is something that never happened to me to nearly the same extent anywhere else. I think the pressure to live up to ideals of femininity in appearance and behavior (not being too aggressive, etc.) is much greater than in the US, UK or Germany.

That does seem to be the case. Pretty much every study I’ve ever seen on the birth rates in Western Europe shows that when women have a solid safety net, they are more likely to have multiple children, even if, as you point out, they’ll have a tougher time at work. It may be that the positive (the safety net) and the negative (tougher workplace) cancel each other out in terms of cost-benefit analysis, which is still preferable to societies where childbearing is objectively a lose-lose proposition.

Honestly, if I could get just one or two of those benefits, I’d be thrilled. Even the post-partum exercise classes. I wouldn’t look any of those gift horses in the mouth.

As for your cynical thoughts about it being an anti-immigrant, have-more-white-babies campaign—I wondered that too. But I assume maternal benefits are extended to all French women, regardless of ethnicity. Whether they can fully utilize them or if they’re the same quality for WOC in non-white communities is the question. I’d be curious to see data on that.