That's a conclusion the article came to, but cannot substantiate. for example, Turkey's FR is higher than france despite having stricter family norms, and female workforce participation below average. 'Pro-child' policies are quite a bit up for debate. For example, many religious people would say policies banning public drag performances are pro-child; while perhaps certain secular people would disagree. Without something more to substantiate that condition, it's difficult to understand what's being measured.

European countries all have lower birth rates than the US, and poorer people tend to have higher birth rates than richer ones. So it’s not like people are making rational calculations about how much raising kids costs.

It seems like being more religious is more effective at changing minds than any of those policies.

> The fertility rate is high in European countries

"High" is very relative, France is still well below replacement fertility despite all their efforts.

Meanwhile very religious groups like the Amish have much higher fertility rates without any of those interventions.

Maybe a deep belief that god wants you to have kids is just much more effective than any policy?

> France is still well below replacement fertility despite all their efforts.

From the article I quoted:

> Since the early 2000s France has consistently topped European rankings. After two decades of decline, in the 1970s-80s, the fertility rate started picking up again in the late 1990s. Since then the country has registered scores just short of the mythical threshold of 2.1 children per woman, which would secure a steady population. Its fertility rate in 2014 was 2.01.

Isn't that rate disproportionately owed to religious immigrants? Seems to me even France mostly relies on a religious drive to have kids, just an imported one. Among the non religious population, the rate is well below replacement and all the extra welfare barely moves the needle.

This simply isn't true: see Denmark where I live. Nothing appears to work to incentivize families to have kids.

Denmark seems to be doing pretty well compared to its southern neighbours?

https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-explained/index.php...

Right, but the point is comparing yourself to a sea of bad is not good. It's still very bad. None of us are actually reproducing above replacement and it's already having massive deleterious effects on our pension plans and when we're allowed to retire with full pension.

If you restrict yourself to Europe sure.

The United States has had a higher fertility rate than France and Europe for many years despite having a notoriously porous social safety net.

The stats may change but whereas Europe has been below 2 for a long time, that's a more recent development in the United States.