In yesterday's Sunday New York Times Magazine, an article linked birth rates to the support of working mothers. That is, countries with the lowest birthrates are the ones that don't make it easy for mothers to work, for example, Italy. And countries that want to encourage women to have children need to make it easier for them to go to work, instead of making it more desirable to stay home. One statistic cited--Norwegian women who live in towns with more day-care slots available have more children and become mothers earlier. The article says that the U.S. is one of those countries with a baby drought, hidden by the relatively large families of new immigrants, and the promotion of "family values" instead of careers for women is lowering the average family size rather than increasing it.
So, in the first of what we plan as a series of SV Moms Sound Off's, tell us what you think. Would you have had children earlier if you thought mixing a career in children would be a walk in the park? Would you think about a larger family if child care were more available and more affordable? Or are the countries that give moms that stay home a subsidy (like Germany) on the right track? Sound off on "the Motherhood Experiment" by commenting below.
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