Slovenia

Slovenia, over the time has been trying a strategy for increasing the birth rate. From a conference taken place in 2008 it had come to a conclusion that families are facing the biggest problems so far, for there are fast and comprehensive social changes which form new relationships among family members.

This had led to a decrease in birth rates, therefore the government has come to decide to offer incentives to all couples who decide to have children, this was said by Social Affairs Minister Janez Drobnic. The ministry has therefore drawn up a strategy to increase the birth rate, one process being a division of family chores and parenting duties among both parents. Moreover a project was launched, entitled "Family -friendly Companies" which the aims was to encourage businesses to implement more flexible working hours, to help enable its workers to easily harmonise their professional and family lives. Furthermore the director general of the ministry's family presented the government-sponsored changes to the law on parental care and family benefits.

In line with the amendments, a parent raising two children will have the right to shorter working hours until the eldest child is six years old. Whereas self-employed parents will be entitled to social security benefits up to the child's third year. The families allowance will moreover be increased from SIT 81,910 to SIT 100,000 (EUR 417) for large families (four or more children).

Norway

There has been evidence of Birth rates in the European Union falling fast. Therefore, European Countries have been trying to follow the Norwegians policies as their women have been able to give birth to more babies than most of their European sisters. Inger Sethov a worker in Norway's second largest oil and gas company is pregnant with her second baby, which is due in June. The BBC have interviewed her:

She said that "I'm entitled to 12 months off work with 80% pay, or 10 months off with full pay. My husband is entitled to take almost all of that leave instead of me, and he must take at least four weeks out. Economic considerations have never crossed our minds, yet this gives you an enormous freedom".

High birth rate, high employment rate

Due to leave being financed through taxes, employers don't lose out financially when people take out their parental leave. Since the introduction of the present system of 10 or 12 months leave with 100% or 80% pay, the fertility rate has been a steady 1.8-higher than most European Countries.

At the same time, five out of six women between the ages of 30 and 39 are in employment. No government has yet stated the aim of generous family policies is to increase birth rates. the main argument has always been to secure greater gender equality. Some people have said that extended maternity and paternity leave and day care facilities, probably do play a part when people choose to have children.

"Daddy Quota" 

Father's too are encouraged to take as much time off as possible , and must take at least four weeks leave or those weeks will be lost for both parents. The government has proposed to expand it with one more week. Mothers must take the first six weeks after birth as maternity leave.

Brage Ronningen working for a small company administering recycling of electrical goods said: "Even small companies see that they have to offer generous paternity packages to attract desirable staff"

Fertility Rate

In Europe 2.1 children per woman is considered to be the population replacement level. These are national averages:

Ireland: 1.99

France: 1.90

Norway: 1.81

Sweden: 1.75

UK: 1.74

Netherlands: 1.73

Germany: 1.37

Italy: 1.33

Spain: 1.32

Greece: 1.29

Source: Eurostat - 2004 figures

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