The objective of this reform so desired by the government is clear, to finance the pensions of our seniors. Because the argument is: the number of contributors who finance the system, compared to the number of retirees will continue to decline due to the aging of the population. The Pensions Orientation Council (COR) proved this in its latest report, published in September 2022: from 2.1 contributors for one retiree in 2000, this figure would gradually fall to around 1.5 in 2040 and 1.2 in 2070.
On this debate on the financing of pensions, the right and the far right have brought the debate on the birth rate to the fore. Jordan Bardella, president of the National Rally, explained to the antenna of France Inter wanting “to support a family policy and a pronatalist policy”. And to add: “France has never been so populated but we have never had so few children. »
“We assume that we want to carry out an ambitious pronatalist policy for France. The extreme left is right on one point: yes the demographic question is an ideological question, because to finance a system by distribution, it is either more children, or more immigrants. The right clearly chooses the child, who in all societies has always been the symbol of the future,” entrusted to Parisian the president of the LR group in the Senate Bruno Retailleau.
Family values: spearheading the right
So, to increase the number of contributors, they demand measures supposed, according to them, to boost births. To support his theory, the president of the RN relays “a Kantar study” which shows that “the ideal rate of children per family” would be around 2.49, while “the real fertility rate in our society is of 1.88” child per family. However, demographers set at 2.07 the number of children per woman that they should give birth to in order to ensure the stability of the French population. This is called the “replacement level” of the population.
“The right seeks to remobilize its troops on the family theme, because these questions are central to them”, comments Hervé Le Bras, demographer. For the latter, the objective would simply be a political communication stunt in order to restore popularity to the right with the French. “I would be surprised if Bruno Retailleau really thinks that this could have an impact in five or ten years”, he underlines.
Ideal long-term impact
“It’s grotesque,” attacks Hervé Le Bras. “Current births will only have an impact on pensions when these children enter the labor market. So in about 20 years, at best,” he adds. According to the averages, within 20 years there will still be four to five pension reforms: “It’s really making plans on the comet. What is urgent for him are the next five years.
For the demographer, “the drop in the birth rate is not very significant, but it is part of the trend”. Then comes the question: could pronatalist measures really raise the number of births? “It has very little effect. The specialist explains that by putting a large sum of money into these measures, it is possible to raise the birth rate from 0.1 to 0.2 children at most. There is “a windfall effect during the measurements. Couples seize the opportunity to have a child they probably would have had later. But this rise in the birth rate is only very occasional, to then fall again, ”explains the demographer.
And for him, this is not the best solution because these birth rate policies would have the strongest impact on the working classes, which are those who have the most children. “It amounts to pushing to have more children in the working classes, therefore those who will have the least means to raise them, therefore the most difficulties. »
François Hollande is not responsible for the drop in the birth rate
To justify their proposals, right and far right denounce a weakening of family policy since the five-year term of François Hollande. Several changes were decided on at the time, aimed at giving a more redistributive character to family support measures.
According to right-wing elected representatives, these measures have led to a drop in the birth rate: end of the universality of family allowances now modulated according to income, reduction in childcare benefits for households whose resources exceed one certain threshold, lowering of the ceiling of the family quotient (tax advantage linked to the presence of dependent children in the household).
Nevertheless, according to INSEE figures, the number of births in France had begun to decline long before the adoption of these measures. We can thus see that France excluding Mayotte had recorded a peak of 832,400 births in 2010, a number which gradually drops each year thereafter to fall to 811,400 in 2014. This decrease in the birth rate cannot therefore be directly attributed to the policies of François Hollande . What the demographer, Hervé Le Bras, confirms: “It started before the measures and concerns all social classes. »