Chickens come home to roost

An OECD economist and social policy analyst is visiting and talking about his study, Babies and Bosses;

The study showed that many New Zealand mothers found it impossible to balance commitments to both family and employment and so had fewer children or none at all.

"Declining birth rates and ageing populations will soon result in a shortage of workers so increased female participation in the labour force will be crucial to maintaining national living standards," he told the Herald.

The findings are from Dr Adema's Babies and Bosses study which looked at work and family life in 13 OECD countries.

It revealed that the "clear gap" in New Zealand was after-school care.

Although there were organisations to provide care, there was no central system, such as in Sweden and Denmark. Recently, the UK and Australia had also made it a priority, Dr Adema said.

But all of those countries have lower fertility rates than NZ.

In fact, at 1.99 our fertility rate is relatively high. Consider this article about France's "high" fertility rate, which just happens to be the same as ours.

So the measures the economist wants the government to take aren't about increasing fertility but about getting more economic productivity out of women. And what is that economic productivity primarily supporting? The welfare state.

Things really are arse about face.