France to offer free fertility checks to combat falling birth rates
France, a nation so famous for its lovers that it has a kiss named after it, needs help making babies.
That’s according to President Emmanuel Macron, who has announced a sweeping series of measures to address what he called a ‘scourge’ of infertility in his country.
These include an offer of a free ‘fertility check-up’ to all 18 to 25-year-olds, both male and female.
In an interview with magazine Elle, he also mentioned a ‘campaign’ to help women preserve their fertility if they want to have children later in life, like egg freezing, as well as a national research project into infertility.
Mr Macron’s campaign, which he hinted at in January when he called for a ‘demographic rearmament’, comes despite France having one of the highest birth rates in Western Europe.
French President Emmanuel Macron has announced a sweeping series of measures to address what he called a ‘scourge’ of infertility in his country
France’s fertility rate, a national measure of the average number of live births per woman, stands at 1.8, significantly above the UK’s which sits at 1.5, according to the latest UN-backed data.
Both figures are below what scientists call the ‘fertility replacement level’ of 2.1 – the amount needed for a population to replace one generation with the next.
Mr Macron hasn’t set a specific goal for his plan to boost France’s birth rates, instead stating he wanted the nation to have a ‘dynamic birth rate’.
He also told Elle that if French people were able to have as many children as they wanted, the nation’s birth rate would 2.3, but he didn’t state this was the objective of his campaign.
France’s fertility rate of 1.8 is the lowest the country has recorded since shortly after the end of WWII.
In 1950 the figure stood at an average of three live births per woman.
Experts, and even celebrities like Elon Musk, have been warning about the global threat of underpopulation for years.
Earlier this year scientists warned 75 per cent of countries would face this demographic problem by 2050.
They warned the problem is particularly dire in developed Western nations and countries like the UK could become reliant on immigration to keep their societies and economies running.
Three in four countries face the threat of ‘underpopulation’ by 2050 because of the world’s plummeting birth rates, shock research warned today.
By 2100 this could rise to 97 per cent of all nations, in what experts have described as a ‘staggering social change’.
Powerhouses such as Britain and the US will have to become reliant on immigration to avoid the ‘immense’ consequences the situation threatens, the study in the respected medical journal The Lancet concluded.
Elon Musk (pictured), who boasts of ‘always banging the baby drum’, has been warning about a decline in births for years
Without replenishment of an ageing population, scientists claim public services and economic growth are at risk.
Ever-declining birth rates will also pile extra pressure on the NHS and social care.
The reasons why people are, on average, having less children in countries like France and the UK are complex.
For example, some women are simply enjoying the independence modern society brings compared to a century ago and are choosing not to have children.
Others are only choosing to have children later in life and instead focus on their careers during their younger years.
As fertility is linked to age, this can lead to some women never having children or having fewer than they planned even with technologies like in vitro fertilisation.
For men, lifestyle factors like the rising prevalence of obesity in many countries is also thought to be having a downward impact on fertility.
Rising cost-of-living pressures, especially the price of childcare and housing, is another factor that puts a dampener on couples having children or deciding to have multiple.
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