PARIS: Middle-class mothers in France could be paid up to euro 1,000 a month — almost the minimum wage — to stop work for a year and have a third child under a government scheme to boost the birth rate, already among the highest in Europe.

Despite female employment statistics that are the envy of the continent, the government remains worried about the reluctance of better-educated women to have babies. A plan to be unveiled by the prime minister, Dominique de Villepin, today is expected to double an existing cash incentive for big families.

In a Europe facing serious demographic decline, France’s buoyant birth rate of 1.9 children a woman is well above the average of 1.4 and surpassed only by Ireland. France can also boast one of the EU’s highest rates of female employment: 81 per cent of women between 25 and 49 are in work, including 75 per cent of those with two children (and 51 per cent of those with more than two).

But a recent report by Hubert Brin, the head of the National Union of Family Associations, warned that even France’s high birth rate would not prevent the population shrinking. One of the problems is that middle-class and professional women are postponing the age at which they start a family (the 2004 average was 29.6), and spacing out their pregnancies (now nearly four years between the first and second child). As a result, fewer women will have more than two children.

The government hopes to reverse the downtrend by raising an existing euro 512 monthly grant, the allowance paid to mothers (or, in theory but rarely in practice, fathers) who put their jobs on hold to raise a second or third child. The grant will be available only for a third baby, and limited to one year. But it will be tied to the parent’s salary, with an expected ceiling of euro 1,000. The French minimum wage is euro 1,200 a month.

“The old deal only really attracted women in poorly paid work, not those with qualifications and competitive career jobs,” said Dominique Meda, a leading social policy specialist. “This one could be that extra encouragement they need to take the plunge.” —Dawn/The Guardian News Service