Faut-il remettre en cause la politique familiale française ?

The French family policy targets three objectives: ensuring a minimum standard of living for every child, providing families with the same standard of living than people without children, promoting female employment. Although the French family policy has been successful in terms of fertility rates and female employment rates, it is often criticised for benefiting wealthy families and discouraging female employment. These criticisms are irrelevant. Family policy provides relatively large transfer payments to families; the transfers covers totally the cost of children for low-income families and decreases relatively when income increases. The conjugal and family quotients are necessary components of a progressive tax system. A major reform substituting the entire family benefits and tax provisions with a per child flat allowance would weaken the family policy and be detrimental to families with three children or more. JEL Classification code: H24, I31, J18.