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  • Title: [Family and population policy in the overseas French departments since 1946].
    Author: Gautier A.
    Journal: Cah Sci Hum; 1988; 24(3):389-402. PubMed ID: 12342598.
    Abstract:
    The French overseas departments of Guadeloupe, Guyana, Martinique, and Reunion are in the position of Third World countries because of their dependent economies and demographic characteristics. Despite their legal status as French departments, the 1946 French family allowance legislation was never applied to them. France was one of the few developed countries to adopt an explicit family policy. Its 3 major goals were to increase fertility, to assure equity between families with children and persons without, and to allow mothers to stay at home. The 1946 laws provided family allowances and prenatal allowances to all French and foreigners except those unemployed but able to work. Allowances for families with 1 income were available even for foreign parents of illegitimate children, while the maternity allowances were more restricted. Political support in France for the family allowances as well as their economic value for a family eroded considerably in later years. When the 4 former French colonies became overseas departments in 1946, it was expected that French social legislation would apply to them as to any other department, but this was never the case. Initially, only family allowances strictly speaking without the single income, maternity, and prenatal allowances were applied overseas, at a significantly lower rate than in France and as a function of the number of days worked. Only about 58% of families with children were eligible in 1955. Administrators and planners cited overpopulation and rapid population growth as reasons for not providing family allowances, but no concrete actions to curb population growth or improve the living conditions of the population were taken. In the 1960s, with Algeria and other French colonies formed in the the 19th century gaining independence, de Gaulle reaffirmed that the overseas departments would remain French. The government undertook programs to assure social parity between France and the overseas departments, including a tripling of the family allowances between 1962-66. To avoid a pronatalist effect, the amount decreased by birth order. Many families were still excluded altogether. Family planning programs began to be organized in the 1960s. By the 1970s the combination of lowered fertility and emigration had removed much of the demographic threat and eligibility criteria were eased somewhat. But by 1986 most allowances were still not applied and eligible families still received less than they would in France. Local conditions including rapid population growth, illegitimacy, matrifocal families, and socioeconomic problems were used to justify restrictions on family allowances in the overseas departments, but interaction between the desire to maintain France overseas and the actions of local pressure groups was a significant determinant. The exclusion of some family types was simply an easy way to save money on a group so impoverished that it was virtually excluded from the decision making process.
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