Three years ago the German Family Minister was driven to warn that “we will have to turn out the light” if her country did not reverse its plummeting birthrate. Ursula von der Leyen, a gynaecologist and mother of seven, knew only too well that the birth-to-death ratio meant that the nation was shedding its population by about 100,000 a year, and that a third of German women were not having children.

Many blamed an enduring cult of motherhood, an idealised vision of the family that placed a woman at home with the children and meant provision for childcare and paternity leave was conspicuously absent. Women felt that they were being forced to choose between career and children. Angela Merkel, Germany’s first woman Chancellor, has been quoted as saying that she did not have children because “it just did not fit in with my career path”.

In 2007 her Government began a radical overhaul of state-funded support. Maternity leave was renamed parental leave. The maximum duration of absence from work was cut from two years to one but the second parent was also now entitled to two months off. To try to encourage middle-class motherhood, flat-rate pay for parental leave was replaced with income-linked compensation that guaranteed up to 67 per cent of earnings.

There has been opposition to the changes from social conservatives, and many primary schools still finish at lunchtime. German women marched this month in protest that the gender pay gap is one of the worst in Europe.

But the pro-baby policy changes appear to be bearing fruit. In 2007 and 2008 the number of births rose by 12,000 and 5,000 respectively. Last year, the increase was greatest among mothers aged between 30 and 40.

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