This is worth revisiting.It’s Paul Krugman’s column on how France has made a better choice as a nation in terms of economic policy.

A couple non-obvious asides: Note how Krugman constantly mentions how France is more family-friendly than America but never mentions that France hasn’t actually been creating a lot of families. Presumably one important test for whether a country’s policies are family friendly is whether they encourage more families.

Also, just to head off a rebuttal, it is true that France’s fertility rate has ticked up slightly in the last few years, but it’s worth noting that these changes coincided with the — albeit slight — liberalization of France’s economy. The wonderful framily friendly policies Krugman endorses were implemented decades ago and were followed by by an enormous plunge in babymaking.

One last thing, can anyone read Krugman’s column and not think he’s describing crunchy economics?

Update: Many readers note that France’s upick in fertility probably has more to do with immigration than anything else. Sounds right to me, but it’s just too pretty a day to spend any more time trolling through demographic data.