Sweden has an even more generous system and our birth rates are below 2, so... I'm not worried for Finland. The thing is, kids are damned expensive today. When

Sweden has an even more generous system and our birth rates are below 2, so... I'm not worried for Finland. The thing is, kids are damned expensive today. When you are not working, you are forgoing "normal" salary. The mother will get ~80% of the pre-pregnancy salary, up to a limit which is not very high. There are afaik no "virtual salary increases" here, at all. We even have "barnbidrag" and "flerbarnstillägg" meaning you get a small amount of money per month per child, and that amount goes UP with more kids. So if you have 7 kids you get even more money per child than if you would have 2 kids. Still nobody has 7 kids to "make money", because its still a loosing proposition. There is a template about how much a kid costs here until theyre 18, and its about $104,000. Sure, you could stay at home and being poor for 10 years or so but how much fun is that really? =)