it stresses the greater opportunity cost of children and pronounced stratification of fertility by female employment status in germany attributable to the high degree of labour market segmentation and weaker support for the worklife balance than in france in germany tfrs in the post reunification period were lowest in at but edged up thereafter to children per women in the effect may further accrue when germany expands its provision of early childhood education and care ecec nevertheless its tfr is still low in comparison to countries that started to develop their worklife balance support at an earlier stage such as france iceland and sweden whose tfrs are close to two children per women