Mommy Economy.(Conundrum of women as mothers and part of the work force)

To the untrained eye, Patricia Hewitt's two jobs might seem an odd combination. As Tony Blair's secretary for Trade and Industry as well as his minister for Women and Equality, she deals in trade deficits and gender disparities, IT entrepreneurs and nurseries, industrial productivity and parental leave.

Unorthodox as the mix may be, Hewitt's twin briefs reflect Europe's emerging demographic challenge. The problem is a triple whammy: falling birthrates, an aging and shrinking work force, a looming pension crisis. The solution is to get more people working while producing more babies for the future. Can Europe do both?

To its credit, the European Union sees the issues clearly. For years it has placed a premium on boosting women's employment, in the interests of both gender equality--what it calls a "fairer distribution of men's and women's roles"--and the need to deal with the demographic crisis. Trouble is, the policies of its national governments often thwart that goal. From Germany and Austria to much of southern Europe, traditions of working daddies and stay-at-home mommies still dominate. Tax and social programs often discourage women from working. So does the comparative scarcity of flex time and day care. European women have grown skeptical that they can juggle both work and babies, with obvious consequences. If Europe succeeds in putting more women to work, only to see births fall, then it will fail in its broader effort to avert a demographic disaster.

The picture isn't uniformly dark. Britain now allows parents of young children to negotiate flexible hours with employers. The Dutch have pioneered a national flex-time policy. Greece is pumping millions into creating day-care services, and recently France launched a new pro- family program that would award monthly ...