I think Denmark has the right idea says one Parisian Father

"I think Denmark has the right idea," says one Parisian Father. Indeed it does: maternity provision is excellent and there are smaller touches that speak volumes, such as the law that gives parents with sick children the first day off on full pay.In Britain, such things are not even up for debate. In France, for, instance, there are already many more rights. There is a breast-feeding allowance and workers can take an extra unpaid year off before a child's third birthday Despite this, the grass is even greener in Copenhagen.

Paula Snyder, author of The European Women's Almanac, says: "The climate in many other European countries is encouraging women and men to share family and income responsibilities more equally." That means better paternity leave and parental-leave provisions.If you think that sounds boring then you aren't "listening to women's voices". That is the message of a report published today by the Women's Communication Centre. "Having it all" does not have to be an exercise in masochism. On the Continent there is more respect for the fact that women workers (even pregnant ones) are valuable and that you cannot create a society of happy families and productive workers without accounting for career breaks in some form. Whirlpool attributed this fact to British women's relative concentration in low-paid, part-time work.This is the kind of revolution we do not need. The European average was 28 per cent; the highest countries were Germany (38 per cent) and France (36 per cent), followed by Spain (30 per cent) and Italy (22 per cent) Coming up last was Britain, at 12 per cent. Here, Britain's working revolution is exposed for what it is.

A survey by the Mori research organisation, Whirlpool, published earlier this year, shows that British women are the least likely to earn all of the family income. "The conventional theory is that in times of crisis, the woman leaves the workplace and returns to the home But I don't see it happening now. That's progress," said a spokeswoman for the Women's Institute in Madrid.This is more than just progress - it's money. "They are having to work very hard to hold the whole thing together. The picture we have of women single-mindedly pursuing a career is not true. A large majority are slogging away and totally committed to their families."The operative word there is "slogging", and such "heroism" is in much shorter supply on the Continent. Take Spain, where 42.6 per cent of women work, but only 15 per cent of that number are part-time Many of the rest are climbing the career ladder.