The present focus of Government labour market policy is socially unsustainable because it is driving birth rates below the population replacement rate, according to the Jean Monnet Professor of Labour Market Policy Studies at Trinity College Dublin, Mr Jim Wickham.
Ireland, in common with "other ex-Catholic countries" of the EU, had "managed to give women the worst of all possible worlds by encouraging them to go into the workplace without the childcare supports they need.
"Women are effectively being asked to work for companies and rear children at their own expense.
"Effectively there is a birth strike in the Catholic countries of Europe, and Ireland is a lot closer to Spain and Italy than to other countries in northern Europe."
Prof Wickham was speaking after a seminar on an EU-funded survey of women working in the retail and financial services, which shows lack of childcare facilities are still major problem in Ireland.
Predominantly Catholic countries had been the ones most prone to allowing the private sector to look after childcare provision for working parents.
"In those countries the role of women was least valued by society, except as mothers. Now that has been taken away and women have been given control over their own bodies and told to go out to work, why should they have children?
"It is quite clear having good childcare arrangements is not the ultimate answer, because even Sweden has a low birth rate, but countries with child support are in a much better-off position to deal with labour market issues."
He described Ireland and the UK as the "Wild West" of Europe, compared to the "Nice North", on this issue.
"In the Wild West parents work long hours to earn money to pay private childminders," who themselves earn low wages.
"In the Nice North state-organised childcare provides good employment.
"It is still primarily done by women to allow other women to go out to work, but both are working in good-quality jobs."
He said the "US hyper-individualist model is clearly unsustainable because it doesn't allow for people doing unselfish things, and the ultimate example of not doing things to suit yourself is having children".
He said legislation was needed to underpin the rights of parents and children to proper childcare facilities rather than rely on labour market pressures to solve the problem.
Earlier Dr Juliet Webster and Dr Juliet Grainne Collins of the Employment Research Centre at TCD described the findings of Serveemploi study into women's career prospects in the services industry.
One surprising finding was that women working in the financial services sector tended to be less happy with their lot than those in retailing.
"In retail women never thought in terms of a career, as opposed to a job," Dr Collins said.
Dr Webster said that even companies committed to family-friendly policies usually approached the issue on a gender equality basis.
They were more committed to facilitating senior staff than those lower down the employment chain, where most women workers were clustered.