Family Policies in Germany

Abstract

This chapter reviews the current state of German family policy with a special focus on rights and obligations. It identifies the peculiarities of family policies in the formerly socialist East and in the conservative-familist West. German unification merged two contrasting models of family policy: the East German dual-earner model and the West German male breadwinner model. While family policy in East Germany expected both mothers and fathers to work full-time, West German family policy was based on ideas of different but equal and complementary gender roles. East Germany employed measures to increase fertility rates and support having children. Pre-unification West Germany, in contrast, had continuously rejected pro-natalism. We will argue that unified Germany is heading towards a third policy model that has more in common with the East German model than the family policy model of former West Germany. Sustainable family policy (Nachhaltige Familienpolitik), as this third model has been called by politicians, conceives of children as society’s future assets; it seeks to encourage childbearing by supporting parents to balance work and family responsibilities, and attempts to reduce child poverty by increasing maternal employment.