Gender division of labour in unified Germany
WORC Report 00.00.000/0
Jan Künzler
Wolfgang Walter
Elisabeth Reichart
Gerd Pfister
ISBN 00-00000-00-0
WORC Report 00.00.000/0
WORC
EUROPEAN NETWORK ON POLICIES AND THE DIVISION OF UNPAID
AND PAID WORK
Tilburg University
P.O. Box 90153
5000 LE TILBURG
The Netherlands
© 2001
II
Preface
In 1995 the European Network on Policies and the Division of Unpaid and Paid
Work was launched. It was the result of a meeting in Tilburg where researchers
from the European Union countries decided to set up an international network. The
aim of the network was to prepare and conduct an international comparative study
on the impact of various policy measures on the division of paid and unpaid work
between men and women. The starting activities of the network were financially
supported by the European Science Foundation.
No part of this text may be published in whole or part, reproduced electronically or
distributed without the express written consent of the authors. Short quotations may
be cited in scholarly works and reviews.
During the following years the participants, representing most of the EU countries,
agreed on a research programme. The overall purpose of the project was to gain
insight into the conditions under which policy measures are (or are not) effective in
influencing the division of paid and unpaid work between men and women. For
that purpose the network has planned two projects within the programme:
(1) National studies that follow one and the same design. These national studies
focus on policies, on the structural and cultural context in which these policies are
embedded and implemented, and on the (resulting) division of paid and unpaid
work among men and women;
(2) An international comparative study that integrates the results of the national
studies and investigates the correspondence between the outcomes of the national
studies, resulting in clear statements about effects of policy measures in their
specific context. Furthermore, the international comparative study examines the
correspondence between a specific mode of regulation (the balance of social,
institutional and economic forces that characterize the division of work at a
particular time) and the prevailing societal division of work between men and
women.
In this report we describe the present German policy mix in social policy, family
policy, and equal opportunity policy and its history. We give an overview over the
development of gender inequality in education, in the labour market, and in unpaid
work with a focus on changes following unification. We report findings of a
secondary analysis on changing gender role attitudes. We summarize recent
theoretical developments in the explanation of the division of housework. Finally,
we present results of our study on "Gender Division of Labour in Germany, 2000".
In summer 2000, a national representative sample was interviewed using a
questionnaire developed by the European Network on Policies and the Division of
Unpaid and Paid Work. The project is a joint venture of the Wuerzburg University
and the State Institute of Family Research at the University at Bamberg. The survey
and the analyses were funded by the German Science Foundation (Deutsche
III
Forschungsgemeinschaft DFG, grant no. LI 350/3-1). The leader of the project is
Wolfgang Lipp, chair at the department of sociology at Wuerzbug University. The
field work of the study was done by the "Institute of Applied Social Sciences"
(Institut für angewandte Sozialwissenschaft) INFAS, Bonn. At INFAS, Doris Hess,
Janina Belz, and Stefan Schiele were in charge of the field work; the collaboration
with them was very pleasant. When preparing this report, we had the opportunity to
discuss our ideas with Menno Jacobs, Tilburg, who made valuable remarks. James
Brice, Sandy Halliday, and Felix Blaser helped in the technical production of the
report.
IV
The following papers and reports written by members of the Network have already
been published by WORC:
Frinking, G.A.B. & Willemsen, T.M. (1996). Travail et Famille dans les Pays de
l’Union Européenne. Le Rôle des Politiques Étude Méthodologique. Tilburg:
WORC paper 96.12.022/6.
Willemsen, T.M. (1997). European Network on Policies and the Division of
Unpaid and Paid Work. Survey Questionnaire. Tilburg: WORC paper 97.07.003/6.
Barrère-Maurisson, M.-A. & Frinking G.A.B. (1997). The impact of Policies on the
Division of Labour: A New Approach. Tilburg: WORC paper 97.10.013/6
Miettinen, A. (1997). Women in Europe. Data on Demographic Factors, Economic
Activity, Education and Related Issues in Selected European Countries. Tilburg:
WORC paper 97.10.014/6
Vossen, A.P., Frinking, G.A.B. & Willemsen, T.M. (1997). De invloed van
overheidsmaatregelen op de verdeling van betaalde en onbetaalde arbeid binnen
huishoudens: De visie van deskundigen. Verslag van een pilot study. Tilburg:
WORC paper 97.12.016/6
Willemsen, T.M. & Frinking, G.A.B. (Eds.) (1998). The role of social partners in
the redivision of paid and unpaid work, an international comparison. Tilburg:
WORC report 98.05.002/6
Torres, A.C. & Vieira da Silva, F. (1999). Childcare and division of work between
men and women. Tilburg: WORC paper 99.01.001/6
Jacobs, M.J.G. (1999). Effects of policies and gender role attitudes on the division
of paid and unpaid work within households. Tilburg: WORC paper 99.03.004/6
V
VI
Contents
PREFACE .............................................................................................................III
CONTENTS............................................................................................................1
LIST OF TABLES ..................................................................................................4
LIST OF FIGURES.................................................................................................6
ZUSAMMENFASSUNG .........................................................................................1
ABSTRACT............................................................................................................4
CHAPTER 1 ...........................................................................................................7
GERMANY’S POSITION IN THE MODERNIZATION OF GENDER RELATIONS 7
1.1
Introduction .....................................................................................................................................7
1.2
The two German states and gender relations................................................................................8
1.3
Comparative frameworks for the modernization of gender
relations ...........................................................................................................................................11
CHAPTER 2 .........................................................................................................15
POLICIES AFFECTING THE GENDER DIVISION OF
LABOUR ..............................................................................................................15
2.1
2.1.1
2.1.2
2.1.3
2.1.4
Paternalist policies.........................................................................................................................17
Marriage benefits........................................................................................................................17
Family benefits ...........................................................................................................................21
Lone mothers benefits ................................................................................................................23
Conclusions ................................................................................................................................25
2.2.1
2.2.2
2.2.3
2.2.4
2.2.5
2.2.6
Maternalist policies........................................................................................................................25
Maternity protection ...................................................................................................................26
Parental leave .............................................................................................................................26
Child day care.............................................................................................................................28
Elderly care ................................................................................................................................34
Work schedule policies...............................................................................................................35
Conclusions ................................................................................................................................36
2.2
1
2.3.
East-West-differences and German unification..........................................................................37
2.3.1
GDR family policy .....................................................................................................................37
2.3.2
Unification and gender relations — what is the outcome? .........................................................38
CHAPTER 3 .........................................................................................................41
STRUCTURE AND DEVELOPMENT OF GENDER
INEQUALITY........................................................................................................41
3.1
Gender ideology .............................................................................................................................41
3.2
Gender differences in education...................................................................................................43
3.3
3.3.1
3.3.2
3.3.3
3.3.4
3.3.5
3.3.6
3.4
Gender differences in the labour market ....................................................................................49
Overall participation...................................................................................................................50
Unemployment ...........................................................................................................................51
Overall participation by mothers ................................................................................................53
Part-time employment ................................................................................................................54
Employment without social protection.......................................................................................56
Income........................................................................................................................................57
Division of unpaid work ................................................................................................................59
CHAPTER 4 .........................................................................................................65
EXPLAINING THE DIVISION OF UNPAID LABOUR: THEORETICAL
APPROACHES ....................................................................................................65
4.1
New home economics.....................................................................................................................65
4.2
Time-availability approach...........................................................................................................65
4.3
Resource theory .............................................................................................................................66
4.4
Role theory .....................................................................................................................................67
4.5
Doing gender approach .................................................................................................................68
4.6
Integrating findings .......................................................................................................................68
4.7
Regulation approach .....................................................................................................................70
CHAPTER 5 .........................................................................................................73
GENDER DIVISION OF LABOUR IN GERMANY:
THE STUDY .........................................................................................................73
5.1
2
Sample ............................................................................................................................................73
5.2
Dependent variables ......................................................................................................................77
5.3
Independent variables ...................................................................................................................78
CHAPTER 6 .........................................................................................................81
STALLED MODERNIZATION IN THE WEST — BACK TO TRADITION IN THE
EAST? .................................................................................................................81
6.1
Univariate findings ........................................................................................................................81
6.2
Multivariate findings.....................................................................................................................91
6.3
Discussion .....................................................................................................................................100
REFERENCES...................................................................................................103
APPENDIX .........................................................................................................111
NOTES...............................................................................................................151
3
List of Tables
Table 1:
Table 2:
Table 3:
Table 4:
Table 5:
Table 6:
Table 7:
Table 8:
Table 9:
Table 10:
Table 11:
Table 12:
Table 13:
Policies affecting the gender division of labour in the FRG .............. 16
Effects of tax splitting for spouses and child tax credit...................... 19
Employment of mothers 1972, 1991, and 1996 by age of
youngest child in Germany ................................................................. 53
Time use studies in Germany:
Weekly time in housework, 1965-1995.............................................. 62
Design and procedure of the survey ................................................... 73
Number and average age of respondents ............................................ 74
Household types of respondents ......................................................... 75
Number of children living in respondents’ households ...................... 76
Marital status of respondents .............................................................. 77
Theories, variables and operationalization ......................................... 79
Housework and the extent of spouse’s employment
in Germany, 1995-2000 ...................................................................... 85
OLS-regression models predicting time spent on housework for
all respondents and couples ................................................................ 93
OLS-regression models predicting time spent on housework and
child care for couples with children.................................................... 99
Appendix-Table A1:
Appendix-Table A2:
Appendix-Table A3:
Appendix-Table A4:
Appendix-Table A5:
Appendix-Table A6:
Appendix-Table A7:
Appendix-Table A8:
Appendix-Table A9:
Appendix-Table A10:
4
Germany in the modernization of gender relations,
1980s-1990s .................................................................. 113
Development of child benefit/tax credit in the FRG,
1946-2000...................................................................... 116
Comparative advantages of child benefit/tax credit
in the FRG, 1996-2000.................................................. 118
Incidence and duration of social assistance in
Germany, 1995 .............................................................. 118
Family policy measures in the GDR ............................. 120
Development of birth subsidy in the GDR,
1950-1990...................................................................... 123
Development of child benefit in the GDR,
1950-1990...................................................................... 123
Development of the use of day care in Germany,
1990-1999...................................................................... 124
Development of day care facilities for infants under
three (Krippen) in Germany, 1950-1998....................... 125
Coverage level of day care facilities for infants
under three (Krippen) in the federal states of
Germany, 1990-1998..................................................... 126
Appendix-Table A11:
Appendix-Table A12:
Appendix-Table A13:
Appendix-Table A14:
Appendix-Table A15:
Appendix-Table A16:
Appendix-Table A17:
Appendix-Table A18:
Appendix-Table A19:
Appendix-Table A20:
Appendix-Table A21:
Appendix-Table A22:
Appendix-Table A23:
Appendix-Table A24:
Appendix-Table A25:
Appendix-Table A26:
Appendix-Table A27:
Appendix-Table A28:
Appendix-Table A29:
Appendix-Table A30:
Appendix-Table A31:
Day care facilities for infants under three (Krippen)
in Germany.................................................................... 127
Development of day care coverage for pre-school
children between three and six (Kindergarten) in
Germany, 1950-1998..................................................... 129
Coverage level of day care facilities for pre-school
children between three and six (Kindergarten) in the
federal states of Germany, 1990-1998 .......................... 130
Opening hours of day care facilities for pre-school
children between three and six (Kindergarten) in
Germany, 1994 .............................................................. 131
Day care facilities for pre-school children between
three and six (Kindergarten) in Germany ..................... 132
Coverage level of day care facilities for school
children (Horte), in the federal states of Germany,
1990-1998...................................................................... 134
Indicators of fertility in Germany, 1950-1998 .............. 135
Long-term care in Germany, 1984-1998....................... 136
Gender role orientations in Germany, 1982-1996:
conservative answers (percentages of respective
group) and overall scale scores (mean and standard
deviation)....................................................................... 137
CASMIN categories and corresponding educational
levels in the FRG and the GDR..................................... 138
Level of general education by birth cohort in West
Germany ........................................................................ 139
Level of general education by birth cohort in East
Germany ........................................................................ 140
Level of vocational education by birth cohort in
West Germany............................................................... 140
Level of vocational education by birth cohort in East
Germany ........................................................................ 140
Time use in West Germany (hours/week)..................... 141
Time use in East Germany (hours/week) ...................... 142
Time use in West Germany (hours/week)..................... 143
Time use in East Germany (hours/week) ...................... 144
Independent variables — descriptives .......................... 145
Housework — zero-order correlations.......................... 147
Child care — zero-order correlations............................ 148
5
List of Figures
Figure 1:
Figure 2:
Figure 3:
Figure 4:
Figure 5:
Figure 6:
Figure 7:
Figure 8:
Figure 9:
Figure 10:
Figure 11:
Figure 12:
Figure 13:
Figure 14:
Figure 15:
Figure 16:
Figure 17:
Figure 18:
Figure 19:
Figure 20:
Figure 21:
Figure 22:
Gender ideology in Germany, 1982-1996 .......................................... 43
Female/male ratio (ln) of persons in Germany with no degree or
general elementary education by birth cohort..................................... 44
Female/male ratio (ln) of persons in Germany with intermediate
degree by birth cohort ......................................................................... 45
Female/male ratio (ln) of persons in Germany with maturity
degree by birth cohort ......................................................................... 46
Female/male ratio (ln) of persons in Germany with completed
vocational training by birth cohort...................................................... 47
Female/male ratio (ln) of persons in Germany with university
degree by birth cohort ......................................................................... 48
Labour force participation in Germany, 1965-1999 ........................... 50
Unemployment rates in Germany, 1976-1999.................................... 52
Part-time employment in Germany, 1980-1998 ................................. 55
Income of full-time employees in Germany, 1983-1996.................... 57
Participation in housework in international comparison, 1965 .......... 60
Housework time in international comparison, 1965........................... 60
Ratios of women’s/men’s time in housework
in Germany, 1965-1995 ...................................................................... 61
Housework time in Germany, 1965-2000........................................... 82
Housework ratios in Germany, 1965-2000......................................... 83
Housework ratios by earner type in West Germany, 1995-2000........ 84
Housework ratios by earner type in East Germany, 1995-2000......... 84
Men’s time use in West Germany, 2000............................................. 87
Men’s time use in East Germany, 2000.............................................. 87
Women’s time use in West Germany, 2000 ....................................... 89
Women’s time use in East Germany, 2000......................................... 89
Dependence in couple households and husbands’ housework. .......... 96
Appendix-figure A1:
6
Rate of income tax in Germany, 1999 .......................... 116
Zusammenfassung
1995 veranstaltete das Work and Organization Research Centre WORC an der
Katholischen Universität von Brabant in Tilburg, Niederlande, eine Tagung zum
Thema "Work and Family in Europe: The Role of Policies". Die dort versammelten
Forscherinnen und Forscher beschlossen, längerfristig zusammenzuarbeiten, um
das Defizit an vergleichbaren Daten zur Verteilung von Hausarbeit und
Kinderbetreuung zu beheben und konstituierten das European Network on Policies
and the Division of Unpaid and Paid Work. Das Netzwerk wurde in den folgenden
Jahren (1995-2001) unter anderem von der European Science Foundation
unterstützt. Ein zentrales Ziel der Zusammenarbeit war es, in den Ländern der
Europäischen Union vergleichbare, repräsentative Umfragen zur Verteilung der
unbezahlten Arbeit zwischen Frauen und Männern durchzuführen; in Finnland, den
Niederlanden, Frankreich, Griechenland, Portugal und in Deutschland sind die
Erhebungen mittlerweile abgeschlossen. Das deutsche Projekt wurde von Jan
Künzler, Wolfgang Lipp und Wolfgang Walter vorbereitet und von der Deutschen
Forschungsgemeinschaft DFG mit einer Sachbeihilfe (LI 350/3-1) unterstützt.
Im vorliegenden Bericht berichten wir über den Stand der Entwicklung der
Geschlechterverhältnisse in Deutschland: Die deutsche Vereinigung hat 1990 zwei
Staaten zusammengeführt, wie sie auch in Ausprägung und politischer Bearbeitung
geschlechtsspezifischer Ungleichheit nicht unterschiedlicher hätten sein können. Im
internationalen Vergleich nahmen BRD und DDR bei fast allen Indikatoren extrem
entgegengesetzte Positionen ein - die DDR gehörte regelmäßig mit den
skandinavischen Ländern zu den modernisierten Ländern, die BRD gehörte
regelmäßig mit den südeuropäischen Ländern zu den traditionalen Ländern.
Kapitel 1 gibt einen Überblick über den Stand der Modernisierung der
Geschlechterverhältnisse in der BRD und in der DDR im internationalen Vergleich
vor der Vereinigung.
Kapitel 2 beschreibt die politischen Maßnahmen, die geeignet sind,
geschlechtsspezifische Ungleichheiten abzubauen oder zu reproduzieren. Dabei
wird zwischen paternalistischen und maternalistischen Maßnahmen unterschieden.
Paternalistische Maßnahmen unterstützen die traditionale Ernährerrolle des
Mannes. Maternalistische Maßnahmen entlasten die Frauen von ihrer traditionalen
Zuständigkeit für die Betreuung von Familienangehörigen oder verpflichten sie
darauf. In der westdeutschen Familienpolitik überwogen die Elemente mit
traditionalisierender Wirkung bei weitem. Im Zuge der Vereinigung wurden die
politischen Rahmenbedingungen des westdeutschen Geschlechterverhältnisses auf
die DDR übertragen.
Kapitel 3 liefert einen Überblick, wie Arbeitsmärkte, wie Frauen und Männer, wie
die Geschlechterverhältnisse in Ostdeutschland auf die politische Anpassung an
Westdeutschland nach 1989 reagiert haben. Die Befunde sind gemischt. Eigene
Längsschnittanalysen
der
Allgemeinen
Bevölkerungsumfrage
in
den
1
Sozialwissenschaften ALLBUS zeigen, dass die Welle des Antifeminismus, die die
anderen Transformationsländer Osteuropas in den neunziger Jahren erfasst hat, in
Ostdeutschland ausgeblieben ist. Im Gegenteil: Die Geschlechtsrollenorientierung
der Westdeutschen ist vergleichweise konservativ geblieben, die der Ostdeutschen
ist liberaler geworden, zwischen beiden Teilen Deutschlands hat sich eine
wachsende Kluft aufgetan. Die Bildungsungleichheit zwischen Frauen und
Männern ist in der DDR früher abgebaut worden als in der BRD, die jedoch
nachgezogen hat, so dass bei den Bildungsabschlüssen mittlerweile in beiden
Teilen Deutschlands kaum noch eine Benachteiligung der Frauen zu finden ist.
Trotz des Abbaus der Bildungsungleichheit blieb die geschlechtsspezifische
Ungleichheit auf dem Arbeitsmarkt in Westdeutschland allerdings erstaunlich
stabil. Die hohe Erwerbsbeteiligung der Frauen in der DDR ist nach der
Vereinigung deutlich zurückgegangen, liegt aber immer noch über der der Frauen
in Westdeutschland. In Ostdeutschland sind die Frauen überproportional von der
andauernd hohen Arbeitslosigkeit betroffen. Andererseits sind die
Lohnunterschiede zwischen Frauen und Männern im Osten immer noch kleiner als
im Westen. Die wenigen Studien zur Verteilung der Hausarbeit zeigen, dass der
temporäre Modernisierungsvorsprung der DDR in den neunziger Jahren wieder
verschwunden ist. In beiden Teilen Deutschlands verbringen Frauen noch ungefähr
doppelt so viel Zeit mit Hausarbeit wie Männer.
In Kapitel 4 werden mit New home economics, Time-availability approach,
Ressourcentheorie, Rollentheorie und Doing gender approach die wichtigsten
theoretischen Ansätze zur Erklärung unterschiedlicher Beiträge zur Hausarbeit bei
Frauen und Männern dargestellt. Der Einfluss politischer Maßnahmen auf die
familiale Arbeitsteilung soll im Rahmen eines neu zu entwickelnden
Regulationsansatzes modelliert werden.
In Kapitel 5 wird die Studie "Geschlechtsspezifische Arbeitsteilung im vereinten
Deutschland 2000" (Gender division of labour in unified Germany, 2000)
beschrieben. Im Sommer 2000 wurden in einer repräsentativen Stichprobe
(mehrstufige Zufallsauswahl) 2019 Haushalte in Westdeutschland und 982
Haushalte in Ostdeutschland ausgewählt, in denen telefonische, standardisierte
Interviews (CATI) mit Personen durchgeführt wurden, die zwischen 20 und 50
Jahre alt und deutscher Nationalität sein mussten. Gegenstand des Interviews waren
unter anderem Zeitverwendung, Berufs- und Familienbiographie, Haushaltszusammensetzung, Einstellungen und Beziehungsqualität. Bei Personen, die mit
einer Partnerin oder einem Partner zusammenlebten, wurde auch die Partnerin bzw.
der Partner um ein Interview gebeten. In 1031 Haushalten konnten beide Partner
interviewt werden. Für die hier vorgestellten Analysen wurden allerdings nur die
Hauptinterviews benutzt.
In Kapitel 6 wird der Zeitaufwand, den Frauen und Männer im Haushalt betreiben,
für eine Reihe von Haushaltstypen berechnet und zum Teil mit älteren Daten
verglichen. Zwischen 1995 und 2000 hat sich die Verteilung der Hausarbeit in
Westdeutschland kaum geändert, in Ostdeutschland ist die Verteilung dagegen
2
traditioneller geworden. Mit multiplen linearen Regressionsanalysen wird für
unterschiedliche Teilstichproben (alle Befragte, Paare, Paare mit Kindern)
untersucht, welche Faktoren den Zeitaufwand für die Hausarbeit und für direkte
Aktivitäten mit Kindern beeinflussen. Time-availability approach bzw. New home
economics werden bestätigt: Der wichtigste Prädiktor ist der Umfang der
Erwerbstätigkeit der Befragten. Aber auch Hypothesen der Rollentheorie und der
Ressourcentheorie werden zumindest zum Teil bestätigt. Politische Maßnahmen
(familienergänzende Kinderbetreuung und finanzielle Transfers wie Kindergeld
und Erziehungsgeld) haben nicht nur einen indirekten Einfluss (via Erwerbsbeteiligung), sondern auch einen direkten Einfluss auf Hausarbeit und
Kinderbetreuung. Die multivariaten Analysen bestätigen ebenfalls die
Traditionalisierung der Verteilung der unbezahlten Arbeit im Osten. Männer in
Ostdeutschland machen — im Vergleich zu westdeutschen Männern — deutlich
weniger Hausarbeit, als aufgrund ihrer liberaleren Orientierungen und der größeren
finanziellen Unabhängigkeit ihrer Partnerinnen zu erwarten wäre.
3
Abstract
In 1995, the Work and Organization Research Centre at the Catholic University of
Brabant in Tilburg, the Netherlands, organized a conference on "Work and Family
in Europe: The Role of Policies". The researchers participating in the meeting soon
agreed that there was a severe lack of data on the gender division of housework and
child care; they decided to start an ongoing collaboration on the topic and
established the European Network on Policies and the Division of Unpaid and Paid
Work. From 1995 to 2001, the Network was supported by a grant of the European
and the Dutch Science Foundation. One of the network’s prominent aims was to
conduct representative and comparable surveys on the gender division of unpaid
work in the countries of the European Union. In the meantime, surveys have been
conducted in Finland, Greece, Portugal, France, the Netherlands, and Germany.
The German study was prepared by Jan Künzler, Wolfgang Lipp (University of
Wuerzburg), and Wolfgang Walter (State Institute for Family Research at the
University of Bamberg) and supported by a grant of the German Science
Foundation DFG (No. LI 350/3-1).
In the present paper we report on the state of development of gender relations in
Germany: German unification in 1989 brought together two countries which
extremely differed with regard to both the extent of gender inequalities and to the
policies aiming at a modernization of gender relations. In international comparison,
the FRG and the GDR regularly occupied opposing ranks in all indicators of gender
inequality. Together with the scandinavian countries, the GDR formed a group of
modern countries with low inequality. Together with the mediterranean countries,
the FRG formed a group of traditional countries with high inequality. Chapter 1
gives an overview of the state of the modernization of gender relations in preunification Germany in international comparison.
Chapter 2 describes the political measures which are supposed to reduce or to
reproduce gender inequalities. We differentiate between paternalist and maternalist
measures. Paternalist policies support men’s traditional provider role. Maternalist
policies either enforce or reduce women’s traditional obligation to care for
dependent family members or relatives. In West German family policy, the
traditional elements have been dominant all the time. German unification transfered
the West German traditional policy mix to East Germany.
Chapter 3 reports on the development following East Germany’s adoption of the
West German policy regime. The findings are mixed. According to a longitudinal
analysis of the German General Social Survey ALLBUS, in East Germany there
was no wave of antifeminism as in the other postsocialist countries in Eastern
Europe. On the contrary: East Germans’ liberal attitudes became even more liberal
in the 1990s while West Germans’ traditional gender role attitudes persisted with a
growing gap between East and West Germany. Inequalities in education between
women and men have been reduced relatively early in East Germany but West
4
Germany followed in the meantime. At present, disadvantages of women totally
vanished at least in general schooling. In spite of the reduction of inequalities in
education, gender inequalities in labour market participation have not changed
much in West Germany. The high employment rate of women in East Germany
decreased in the post-unification period but until now it is still higher than the
employment rate of women in West Germany. Also, gender differences in wage
rates are lower in East Germany. The few studies on the division of housework
show a temporary modernization lead of the GDR which disappeared until the early
1990s. In the 1990s, both in East and in West Germany women spend twice as
much time doing housework as men.
Chapter 4 presents five approaches currently used in quantitative research aiming at
an explanation of differences in women’s and men’s contributions to housework:
new home economics, time-availability approach, resource theory, role theory, and
doing gender approach. We propose to include a regulation approach and
hypotheses on the effects of policies in future research.
In order to test hypotheses derived from the approaches mentioned above we
analyze data of the network study "Gender division of labour in unified Germany,
2000". The study is described in Chapter 5. In summer 2000 in a representative
sample (multistage random sampling) of n = 2,019 households in West Germany
and 982 households in East Germany, persons between 20 and 50 years of age and
of german nationality were interviewed by telephone (CATI) on various areas as
time use, employment history, family history, household composition, attitudes,
and marital quality. In case that a respondent was living together with a spouse, his
or her partner was asked for an interview, too. We got interviews by n = 1,031
couples. In this paper we exclusively rely on the interview of the first respondent.
Chapter 6 presents the findings of the study. We calculate weekly hours spent in
housework and child care in different types of living arrangements and households.
Compared to 1995, there were only minor changes in the division of housework in
West Germany but a marked traditionalization in East Germany. We search for
factors influencing the time spent in housework and child care using OLSregression analysis. Analyses confirm the hypotheses of time-availability approach
and new home economics: Time in housework and child care is reduced by time in
employment which is by far the most important predictor. Resource theory and role
theory are partially supported, too. Housework and child care time are not only
indirectly influenced by policies, i.e., additional child care and financial transfers
(e.g., child benefits): There are direct influences, too. Multivariate analyses confirm
the bivariate finding of a traditionalization in East Germany: Men in East Germany
spend less time in housework compared to men in West Germany taking into
account that their attitudes are less traditional and that their partners contribute a
higher share to household income.
5
6
Chapter 1
Germany’s position in the modernization of gender
relations
1.1
Introduction
This report on the division of paid and unpaid labour in contemporary Germany is
placed in a comparative and theoretical framework that aims at the explanation of
the state and the change of gender relations in European societies. This framework
is meant to provide answers to three interrelated questions.
First: What is the specific position of German society in the process of
modernizing gender relations? Or: What is the German path to more modern
gender relations? Modernization has led to a more equal sharing of life
opportunities and risks between the sexes in most developed countries, but from
different starting points and at a different pace. We chiefly discuss this question in
this chapter. Special attention is drawn to the post-war existence of two German
states and their subsequent unification. The post-war division of Germany led to
two distinct paths in the modernization of gender relations that are now in the
process of gradual transformation. Although the political, economic, and partly
even cultural order of West Germany is dominant in this transformation,
politically-unified Germany still bears the marks of its social division (see
Section 1.2).
The description of paths of modernization in Germany is subsequently put into
comparative perspective by the use of socio-political indicators which relate them
to the range of alternative models within the realm of the Western European and
OECD countries. As a consequence, two conceptual frameworks are reviewed that
include classifications of the paths of modernization (Section 1.3). The conclusion
derived from this theoretical and methodological discussion is that the framework
for assessing the division of labour in particular should take into account the
interrelations of different dimensions of gender inequality, namely the relevant
policies and the general pattern of social structures affecting the two genders. This
leads to the next query.
The second question is partly descriptive and partly heuristic in nature: What are
the general factors and dimensions that affect and encompass the gender division of
labour? In the second chapter (pp. 15ff.), we focus on the relevant policies. There
are two reasons for doing so. First, the frameworks of comparative study of
Western societies discussed in Section 1.3 suggest that policies have a predictive
and/or symptomatic role for gender inequalities. And, second, this study is a
product of the European Network on Policies and the Division of Unpaid and
Unpaid Work (hereinafter called Network), whose members have dedicated their
efforts to this very theme – a stance which, of course, has been influenced by the
7
views brought forward in the above-mentioned theoretical frameworks. In the third
chapter (pp. 41ff.) we discuss several dimensions of gender inequality, their state,
development and variation in terms of regional disparities (East-West) or other
social influences. In part, this already provides us with data on the division of
labour between the sexes as, e.g., in the section on employment; and, in part, the
conditions and intermediary factors affecting the division of labour, such as, e.g.,
educational attainment, are reviewed more thoroughly.
Up to this point, the whole analysis is more or less on the macro-level. We will
leave this level in the following chapters and attempt to answer a third question:
What are the predictors on the micro- or individual level that account for the
division of unpaid labour? Again, there are different influences in the course of our
research project that have led to this perspective. First, our research group belongs
to several European countries in which, in the course of the co-operation within the
Network, an extensive survey study has been undertaken. On the basis of a
common questionnaire, the main aspects of the gender division of labour are being
studied in this survey. The second influence which has led to the study of
conditions on the micro-level has also given it its specific direction, namely the
targeting of the division of unpaid labour. There is an extensive literature and a
group of theories devoted to explanations of the division of housework. In our
research project, we rely heavily on theoretical perspectives that will be reviewed
in chapter 4 (pp. 65ff.). Partly for pragmatic reasons and partly in order to make a
substantial contribution to the theoretical frameworks discussed in chapter 4, we
restrict our perspective to the division of unpaid labour.
The fifth chapter (pp. 73ff.) provides information on data and methods, while
chapter 6 presents descriptive and multivariate findings. In short, the division of
housework (and as we will show: the division of child care in the family) is — at
least partly and presumably — a combined result of the division of paid labour, the
demands of unpaid labour in the household, gender role orientations, the command
of resources, the incentives/disincentives set by policies and the attempt to display
a certain gender image. Therefore, the considerations in the chapters on policies
(pp. 15ff.) and gender inequalities (pp. 41ff.) are put in a different perspective.
They mutate from being an aspect of the gender division of labour on the
macro-level to predictors on the micro-level. Moreover, the first question on
Germany’s position in the process of modernization is viewed from a different
angle. In discussing the results of our study, we claim to show that the different
developments and multivariate relations in East and West Germany are part of a
double process: belated traditionalization (in the East) and restricted modernization
(in the West).
1.2
The two German states and gender relations
Due to the unification of East and West Germany in 1990, contemporary Germany
has become a very peculiar case for the study of modernization. The two regimes
8
that existed in the former GDR and the former FRG were opposed to each other in
scope as well as in depth: Institutionally, politically, economically, culturally, etc.
they became paradigms of the Western (democratic, capitalist) and the Eastern
(one-party politics, planned economy) paths to modernization. For a long time,
gender relations (and the differences between the two systems) offered a means of
distinguishing the two regimes.
West Germany, on the one hand, has been — for a long time — a paradigm of the
Continental European approach to family and gender relations under the auspices
of Catholicism, Conservatism, and corporatism. Although the reasons for and
causes of the Gestalt of gender inequality are seen differently in theories of gender,
comparative social policy and history, it is obvious that the unequal division of paid
and unpaid labour has its roots in cultural traditions, political measures and the
unequal distribution of resources between the sexes. These conditions have
contributed to the FRG’s position as a laggard in the modernization of gender
relations.
East Germany, or the former GDR, on the other hand, could be seen as an example
of enforced modernization under the auspices of Socialism, egalitarianism, and
centralism. The unquestioned GDR female model was the full-time employed
mother — a model that was supported not only by ideology and propaganda, but
also by employment policy, child care services, work schedule regulations, and
financial incentives.
Consequently, the two Germanys occupy rather opposite positions in the
"benchmarking" of gender relations. By classifying two criteria (the starting point
and the pace of change) for the assessment of the modernization of gender relations
into four classes (traditional, take-off, modernized, modern) and applying this
scheme to areas of gender inequality for which comparative empirical data are
available (education, gender role attitudes, labour force participation, division of
household labour), Künzler (1999a, pp. 215ff.) concludes that West Germany is
mainly a take-off country (with the exception of labour force participation, which is
traditional) and East Germany a modern country (with the exception of the
"modernized" state of inequality in educational attainment).
As is well known, German unification did not take place on equal terms. The West
German polity, legal, economic, and civil society systems were transferred to (or
imposed upon) East Germany. Although there is disagreement on whether the
political style has changed due to unification (from the "Bonn Republic" to the
"Berlin Republic"), there is no point in disputing that the structural characteristics
of the new FRG are — with only minor exceptions — identical with those of the
old one.1 It can be argued that this historical constellation has led to an assimilation
of the East German life course and habitus to the West German counterpart, which
implies its becoming more traditional — a hypothesis that will be partly supported
by the data presented in this report.
Because the West German gender regime seems to be the prevailing one in the
unequal competition that ended with unification, it deserves attention in terms of its
9
Gestalt and underlying conditions. First: What is the system of inequalities with
regard to gender? In feminist scholarship, several criteria have been discussed.
Besides the conventional criteria of social structure (educational attainment,
income, labour force participation, etc.), standards that are seen as specific for the
situation of women have been put forward, such as, e.g., the possibility to maintain
an autonomous household, anti-discrimination provisions or protection against
marginalization (Orloff, 1993; Ostner, 1998).
Not all of these dimensions are represented by indicators in comparative research.
And: Not all indicators correspond to unequivocal data sources and standardized
measures. Therefore, a compilation of empirical data in different areas is presented
that gives an overview of the position of West Germany in the process of
modernizing gender relations. For comparative reasons, data on these indicators for
East Germany, or the former GDR, are given, as well as the relative position of the
two countries in the respective set of industrialized and post-industrialized
countries, with a low rank indicating a rather traditional, a high rank, a rather
modern position.
Appendix-Table A1 compiles several indicators of gender inequality, mainly in
public policy (such as the availability of child care services) as well as outcomes of
these conditions or indicators of gender inequality per se (such as differences in
educational attainment, employment, etc.). The social policy variables can be
differentiated as financial support and support via services. For the first type of
public assistance, Germany2 displays relatively high ranks and values for the
support of non-earning wives, i.e., a relatively high difference in net income
between a one-earner couple and a single person (see indicators 6.1a-c)3 as well as
for the support of families with children (see indicators 6.2a-b, 3.1), although the
level of "economic intervention" into family functions is below average with
respect to the proportion of public spending to financially support families (in per
cent of the gross domestic product GDP, see indicator 9).4
The counterpart of these benefits are disincentives that take effect if the wife
becomes employed. In this case, the German tax and social assistance system
produces relatively high values in extra-marginal tax (see indicator 3.2), benefit
loss to unemployed husbands (see indicator 3.3) and difference between gross and
net income (indicator 6.3).
The second type of public support, the availability of social services, has the effect
of facilitating or hindering female labour force participation (and all the outcomes
thereof, such as income, self-sufficiency, self-esteem, or independence) by
indirectly assigning them the tasks of child care and care for other dependents.
Most notably, day care coverage as a percentage of the youngest age-group (< 3)
expresses this feature of the German welfare state with ca. 3% over different
sources and reference dates (see indicators 1.2, 8.1, 10). For pre-school children (in
the 1980s day care coverage was 60% of three to six year olds, see indicator 8.2),
recent changes in policy (see below) are not included in this indicator.5 Another
policy in this area is care for other dependents, measured by the provision of
10
home-help services for the aged, in which Germany ranks below average (see
indicators 1.3, 8.4), and of care institutions, in which it has at least an average
position (see indicators 8.3).
The final set of indicators that could be seen as predictors for the division of labour
are gender role attitudes.6 As indicator 12.1 shows, the level of modernity in this
respect in the younger cohorts of West Germany leans to the traditional side and is
below average, whereas East Germany leads the OECD countries.7
The outcomes of the modernization of gender relations, which can be seen as
dependent variables, display a rather clear-cut picture. West Germany is located in
the lower half of the ranking for educational attainment, labour force participation,
and the division of household labour, whereas East Germany is clearly in the upper
half.8
West Germany is in the lower half of the ranking for educational attainment (see
indicators 4.5, 11.1), labour force participation (indicator 13.1), the multiplied
score for female work desirability (indicator 4.6) and — notabene — the division
of household labour (indicators 14.1, 2.3).
1.3 Comparative frameworks for the modernization of gender
relations
The second part of the question on the position of Germany in the modernization of
gender relations is — to put it simply: Why? The question is tricky, though, as not
only the causes or predictors have to be found, but also an assessment must be
made of its relative position. At best, the degree of modernization is only part of
this assessment. The concept of modernization suggests a seductively simple
answer, because it implies dichotomous classification, one-directional progress and
unequivocal evaluation. In order to give a more differentiated picture, we must use
various typologies that have been developed in the comparative analysis of gender
inequalities. We will discuss two of them in order to clarify the aspects that have to
be taken into account in explaining gender relations comparatively.
Esping-Andersen (1990, 1996, 1999) sees West Germany as a model of the
"conservative welfare-state regime"9 with its étatist-corporatist approach based on
employee social insurance ("Bismarck-model") intended to contribute to the
well-being of different classes which are regarded as part of a given societal order.
These classes or — as they were formerly understood: — "Estates" (Stände) are
constituted by their legal position (wage earner, salaried employee, civil servant, or
self-employed person) and/or their income level. Consequently, the welfare state
encourages the traditional "bourgeois" family model, which has been maintained by
offering only a low level of child care services and an level of financial support that
is — comparatively speaking — at most moderate to generous. In recent times, the
deficit in "state de-familialization", i.e., the lack of care services provided for
children and the elderly, has — in his view — blocked further modernization.
Continental Europe has welfare states where there is no work and few children,
11
because it is not creating enough jobs in the service economy and because women
(especially the highly-qualified) are opting out of family formation in order to
pursue their careers.
Although this view has met with substantial criticism in feminist scholarship,
Esping-Andersen (esp. in 1999) claims that he can also explain the situation of the
"femina oeconomica" with his approach. However, his results are — at best —
ambiguous. On the one hand, Esping-Andersen provides us with an ambitious
explanatory claim in which causes (such as, e.g., paternalist policies adopted by
conservative elites or the structure of welfare state arrangements vis-à-vis market
and family) are clearly distinguished from outcomes — the social and financial
situation of the (male and female) population that they are meant to account for. On
the other hand, he cannot avoid the pitfalls of a one-directional concept of
modernity, in which all he can explain is almost exclusively: the difference
between the Scandinavian countries and the others.10
An alternative to the regime-typology is the earner model concept propounded by
Lewis and Ostner (Lewis & Ostner, 1994; Ostner, 1995a, 1995b). They have
discussed the German case (along with, e.g., Great Britain, Ireland or the
Netherlands) as an example of the "strong wage-earner model" which expresses the
norm of the traditional division of labour between the sexes, which is reinforced by
several social policy provisions such as income taxation, child care supply or
parental leave. The typology also includes the effects of this normative
arrangement. Consequently, labour force participation or the social status of
women (or subgroups as lone mothers) are indicators for the earner model.
On the one hand, Lewis and Ostner provide us with a classification that is directly
applicable to questions of gender inequality and therefore combines the relevant
dimensions in a more pronounced way. On the other hand, it implies a homogeneity
within the indicators that cannot be attributed to, e.g., the relation between child
care policies and gender role attitudes that both contribute to the gendered division
of labour (see Künzler, 1999a; Künzler, Schulze, & van Hekken, 1999). In other
words, although the earner model concept allows for the co-existence of different
modes of gender relations in modern societies, it is, at least in this respect, also
one-directional.
There are at least two dimensions with which these approaches can be compared.
The first is the degree to which independent and dependent variables are
distinguished. One could call this aspect "explanatory ambition". Esping-Andersen
scores high on this dimension — and falls short of the expectations raised by his
theory. Nevertheless, both formally and substantively, he does differentiate
between independent variables, historical ones such as class coalitions, as well as
institutional ones such as public policy profiles, and dependent variables, i.e.,
de-commodification, restructuring of social inequality and women’s participation in
the labour force and the family. A theory of this format has two methodological
consequences. First, independent variables on the macro-level have to be found that
represent general characteristics of the societies to be compared, such as, e.g., the
12
public policy profile. Second, a theory has to be formulated that expresses the
effects of these macro-variables on behaviour at the micro-level.11
The second dimension for comparing the approaches is found in their
appropriateness for explaining the gender division of labour. Highly adequate for
this task is Lewis’ and Ostner’s approach, which involves assembling
comprehensive information on the most important aspects of gender inequality.
Methodologically, this requires the compilation of typological indicators that cover
both the conditions of gender inequality, e.g., the provision of child care, and
gender inequality per se, e.g., labour force participation.
Reflecting on the strengths and weaknesses of the two approaches, one can see that
the empirical analysis of the gender division of labour has to integrate them. In our
effort to locate the German case in a comparative framework, we will use the
overall framework of policies, as well as other gender indicators (educational
attainment, gender role attitudes, etc.) as hypothetically related to it. Additionally,
we aim at a preliminary explanatory model to reveal the most powerful predictors
of the gender division of labour on the micro-level.
13
14
Chapter 2
Policies affecting the gender division of labour
In this chapter, we will focus on the social provisions of the West German welfare
state (see for an exception the section on child day care, pp. 28ff.) which have been
extended to East Germany since unification. These provisions currently have an
impact on the gender division of labour. However, there are two reasons to also
discuss the relevant measures of the former GDR. First, they might have an indirect
effect on the recent situation insofar as they influenced the life courses, attitudes,
resources of the population in East Germany. Second, a comparison of policies in
West and East can help us understand the specific West German family policy
profile. Therefore we conclude the two parts on paternalist and maternalist policies
with a section on differences between East and West (see pp. 37ff.).
Generally speaking, the West German welfare state as a system of objectives,
institutions, policies and incentives favours a traditional division of labour between
the sexes. The concept of the strong male wage-earner model (Lewis, 1992, Lewis
& Ostner, 1994; Ostner, 1995a, 1995b) is a good starting point for a description and
analysis of the way social policies influence the life chances and life courses of
women. Role models for men and women, namely to be/become wage-earners and
homemakers, respectively, are embedded in the social provisions of the West
German welfare state and operate as normative preconditions for the gender
division of labour. After the elimination of most types of legal discrimination
against women,12 the bulk of policies affecting the gender division of labour are
economic and ecological in nature, i.e., incentives/disincentives and
provision/non-provision of social services. With respect to the addressees, the
policies that help to enforce gender role models can be termed "paternalist" and
"maternalist".13
Paternalist policies strengthen the economic position of men who provide for their
wives and children (compared to single men and women in the labour force). They
belong to the core of the typically German "social policy" (Sozialpolitik) from
Bismarck’s time onward. The different forms of social insurance14 have been
justified by the provider role of the male wage-earner that is to be supported,
supplemented and substituted for by public policy. Therefore, they include family
supplements in benefits (unemployment insurance), benefits without payments (for
non-employed wives and minor children in the health insurance system, or parental
years in the pension system) or derived benefits (widows’ pensions) (cf., e.g.,
Alber, 1986). The financial support of families that forms the core of the explicit
family policy agenda (Gerlach, 1996; Münch, 1990) is also defined as a
compensation for the family burdens (Familienlastenausgleich) of the chief
wage-earners.
15
The counterparts to paternalist policies are maternalist policies. Maternalist policies
have come to the attention of feminist historians in recent years (Joosten, 1990;
Moeller, 1993). They consist only in part of maternity protection for health reasons
(Halbach, Paland, Schwedes, & Wlotzke, 1994, pp. 274ff.).15 Mainly, they support
the traditional division of labour in care work (for children and other dependents).
In this respect, they are only in part an element of the explicit family policy agenda;
partly they are consequences of "non-decisions". There are three elements of
German family policy which should be mentioned: parental leave legislation, day
care services for children and regulations for the care of frail elderly persons. As
will be shown below, each of these political measures contributes to the traditional
division of labour in several ways: by strengthening the social and/or financial
position of (full-time) mothers (compared to childless women and women in the
labour force), setting symbolic and practical preferences for certain care
arrangements, re-defining opportunity costs for home-makers, creating transaction
costs for pursuing alternative strategies, impeding change by dispersing jurisdiction
to different arenas, avoiding incentives for change. To put it more simply: They
work as an institutionalized arrangement to maintain the traditional division of care
work.
To sum up: It is a more or less implicit normative assumption in the traditional
family model that women should be wives, and wives should be mothers, and
mothers should not be employed,16 which means that, in a strict sense, no woman
should be in the labour force, and unpaid work and caring activities are — more or
less — solely women’s tasks. Although the German system does not constitute an
ideal type, we will show that the German welfare state comes very near to being
one. Table 1 gives an overview of the structure of the presentation of policies.
Table 1:
Policy
Function
1.
Paternalist
Policies
Policies affecting the gender division of labour in the FRG
Policy Area
Policies
Marriage benefits Taxation
Family benefits
Other marriage
benefits
Child benefit and tax
credit
Other family benefits
Lone mother
benefits
Advance payment of
child maintenance
Assistance to unwed
mothers
Social assistance
16
Effect
Opportunity costs of home-makers
Strengthening of the earner’s role
Opportunity costs of home-makers
Strengthening the earner’s role
Opportunity costs of home-makers
Strengthening the earner’s role
Opportunity costs of home-makers
Strengthening the earner’s role
Opportunity costs of lone motherhood
Opportunity costs of lone motherhood
Opportunity costs of lone motherhood
Capacity to maintain an autonomous
household
Policy
Function
2.
Maternalist
Policies
Policy Area
Maternity
protection
Parental leave
Policies
Pregnancy protection
Pregnancy leave
Maternity leave
Maternity-leave
benefit
Child-raising leave
period
Child-raising benefit
Child-raising period in
old-age insurance
Sickness leave
Child day care
Elderly care
Work Schedule
Sources:
2.1
Provision of day care
Long-term care
insurance
Working-time
reduction
Other work-related
areas
Effect
Combining work and family
Strengthening the care giver’s role
Sequential compatibility
Opportunity costs of home-makers
Opportunity costs of home-makers
Strengthening the care giver’s role
Combining work and family
Strengthening the care giver’s role
Opportunity costs of home-makers
Strengthening the care giver’s role
Opportunity costs of home-makers
Combining work and family
Combining work and family
See below.
Paternalist policies
By definition, paternalist policies strengthen the position of the "pater familias".
The core of these policies in Germany consists of benefits intended to relieve the
financial burden on families of the direct and indirect costs of having children. As
an indirect child cost, the reduction or giving up of employment for the sake of
child-raising is targeted by these measures, too. Thus, family benefits indirectly
work as a disincentive for female employment. Besides family benefits, two policy
areas are considered in this section. Marriage benefits are an analogous measure
aiming to support the traditional wage-earner/home-maker marriage by lowering its
opportunity costs. Lone mother benefits are the counterpart of paternalist policies.
Whereas "positive" paternalism institutionalizes women’s dependence on their
husbands, lone mother benefits provide an opportunity for women to maintain an
autonomous household despite the father’s absence from the home. Although the
aims of the two policies seem to be directly opposed to each other, they share the
same ideological background, as we explain below.
2.1.1 Marriage benefits
There are two categories of marriage benefits. While taxation has effects on the
whole population, some minor benefits, such as those in social insurance or
supplements to wages and salaries in the public sector, are of a more restricted
scope.
17
Taxation. The traditional one-earner marriage is favoured by the combined effects
of three elements in the tax code. Joint taxation aggregates the incomes of spouses
and taxes it together. Combined with the progressive tax rate, this leads to
disadvantages for two-earner couples, especially for low- and middle-income
families, because there is a large difference between the marginal tax rate for two
separate incomes and that for a single income. The splitting system favours the
traditional division of labour even more. The aggregated income of the spouses is
divided by two. The tax rate valid for this halved income, in most cases resulting
from the progressive tax rate, especially for middle and high-income families, is
lower than when combined income is used to determine the total tax amount to be
paid. There are two effects resulting from this regulation. The splitting advantage is
greater the higher the aggregate income of the spouses and/or the greater the
difference between the two incomes — and vice versa. The extreme case with the
greatest advantage is — of course — the traditional marriage with one spouse,
usually the wife, not employed in the labour market.
In 1999, taxation started at incomes above 13,060 German Marks (DM) annually
for singles, 26,130 for married couples, and 38,010 for married couples with two
children (see Appendix-figure A1). The progressive rate started with a marginal tax
rate of 23.9% and climbed to 51% for incomes over 120,000 / 240,000 DM
(single/married). The curve of the tax rate 1999 (for singles) is given in Figure 1.1.
With a yearly income of 60,800 DM17, a single person has a marginal tax rate of
35.6% and an overall tax rate of 24.1%, so that he/she has to pay 14,627 DM in
income tax. With the same income, a married couple has a marginal tax rate of
29.4% and a tax rate of 15.7% (the tax rate can be calculated from the figure by
dividing income by two and applying the tax rate of the halved income to the full
one), reducing their income tax to less than two thirds (9,504 DM). From the
viewpoint of economic rationality, this means that it is easier for married couples to
reach a higher net income on a given gross income or a preferred net income on a
lower gross income if they choose the traditional division of labour. Therefore, the
division of labour can be partly accounted for by politically regulated incentives.
To illustrate the point, Table 2 shows the effects for three income levels: the
income at which taxation for a married couple with two children starts, the average
household income of a salaried employee and that of a self-employed person (see
note 17).
18
Table 2:
Effects of tax splitting for spouses and child tax credit
Category
Family status
Start of
taxation
Single, no children
Couple, no children
Couple, 2 children
Gross
income
Tax
rate
in %
38,010 19.2
38,010 9.6
38,010
0
Marginal
tax rate
in %
30.7
27.8
24.1
Net
income
Net Relation
gain absolute
in %
/ in %
30,715 Base
34,349 11.83
3,661
38,010 23.75
100.74%
50,642 Base
Single, no children
67,900 25.4
37.0
Married couple, no
Middle level
67,900 17.9
29.6
55,744 10.07
children
income
Married couple, two
4,022
67,900 15.0
29.6
59,766 18.02
children
78.83%
Single, no children
172,800 39.8
52.8
104,058 Base
Married couple, no
Higher
172,800 28.6
42.6
123,472 18.66
children
income level
Married couple, two
5,772
172,800 27.4
40.7
129,244 24.20
children
29.73%
Note: Income figures in DM, 1999 tax code, calculation does not consider individual deductions,
start of taxation rounded off to 10 Marks. Net gain is the difference between the net income of the
respective family status and the respective base net income (bold) as a percentage of the latter.
E.g.: The last-reported net gain of 24.2% is (129,244-104,058)/104,058*100). Absolute Relation
is the difference in DM between net income of a couple with two children and a childless couple.
Relation in % (italics) is the difference between the net gain due to children and the net gain due
to marriage (in the respective income category) as a percentage of the latter.
Source: Own calculation of net income using www.lexware.de/cool/esttarif.asp.
There are two changes accompanying increasing income. First, the net gain in net
income (as a percentage of the income of a single person without children) for a
married couple increases with income. In other words: The wife of a high-income
husband is more valuable in the tax code.18 The net gain for two children also
increases with total income. But, second, the net gain due to children is smaller
than that due to marriage19 and, moreover, the relation between the two diminishes
with rising income. This means that under the tax code children are less valuable
than wives and that — despite progressive taxation, which is intended to raise the
net gain due to the child tax credit — the actual added benefit due to children,
which rises less steeply than that due to marriage, is rather small. In other words:
By reducing the marginal tax rate, splitting partly "consumes" the net gain due to
The tax credit for children (see Münch, 1990, p. 83). To sum up: As the examples
show, the German tax system has developed strong incentives for a traditional
division of labour that, moreover, increase with rising income. Therefore, the
middle and upper classes may be influenced in their labour force participation and
division of household labour by the political creation of opportunity costs.
19
As comparative research on the married-female labour supply has shown, this
combination of joint taxation, progressive income taxes and splitting works as a
disincentive for female employment (see, e.g., Gustafsson & Bruyn-Hundt, 1991).
Moreover, the proportion of this measure for all programs that support families is a
good indicator of the priority assigned to upholding the traditional division of
labour. In 1996, marriage taxation accounted for a 25.3% share (in absolute figures:
41.1 billion DM) of the public tax policies for marriage and families (Lampert,
1998, p. 349). Because many childless couples benefit from split taxation, it has
frequently been criticized as contrary to the declared goals of German family policy
(e.g., Münch, 1990, pp. 82f.; Pfaff & Kerschreiter, 1982). Despite this criticism and
some minor changes, the measure has been upheld because of the strong
ideological stance on the traditional marriage taken by the Christian-Democratic
parties. There are many observers who claim that the splitting system is even
protected by the German constitution, in which marriage and the family as
institutions are placed under the guardianship of the state.
There is one minor detail that is significant for the deeply-rooted traditionalism of
the German tax code. If both spouses work, the general tax credit, which includes a
subsistence minimum, can be divided between husband and wife. Legislators
assumed that there would normally be a difference in income, so that — besides the
50/50 split of the tax credit — another split is possible on a 60/40 basis. Although
this does not influence the taxation of aggregate income, it gives the monthly
pay-check of the husband, who usually takes the 60% share, a higher net value.
Other marriage benefits. There are many other benefits which, although they are
of a minor nature and have direct or indirect effects, nevertheless taken as a whole
contribute to substantially supporting the traditional division of labour in marriages.
To name a few:
ƒEvery employed person in Germany (except civil servants, self-employed
people, and employed persons earning more than — currently — 6,450 DM) is
enrolled in a mandatory health insurance program. Spouses (usually wives) who
are not gainfully employed are covered by this insurance at no extra charge.
Every civil servant is partly privately insured and receives a health subsidy. The
spouses of civil servants are entitled to a health subsidy if they do not work
outside the home or earn less than — currently — 30,000 DM a year.
ƒFor civil service employment, there are wage supplements that take into account
the family situation of the employee (i.e., wage earner, salaried employee or
civil servant) which leads to a modest increase due to marriage.
ƒAlthough the regulation of the financial consequences of divorce is rather
complicated, the general principle of "continuing solidarity" results in financial
support of the spouse if (and to the degree that) he or she has been engaged in
housekeeping and/or child-raising.20
20
ƒIf a husband or wife dies, the surviving spouse receives a widows/widowers
pension.
In all these cases, the benefits result in a subsidy for the traditional marriage. Not
only the current situation in a marriage, but also the expectations of future benefits
from marriage reflect the advantages extended to the wage-earner/home-maker type
of marriage.
2.1.2 Family benefits
Child benefit and tax credit. Child benefits, introduced in 1955, have gone
through several changes over the past 45 years. Child benefits were originally
abolished by the Allied Occupation Forces after the defeat of the National Socialist
regime in 1945, because they were regarded as an instrument of fascist population
policy. From the beginning, there has been an ideological debate on the purpose of
this measure. As natalist arguments were not permitted as a justification for the
benefit, two competing views have determined the debate. In the conception of the
political left, child benefits should contribute to reducing inequalities between
social classes. Thus, they would have to decrease with increasing income (or be
phased out for families in higher income brackets). In the conception of the
political right, i.e., the Christian-Democratic parties, the measure should reduce the
inequality between families and households without children. Consequently, it
should increase with income, because needs are different in every class. Although
the current regulation is a sort of compromise between the two, the basic principle
of the latter conception prevailed in the form of a tax credit for children, from
which the child benefit is only derived. Given a progressive income tax, a child is
— literally — more valuable in a high-income family than in a low-income one.
Originally, after the third child the benefit was paid by the employer. In 1961, a
child benefit for the second child, financed by the Federal Government, was
introduced. From 1964 on, the child benefit/tax credit was drawn from this budget.
The Social-Democratic government suspended the tax credit in 1975, while
increasing the child benefit and introducing it for the first child. The
Christian-Democratic government restored the tax credit in 1983. The so-called
"dual model", i.e., a combination of tax credit and benefit, once again came into
effect. There have been two major driving forces behind the increases documented
in Appendix-Table A2. The first has been politics. In every election year (or one
year before or after), increases have taken effect — with the exception of 1969 —
accounting for 43 of the 73 increases.21 The second has been the Constitutional
Court. Especially the decisions of May 29, 1990 and of June 12, 1990, which
stipulated that the minimum subsistence level of adults and children cannot be
taxed, and of November 10, 1998, which stated that all families are entitled to a
"child care tax credit" (from 2000 on) and a "child-raising tax credit" (from 2002
on), were of special importance in this respect. These combined influences have led
21
to a substantial, but — for many observers — inadequate increase in the child
benefit/tax credit (see Appendix-Table A2).
Since 1996, under the so-called "option model", most families receive a child
benefit on a monthly basis, while high-income families can choose a tax credit as
an option. In any case, the annual income-tax statement determines whether a
family can claim the tax credit (and, thus, higher benefits). Due to changes in
legislation on child benefits and tax credits, the range of families which can take
advantage of the tax credit has changed in the last few years (Appendix-Table A3).
While, due to the increase in the child benefit, the relative advantage of
high-income families has been gradually diminishing in the past few years (from
39% in 1996/7 to 22% in 1998/9) and the number of entitled families (additionally
through changes in the tax rate) has also been declining, the 2000 increase in the
tax credit has made it more advantageous for more families. Although this measure
is not intended to further a traditional division of labour and although it only
partially fulfils its main function of relieving families (or their wage earners) of
their financial burden, it has the side effect of helping families make ends meet
without a second earner providing for the subsistence of the children. For a typical
family with two children, the 540 DM child benefit is only slightly lower than the
net income that could be earned in a part-time job (to which — in most cases —
mothers’ employment is limited, given the low level of institutional child care
provision) held by a low or moderately skilled woman. The picture is different for
high-income families. Although they might not have financial problems and
although there should be a substantially higher net income, relatively speaking,
they can raise their allowance via tax credit up to 844 DM for two children.
Whether families with different income levels are influenced by these incentives is
a matter of dispute.
Two other tax credits relevant in this respect have been generalized recently. In
both cases, the special tax credits were formerly available only to single or
unmarried parents, but have now become — through Constitutional Court rulings
— an entitlement of all families. The rationales for the decision were that besides
the subsistence minimum, certain costs of raising children have to be considered as
non-taxable income and that families with married parents should not be
discriminated against. The first is the "child care tax credit", already included in the
tax credit for children (see Appendix-Table A2). It covers demand for child care,
whether provided in the form of institutional child care, family care or parental
home care. The second is the "child-raising tax credit", which relates to the costs of
goods and services necessary for raising children (such as toys, music lessons,
books, etc.). Legislation is pending within the coming year, because the
Constitutional Court has ruled that it must be provided to all parents until
January 1, 2002.
The general tax credit, the two specific credits and their joint development display
an important aspect of the financial support of families in Germany. Families are
regarded as having specific financial needs that must be partly covered by state
22
provisions. The rationale for this political and legal strategy of "compensation for
family burdens" (Familienlastenausgleich) is that the specific "contribution" of
families to society is child-raising and creating the human capital that is necessary
for the continued functioning of society. The official political guideline is that
families should be supported in this task, especially by reimbursing costs incurred
in child-raising. The policy strategy legitimated in this way has led to a reduction in
the opportunity costs of women engaged in homemaking.
Other family benefits. Other family benefits follow the scheme of the marriage
benefits (see pp. 17ff.). Some measures partially unburden male wage-earners:
ƒMinor children who are not gainfully employed are covered by the statutory
insurance at no extra charge. Every civil servant receives a health subsidy for
his or her children, if they are not fully insured or for medical services that are
not or cannot be insured by statutory or voluntary insurance. The proportional
coverage of this subsidy increases with the number of children.
ƒThere are wage supplements for civil service employees with children.
Other regulations partially compensate for the loss of one family wage-earner, such
as alimony regulation under divorce law or orphans’ pensions.
While these instruments provide aid to minor children, there are additional benefits
that target the parents of older children.
ƒThere is a tax credit for vocational training (Lampert, 1998, p. 346) paid to
parents with minor children in training outside their parents’ household
(1,800 DM per year), as well as for children older than 17 years living in or
outside their parents’ household (2,400 DM / 4,200 DM, respectively).
ƒPupils in upper secondary classes of grammar schools and university students
are supported by a means-tested grant of up to 1,030 DM (East Germany:
1,020 DM). In 1998 about 45% of all university students received support under
the Federal Training Assistance Act which was less than in 1993 (Statistisches
Bundesamt, 2000g, p. 82); fewer students received this assistance in West
Germany than in the East (26.8% compared to 54.8% in 1994). Although the
grant is modest and has to be partly reimbursed, this support extends material
relief for the wage-earner to families of older children, as do free schooling, the
child benefit and the educational tax credit for children.
2.1.3 Lone mothers benefits
Benefits for lone mothers represent the counterpart of breadwinner policies. The
ability to found and maintain an independent household (Orloff, 1993) and the
social position of lone mothers (Hobson, 1994) are prominent indicators in feminist
comparative welfare state research. As is to be expected, policies providing
guarantees for the financial situation and social well-being of lone mothers are
scarce and stigmatized.
23
In 1996, 4% of all family households (including married couples without children)
in Germany were headed by lone parents; the rate in East Germany was higher
(8%), than in West Germany (3%). The majority of lone parents (86%) were female
(Engstler, 1998, pp. 43ff.). In the former GDR, early family formation and high
divorce rates led to a higher incidence of lone parents. Given the economic
independence of most mothers in the former GDR, their financial situation was
better compared to their West German counterparts. Moreover, stigmatization of
lone motherhood was not as prevalent as in West Germany.
Advance payment of child maintenance. This measure is intended to secure the
financial support of children for whom the maintenance payment by the
non-cohabiting parent, i.e., in most cases: the father, is not being paid (cf.
Bundesministerium für Arbeit und Sozialordnung, 1998, p. 616; Gerlach, 1996,
pp. 208-210). Since 1980 children under 12 in this situation are entitled to advance
payment for up to three years, since 1994 up to 6 years; that amounts to 189 DM /
257 DM (East) and 220 DM / 296 DM (West) for children under six and between
six and twelve, respectively. This means, that the amount is only as high as the
child benefit or even lower.
Assistance to unwed mothers. In order to help pregnant women in special
emergency and conflict situations that tend to lead them to consider having an
abortion, a Federal foundation, Mother and Child for the Prevention of Unborn
Children was established (1984) and subsequently extended to East Germany
(1994) (Gerlach, 1996, p. 209). Additionally, most federal states established their
own foundations with the same purpose. However, there is no entitlement to this
support and it is, in most cases, limited to a lump sum payment of several hundred
DM. The majority of affected women are unwed. It has been criticized that the
decision-making of the foundations is arbitrary and degrades women to the status
of paupers.
Social assistance. Many lone mothers are unable to work or to be employed
sufficiently to reach the subsistence level because of having to care for their
child/children without adequate support, especially by child care facilities.
Therefore, a high percentage of lone mothers live below the poverty line. Besides
support by their kin, for most of these mothers social assistance is the last resort.
Social assistance is a means-tested benefit that is to guarantee the socio-cultural
minimum of subsistence. In practice, maintenance obligations take priority over
social assistance. Unwed mothers have no legal claim against the father; only their
children have. Because of the life-long maintenance obligation between first-grade
descendants, the parents of the mother have responsibility, even over against their
adult daughter. In practice, the parents of the recipient of social assistance have to
disclose their financial situation and to reimburse part of or the whole amount of
social assistance, depending on their solvency. Although poor mothers are granted
24
social assistance and, thus, are able to maintain a minimum standard of subsistence,
this policy humiliates and stigmatizes the recipients, as they are torn between
dependence on their parents or the state, which acts as a surrogate father. In this
way, social assistance reinforces the breadwinner model by not providing a decent
alternative for lone mothers.
Social assistance is also a good indicator for the risk of poverty and the outcomes
of the paternalist benefits described in Section 2.1. As Appendix-Table A4 shows,
being a lone mother poses a clear risk of falling below the poverty line as defined
by the Social Assistance Act. Households with children have a higher poverty risk
than households without children. The more children there are in a household, the
higher the poverty risk. Lone mothers face a much higher risk of becoming poor.
And there is a higher incidence of poverty in West Germany than in the East.22 All
these trends point in the same direction if we look at the duration of support. These
patterns combined, those with the highest risk of being poor are West German lone
mothers with three or more children, of whom almost one half receive social
assistance for almost three years without interruption on average. In terms of
opportunity costs, this means that it is economically rational for a German woman
to choose marriage, the (in principle) life-long financial support of her husband,
which is subsidized by the state and — as a side effect — the corresponding
inequitable division of labour.
2.1.4 Conclusions
The official and often cited rationale for the policies described in this section under
the heading "paternalist" is to secure financial support and to grant equity to
families vis-à-vis persons and households without children. Although some
progress has been made, esp. in the last decade, in furthering this process, the data
presented above (Appendix-Table A4) give a sobering picture of the outcomes.
Despite all efforts to subsidize families according to their needs, policies of
financial support have not succeeded in even altering poverty rates. Again, this is
— despite the best intentions associated with these policies — a good indicator that
their main effect does not lie in the realm of subsistence, but in the contribution to a
traditional division of labour.
2.2
Maternalist policies
Because there is no longer a clear-cut role ascription to women, wives and mothers
in the law (see note 12), the term "maternalist policies" needs some consideration.
It has a historical meaning referring to times in which discrimination against
women was openly expressed in laws and policies. Today — and this our rationale
for using it — it refers to the fact that the caregiver role which is the object of these
policies is still mainly performed by women.
We discuss six areas: maternity protection, parental leave, work schedule, child
care and elderly care. The tax credit for paid household help, a very ambiguous
measure that is difficult to classify, is considered in a concluding section.
25
2.2.1 Maternity protection
The rationale of the Maternity Protection Act "is to protect a mother in paid
employment and her unborn child from dangers, excessive demands, and damage to
health, as well as from financial set-backs and from loss of her job" (Halbach et al.,
1994, p. 231; for the following ibid., pp. 231ff.). For the protection of health before
and after birth, there are regulations on the design of the work place and on suitable
forms of work, a ban on additional hours, night work and Sunday work, a ban on
specific forms of work (heavy physical work), an absolute ban on work six weeks
prior to delivery (pregnancy leave) and 8 (to 12, in case of premature or multiple
births) weeks after (maternity leave, see also Gerlach 1996, p. 205; Lampert, 1998,
pp. 90f.). Wage protection is accomplished by a maternity wage for mothers who
have to give up work because of a specific ban, a maternity leave benefit provided
by social health insurance plus a supplement from the employer for the absolute
ban on work before and after birth, which amount to the net income of the
expectant mother. Finally, there is employment sheltering qua protection against
dismissal during pregnancy and up to the end of four months after birth.
Although these measures are aimed at mothers in paid employment, they are a
safeguard for the caregiver role. The intention is to enable working women who are
expecting a child to fulfil their duties as mothers. It has often been suspected that
these regulations, along with others (parental leave, etc.), contribute to
discrimination against women in the labour market, despite or even because of their
anti-discriminatory character. Because employers may foresee possible
disadvantages of hiring women, they might not give them an equal chance of being
hired. Although there is no unequivocal evidence, the possibility that these
measures contribute to the traditional division of labour cannot be dismissed.
Concerning the discriminatory nature of the legislation intended to protect women,
it should, however, be noted that most bans on employment that were in effect in
former times have been (and had to be) reduced to insignificance following the
tendency to enact equal opportunity in the law (see note 12).
2.2.2 Parental leave
In this section, parental leave in statutory law is discussed. Other forms of leave (by
collective agreements, in specific branches, etc.) will be summarized in the section
on work schedule policies.
Child-raising leave period. The core of the parental leave legislation is the Act on
the Payment of Child-raising benefits and Child-raising leave of 1986. It
established three complementary measures: child-raising leave, child-raising
benefit and child-raising period in the pension insurance. The rationale for this
legislation is to give an incentive for parents to provide care for their small
children. Every parent of a child under 3 who is in paid employment is entitled to
child-raising leave. This period has been gradually extended from an initial (1986)
ten months to three years; the primary caregiver who takes the leave can be
26
changed three times. During this period, the employee cannot be given notice. The
contract of employment is merely in suspension, and the employee has the right to
return to a job comparable to the one held before taking the leave. Additionally,
employees in the statutory health insurance program (about 90% of all employees)
and their children are freed from the obligation to pay contributions during in the
leave period. Employees on leave may work up to 19 hours per week.
While this provision is gender-neutral, only about two per cent of all parents who
take the leave are fathers (Vaskovics & Rost, 1999). Mainly, the reasons given for
this lie in the financial situation, because most husbands earn more money than
their wives, in gender role orientations and the fear of discrimination in the
workplace. Moreover, parental leave serves as a way of selectively excluding
women from the labour force. In the first years after the law took effect, about half
of the mothers taking the leave did not return to their job (Landenberger, 1991).
With the extension of the leave period to up to three years and the legal right for all
children between 3 and 6 to a place in a day care facility (since 1996), parents
should not face problems in finding a day care facility after the leave period.
Actually, a co-ordination problem remains, first because of lack of places in certain
regions or at the exact date when the parent wants to resume employment, second
because of the regular day care facility schedule, which merely allows children to
attend in the morning. Even part-time employment may be difficult to maintain
under these circumstances, as the transportation time involved in bringing children
to day care and picking them up again and the trip to and from the workplace have
to be added.
The gender inequality in leave taking is not only a reinforcement of the gender
difference in paid work, but also contributes to the deepening inequality in the
share of unpaid work. As has been shown in a panel survey of young couples, the
traditionalization of the division of labour that starts with the formation of the
family (birth of the first child) continues in later phases even if the wife eventually
resumes employment (Rost & Schneider, 1995).
The new Red-Green governing coalition at the national level has recently enacted a
revision of the Child-raising Benefit Act that applies to parents of children born
after December 31, 2000. These parents can take the renamed "parents’ time" while
working up to 30 hours per week (previously: 19 hours). They have a right to claim
part-time employment, and they can change the primary caregiver five times
(before: three times). The third year of leave can be taken up to or before the
child’s eighth birthday. Part of the amendment’s intention is to create incentives for
fathers to take the leave.
Child-raising benefit. A mother or father who is the primary care-giver and who is
not employed or works no more than 19 hours per week is entitled to a
means-tested flat-rate benefit until the child is 24 months of age. Again, the
rationale is the furthering of primary care-giving for young children. This
regulation is part of the (Federal) Child-raising benefit act and in some federal
27
states is supplemented by a federal state Child-raising benefit for the period after
the child’s second birthday. Although the maximum benefit is modest (up to
600 DM), it can mean a considerable amount of money to a family in which one
partner, usually the wife, has temporarily given up employment. However, the
income limits after the first six months are very low; many recipients lose the
benefit or have to face a reduction.
Child-raising period in old-age insurance. Along with the Child-raising benefit
act of 1986, a child-raising period was introduced. The primary carer of an infant
receives three child-raising years in old-age insurance (Lampert, 1998, p. 342). In
the pension, a supplement is taken into account valued as though the person had
paid contributions for a 75%, since 1992 a full average income during the three
years. The benefit has been extended to parents born after December 31, 1920 (see
for the history of the measure Münch, 1990, pp. 90ff.). In practice, the mother
automatically collects this benefit, unless the parents declare that the father shall be
the recipient.
Sickness leave. There is an entitlement to sickness leave for every employee in
statutory insurance up to 10 days per year (20 days for a single parent) for the care
of a sick child (no older than eleven years). Statutory insurance pays the health
insurance benefit (Lampert, 1998, pp. 237f.).
2.2.3 Child day care
Child day care is of central importance for the division of labour between the sexes.
While labour-supply theory focuses on the costs of child care as an important
predictor of women’s labour force participation, the West German child care
regime (cf. Gustafsson, 1994) provides its major disincentive for female
employment in the scarce supply of state-provided day care facilities (Kreyenfeld
& Hank, 1999). In accordance with the above-mentioned basic features of the West
German approach to family and gender, two principles govern the field of child
care in the FRG. First, as with parental leave, the combined ideas of family-centred
care for infants up to three and of the sequential compatibility of motherhood and
employment lead to the ascription of child care tasks to the mother, depending on
the age of the child. Consequently, the official political philosophy, sedimented in
the supply structure, sees day care for infants up to three mostly as an emergency
measure or very rare exception, for pre-school children between three and six as
supplementary and for school children as mostly superfluous. Second, the so-called
"subsidiarity principle" ascribes the task of providing day care for children to the
local municipalities and non-profit organizations (NPO), most of them affiliated
with one of the two major churches. For several reasons not to be discussed here
(cf. Kreyenfeld & Hank, 1999, pp. 9f.), this leads to a "supply-side" bias, which
means that not the (local) demand by parents but the political philosophy and the
28
readiness of the local governments and the NPOs determine how much child day
care is provided.
The demand for child care is determined by two sets of influences. As women are
the persons to whom the task of child-raising is primarily ascribed, their
preferences on time use are of foremost importance, esp. participation in education
and the labour force. In the following chapters it is shown that the younger cohorts
currently have intensified their participation rates in both respects. Therefore, more
day care is needed for the growing number of women engaged in training,
employment and careers. The second set of influences are subsumed under the
heading of fertility. The number of children born in a society shapes the need for
day care. As Appendix-Table A17 shows, fertility has been governed by different
trends. First, there is a secular trend of fertility decline that was increased by a
further drop since the mid-1960s (only partly shown in the table). Second, the
fertility indicators for East Germany were higher than those of West Germany
throughout the 1970s and 1980s. Although this may be a contested assertion, one
can attribute this difference to the development and implementation of pro-natalist
family policy measures in the former GDR (see page 37ff.). Third: While fertility
indicators in the West stayed at a low level since the end of the 1980s, they dropped
markedly in East Germany after unification and have been recently climbing again
without reaching the old level. These developments can be interpreted as rational
behaviour under changing circumstances. As the opportunity costs of homemaking
had risen (the value of employment and the risk of divorce have been rising), it has
become sensible for West German women to restrict the number of births, since
they regularly lead to the discontinuation of employment. Given the socialist family
policy of the GDR, the opportunity costs moved in the opposite direction. With the
end of this regime, subsequent insecurity caused a birth decline. This also means
that there is an inherent relationship between the birth-rate and day care, because
the supply of day care influences opportunity costs. Besides these systematic
circular relations of employment, day care and birth-rates, it is also noteworthy that
the overall demand for child care not only depends on the percentages of women
who work and/or give birth, but also on the number of women who are able to give
birth. The rising number of births in West Germany, which have drawn much
public attention in recent years, are related to the large number of baby-boomers
(born between 1955 and 1965), of whom many postponed family-formation and are
only now having their first child or subsequent children.
While aware of these intricate relationships, we rely in the following paragraphs
more on a crude ratio of use of day care or places in facilities, on the one hand, and
the number of children in different age-groups, on the other. In this section we will,
first, give an overview of recent developments in West and East Germany, second,
describe the development of the supply of day care with respect to the three agegroups and conclude with some considerations on the gender division of labour.
29
Unification and continuing divergence. Unification had a direct effect on and an
indirect outcome for the supply of day care. With the transformation following
unification, the abundant supply of day care facilities in the former GDR had to be
reduced. In the former GDR, most day care facilities were directly owned by the
state or — to a lesser degree (16%) — by state-owned enterprises. Because child
day care is assigned to towns and municipalities in the federal system of the FRG,
day care became a huge financial problem at the local level. The closing down of
many inefficient firms contributed to this problem. Especially the take-over of
facilities for school children, which are near to non-existent in West Germany,
resulted in great pressure for closing them (Wagner, Hank, & Tillmann, 1995, p. 3).
As Appendix-Table A8 indicates, this did not happen immediately and was not as
widespread as expected. In this table, percentages of children in different agegroups are given on the basis of the actual use of day care.23 Prior to unification
(1990), East and West Germany differed markedly in day care use for infants (East:
62%, West: 6%) and school children (East: 35%, West: 2%), both in the overall
level as well as in the use of full-time care (52% to 2%, 35% to 2% respectively).
The difference for pre-school children was smaller for the overall level (East: 98%,
West: 82%), but large for full-time use (80% to 21%). This reflects differences in
the two child care regimes. While West Germany relied on family care and
subsidiarity, East Germany expanded day care from the 1970s on under the
auspices of pro-natalism and the socialist ideal of the life-long, full-time employed
woman. In the first years after unification, there was a slight decline in overall day
care use for infants in East Germany. Followed by a sharp decline in 1994, it
remained around one third of all infants. The figures for full-time day care use
steadily dropped and stayed around 15%. Nevertheless, East Germany has higher
levels of day care use for infants than West Germany (8% overall, 1% full-time,
1998).
The decline in overall use of day care for pre-school children was only modest in
East Germany and approached the West German level of about 90%. Despite a
steady decline in full-time day care in this age-group, the level is still higher in East
Germany (51% in 1998) than in West Germany (20%). For school children, a
similar pattern can be discerned: a very modest decline in use (overall and full-time
use are by definition the same) and a marked difference between East and West
(30% to 5% in 1998).
With regard to the direct effect of unification on the decline of East German day
care facilities, one can conclude that it has not been as dramatic as expected by
many observers. Efforts to maintain a day care system which is seen by many East
German women as an achievement of the former GDR that should be preserved and
the sharp decline in birth rates (see Appendix-Table A17) after unification have
contributed to this result. However, it is surprising how marked the differences are
between East and West, esp. in day care for infants and school children. It can be
speculated that the high level of day care outside the home has contributed to a
30
persistent lead in women’s labour force participation in East Germany compared
with West Germany.
The second aspect of the development of day care mainly refers to that of West
Germany. Since the Unification Treaty left the East German abortion law in effect
and determined to reformulate a new one for unified Germany, the regulations
accompanying this amendment are an indirect outcome of unification. Of special
importance is a provision of this law which created an entitlement to day care
places for all pre-school children between three years and schooling from 1996 on.
The rationale for this measure was to give political support to families in an area
that has been neglected for a long time. Although, the measure has been watered
down in implementation (Künzler, 1998, pp. 116f.), it has contributed to an
increased use of day care for pre-school children from about 80% to about 90%
(Appendix-Table A8).
Day care for different age-groups. In this section, we discuss the day care supply
for different age-groups with respect to four main criteria: availability, costs, time
schedule and quality. It is our understanding that these dimensions taken together
are decisive in determining whether the supply of child care can contribute to a
more equal division of labour. Because of convenience and comparability, in this
section we use coverage level as the indicator for availability (for methodological
issues see note 23).
Traditionally, day care facilities for infants up to three (the German word for these
facilities: Krippen) are less developed in West Germany than day care for
pre-school children (Appendix-Table A9 vs. Appendix-Table A12). The coverage
level is so low that it could be considered non-existent. Prior to unification, there
was a difference in scale between West and East Germany with coverage levels of
2 % and 80 %, respectively. Before unification, there were also vast regional
differences in West Germany, with the city-states providing a large number of
places for this age-group (Appendix-Table A10). Coverage levels in 1990 ranged
from under 1% in Rhineland-Palatinate to 18% in Berlin (West), with the mean at
nearly 2%. Regional differences persisted after unification. Although some West
German federal states increased their supply of day care for infants, there was only
a small improvement to a mean of slightly less than 3% in 1998. After unification,
the high coverage level in East Germany was reduced from 54% in 1990 to 36% in
1998, but a big divergence from the West remained.
Day care in facilities is a rare exception in West Germany, costs are high and
quality standards are neither established nor enforced (Appendix-Table A11). The
alternative is family day care by child minders outside the home who are usually
called "day-mothers" (Tagesmütter). Although the children and youth welfare
agencies at the local level have to help in finding family day care and there is an
entitlement for some parents (e.g., lone parents who have to work) to the receipt of
this form of day care, it is not widely used. Moreover, it is a very unstable form of
day care (Tietze & Roßbach, 1993, pp. 147ff.).
31
In the 1950s and the 1960s day care facilities for pre-school children between three
and six (Kindergarten) were viewed in West Germany as disapprovingly as the
Krippen for infants, but both public perception and political attention have since
changed. Although conservative groups expressed reservations in the take-off
phase, they were expanded in West Germany, esp. in the 1970s and 1990s up to a
level of 69% in 1990 (Appendix-Table A12). This growth began earlier in East
Germany, but also peaked in the 1970s. However, in the former GDR this was
accomplished under the auspices of the pro-natalist family policy that was started
then. Shortly before unification the level was 95% in 1989.
The introduction of an entitlement for all children between three and six to a place
in a day care facility (see p. 31) from 1996 on should have raised the coverage level
to 100%. But as Appendix-Table A12 indicates, the coverage level of 87 % in West
Germany is below that goal, whereas in East Germany the coverage level surged to
an all time high of 112 %, due to a slowed decrease in day care places and an even
bigger decrease in demand by the plunging birth rate. Moreover, there are hints that
the expansion necessary under the new regulation has been achieved at the expense
of places for full-time day care (Künzler, 1998, p. 118) and of day care for infants
(Bundesministerium für Familie, Senioren, Frauen und Jugend, 1998, p. 200;
Tietze, 1998, pp. 44f.). As Appendix-Table A13 indicates, the regional differences
in coverage levels of day care for pre-school children between the Western federal
states in recent times have not been so marked as for the infants up to three.
Nevertheless, there are some differences and some more within the federal states
(not shown in the table).
Whereas previously the problem for mothers who sought day care for their
pre-school children was the uneven regional distribution of coverage levels, with
mothers in certain federal states and in towns (vs. in the country) having
comparatively better chances to find a place, the three problems now lie in the "fine
print" of an allegedly extensive day care system (see Appendix-Table A15). As
many mothers use the child-raising leave, the first problem arises when the child
turns three. Regularly, children at the age of three are admitted to Kindergarten
only at the beginning of the following school year. A mother who wants to keep the
right to return to her former employment needs day care from the third birthday on,
because her child-raising leave ends at that time. The second problem arises after
this hurdle has eventually been taken. Unlike most of the East German
Kindergarten, which still offer full-time day care (Appendix-Table A14; for
variations between the federal states, see Künzler, 1998, Table 7.5), the typical
West German counterpart is open only in the morning with an optional supplement
in the afternoon. In 1994, only 16% of all places in West German Kindergartens
were open full-time or half-days plus lunchtime, with a range from 3% in
Baden-Württemberg to 59% in West-Berlin (Künzler, 1998, Table 7.5). Although
efforts have been made to increase opening hours so that at least a half-day job is
possible, facilities that allow for this may not be available in every neighbourhood
or region. The third problem relates to all the times in which the day care demand
32
cannot be covered by the Kindergarten. Whereas when a child is ill parents can
take a limited sickness leave, there is no flexible solution if the Kindergarten is
closed, which is relevant during (parts of) the school holidays and certain additional
closing days.
Day care facilities for school children (Horte) in West Germany are rare and have
not been expanded to a noticeable degree (Tietze, 1998, pp. 46ff.; see
Appendix-Table A16). West Germany ranks in the lowest position in one
international comparison that is available (Appendix-Table A1, indicator 7.2).
Horte have to be provided by the schools under the jurisdiction of the federal states.
The primary schools in which the provision of day care is most relevant are run by
local municipalities. Coverage levels vary from 3% in Rhineland-Palatinate to 35%
in West-Berlin (1998). As with Krippen, Horte are seen as an emergency measure,
mainly for children of two-earner couples forced to work full-time, single parents,
and families with social problems.
In the former GDR, Horte were regularly provided by the state. Prior to unification,
there were places for every child for whom day care was sought. Official GDR
statistics stated a coverage level of 60% in 1989, declining from 92% in first grade
to 54% in fourth (Bundesministerium für Familie, Frauen, Senioren und Jugend,
1998, pp. 216ff.), and of 49% in 1990 (see Appendix-Table A16). Although the
number of places was subsequently reduced, the level in 1994 was still
considerably higher in the East than in the West (48 % to 6 %). As in the West,
Horte are nowadays provided by local schools.
For a long time, the transition of a child from Kindergarten to primary school
posed a serious obstacle for the mother’s employment (and every serious attempt to
plan family life) in West Germany. Primary schools followed an erratic time
schedule that bordered on absurdity. As a surrogate for the regular day care of
school children, there are efforts in most federal states to establish a so-called
"reliable" primary school. E.g., in North Rhine-Westfalia 80% of all primary
schools in 1997 secured either lessons or care within the time slot from 8 a.m. to 1
p.m., with other federal states ranging from 3% (Saarland) to 50% (Hamburg)
(Bundesministerium für Familie, Senioren, Frauen und Jugend, 1998, p. 217).
Because this trend is still developing, no exact figures or comprehensive
comparisons are possible (further information available from the authors).
Day care and women’s labour force participation. The supply of day care is a
crucial factor in women’s choices. Traditionally having the prime responsibility for
household, family and the up-bringing of children in both German societies,
women could choose employment under the East German welfare regime to a
degree that has been impossible for West German women. Without jumping to
conclusions, we might assume that the supply of day care at least facilitates
mothers’ labour force participation.
The decisive difference between the former GDR and the former FRG (before
unification) and, to a certain extent, between East and West Germany is how secure
33
this supply is or how much a woman can rely on its availability. In the centralized
system of the former GDR, day care places were guaranteed. Even if a mother
could not get a needed place, there were additional provisions for her support (see
Appendix-Table A5). Although the institutional basis was transformed, the
provision of day care has remained at a high level, thus being, at least, more secure
than in the West. There, every transition by a child from one age-group to another
results in several imponderables. Overall supply, time schedule, support in critical
situations (e.g., a child’s illness) are neither generous nor generally foreseeable nor
flexibly adapted to the needs of mothers.
There are several consequences for the typical life-courses of West German women
that are discussed in the relevant literature (Cornelius & Vogel, 1994; Kirner &
Schulz, 1992; Klein & Lauterbach, 1994; Lauterbach, Huinink, & Becker, 1994;
Mayer, Allmendinger, & Huinink, 1991; Merkle, 1994; Notz, 1994; Nyssen, 1990).
West German women tend, on the one hand, to have a more fragmented
employment biography. This is partly a direct consequence of policies, as in the
case with parental leave legislation (see also Landenberger, 1991), partly an
indirect outcome of the scarce child care supply. On the other hand, German
mothers, esp. career-oriented ones, have to organize day care for their children,
which supplements or substitutes for the lack of state-provided facilities.
Grandmothers, social networks, "day-mothers" and many fragile grey-market
arrangements belong in this category. The whole employment/day care dilemma
creates career-impediments for women and contributes to their opting out of
family-formation, i.e., the growing number of women who are (or choose to be)
childless (see Appendix-Table A17).
2.2.4 Elderly care
An often neglected dimension of gender inequalities in the division of unpaid
labour is the disparity in care for the frail elderly and ill family members, which is
mostly given by women. In Germany, the newly introduced statutory long-term
care insurance has since 1995 paid either care allowances for persons who provide
care at home or subsidies for care (either at home or in institutions). The amount
paid depends on the need for care that is determined by the medical experts of the
insurance companies. The respective law declares a preference for home care, thus
contributing to (West) Germany’s long tradition of supporting the caregiver role.
Currently, long-term care pertains to three to four per cent of all German
households (Appendix-Table A18). Whereas more than one million people receive
provisions under long-term care insurance, less than half a million persons are in
care institutions (ibid.). Although the two data are not directly comparable
(recipients may be at home or in an institution, persons in care institutions may or
may not receive a care allowance), the difference gives an impression of how much
care is provided at home. Most of the recipients of long-term care insurance are
elderly persons subject to different degrees of health-related restrictions.
34
The providers of long-term care are mostly women. As a study of the outcomes of
long-term care insurance (Bundesministerium für Gesundheit, 2000) indicates, 80%
of the main caregivers are women (West: 81%, East: 74%). The major groups are
daughters (23%), wives (20%), husbands (12%) and mothers (11%). Caring is
mostly done by persons in the 40 to 64 age-group (53%).
Given the fact that demographic developments will increase the number of elderly
people in Germany ("aging of the population"), and that the risk of becoming
care-dependent grows with age, this trend will contribute to increasing the
traditional division of labour.
2.2.5 Work schedule policies
Whereas in the policy areas described above, there is at least a general legal
framework on the federal level, the field of the work related policies is scattered on
different levels and in diverse sectors. Moreover, several of these provisions have
evolved in recent times. Therefore, they are often not consolidated, not wholly
implemented and even less studied. Nevertheless, we will sketch some of these
measures in order to give an impression on their aims, scope, and possible effects.
Working time reduction. Besides a general reduction of working hours as a
precondition for enabling a higher share of housework and child care (see Künzler,
1998, pp. 123ff.), there are different approaches to the reduction of working times.
First, a higher percentage of jobs can be set up as part-time contract. This strategy
will most likely lead to a furthering of gender inequalities. Mostly, part-time jobs
are held by women (see pp. 54f). These jobs tend to be less qualified occupations
and offer less social security. As of now, there are less than a few signs that
part-time employment can be extended to male employees.
Second, there is now an entitlement to temporary part-time employment if the
employee cares for small children. The provision, which is part of the newly
enacted Child-raising Leave Benefit Act (see pp. 26ff.), applies only to parents
whose children are born after December 31, 2000.24 Therefore, no information on
the effects and outcomes can be given at the moment. However, it can be
speculated that this measure as similar provisions will be used mostly by women
and in occupations that rank low in the hierarchy of jobs.
Third, collective agreements of the social partners can address the issue of
reconciliation of work and family. The most important collective agreement
relevant in this respect is the contract that affects the salaried employees in civil
service (Bundesangestelltentarifvertrag, see for others Künzler, 1998, p. 127).
Similar provisions are valid for the wage earners and civil service in the public
sector. Since May 1, 1994, there is an entitlement to part-time work for family
reasons in the public sector. Employees with one minor child or a relative who
needs permanent care can reduce their working time on demand, if there are no
reasons on the side of the employer.
35
Fourth, there are many agreements on the level of the individual firm or
corporation. Although some stock-taking has already been done (see Künzler,
1998, pp. 128ff.), it is difficult to assess intentions, scope and possible outcomes.
At least some areas of these contracts can be identified: additional parental leave,
trainings/stints in the leave period and return guarantees, part-time work, additional
leave for elderly care, flexitime (see also Schwartz, Schwarz, & Vogel, 1991).
Again, the main addressees of these opportunities are women. The flexibilization of
working time is a particularly ambiguous area. Initially, working shifts were the
main "flexible" arrangements in industry in order to use machines more
extensively. In the service sector, there may be even a greater need of "flexible"
arrangements because of the fluctuation of demand for the respective service.
Given the problem of the unavoidable absence of an employee, the job-sharing may
be a company-friendly flexitime. It cannot be discerned whether flexitime (or work
at home) offered by firms and employers only serves their interests or whether it is
at least compatible or — even more — supportive for the fulfilling of family duties.
Again, if the latter is the case, it might not be helpful in modernizing the gender
division of labour.
Other areas of work-place related provisions. Other areas comprise of the
provision of child care facilities by companies (cf. for the intricacies Künzler, 1998,
pp. 130ff.), attempts to evaluate the "family-friendlyness" of companies or the
creation of special awards for companies that engage in the reconciliation of work
and family (ibid., pp. 133ff.).
2.2.6 Conclusions
As women are the primary persons to whom the tasks of housework and child care
are ascribed, maternalist policies are of particular importance for assessing the
impact the welfare state has on the gender division of labour. The West German
approach is characterized by a combination of incentives for the discontinuing of
employment (e.g., child-raising leave) and disincentives for employment (e.g., the
scarce supply of day care), both addressed to mothers and other care persons. The
former GDR displayed the very opposite policy profile. Of special importance are
the arenas in which the maternalist policies are decided upon. Whereas the
centralized system of the GDR succeeded in developing a comprehensive policy
framework, the jurisdictions in the FRG are scattered on different levels (federal
government, federal states, local governments, NPOs, companies). Not only the
priority given to a traditional mother ideal, but also this feature of the West German
polity contributes to the political impact on the division of labour.
As a consequence, women in East Germany enjoyed a higher economic
independence than in the West. This does not mean that they had greater autonomy.
Both regimes framed the female life-courses according their ideals, restricted
opportunities and choices. But, the East German women were paradoxically
36
granted at least something that is seen as essential in the capitalist world: economic
self-sufficiency.
2.3. East-West-differences and German unification
2.3.1 GDR family policy
Within the scope of this report, it is impossible to provide a complete assessment of
the GDR policies related to family and gender. However, we attempt to sketch the
main differences in the family policy profile (see Appendix-Table A5), that may
account for East/West differences in the division of labour. The following features
of the situation of family and gender in the GDR were either stated goals or
outcomes of the socialist policies.
ƒHigh marriage rates: In the 1970s and the 1980s, the marriage rates in the GDR
were constantly higher than in the FRG (cf. Engstler, 1998, p. 83). Of special
importance is the fact that first marriages were contracted at a younger age
(ibid.). Incentives for early marriage were set by the family formation credit for
spouses younger than 30, and the preference married couples were given in the
allocation of apartments as well by the support married students and young
persons in training received.
ƒHigh birth rates: As shown in Appendix-Table A17, the birth rates in the 1970s
and 1960s were constantly higher than in the FRG (see also pp. 21f.). The
explicitly pro-natalist policies of the socialist regime contributed to this result.
First, the birth subsidy (Appendix-Table A6) was a highly visible, generous and
big sum of money, which provided an incentive just-in-time. Second, incentives
which progressed with the number of children were set, e.g., the child benefit
(see Appendix-Table A7) and the health insurance benefit which was also the
basis for the different forms of parental leave benefits as well as the deduction
of the repayment of the family formation credit depending on the number of
children.
ƒHigh labour force participation of women: As part of the attempts to reach
equality between the sexes, the employment of women and esp. of mothers was
supported. The official ideal of the East German woman was the life-long,
full-time employed mother (see also pp. 49ff.). Among others, the following
measures are relevant factors: extensive provision of day care, generous forms
of parental leave and parental leave benefits and working-time reductions.
ƒHigh rates of out-of-wedlock births: As indicated in Appendix-Table A17,
out-of-wedlock-births became almost a regular phenomenon in East Germany
over the years. Women in the former GDR were economically more
independent than in the West. Especially, the higher rate of full-time
employment, which was also feasible for lone mothers, improved the
self-sufficiency of the GDR women. Moreover, the special support for lone
37
mothers was systematically built in every standard measure of the East German
family policy.
ƒLast but not least: The main tenet of the GDR family policy was the necessity to
develop the "socialist personality". The meticulous control of the education
system from an early age on and the methodical replacement of the ("private")
family by collective forms of child-raising are obvious signs of this creed.
As described above (pp. 8ff.), the GDR was a paradigm of — depending on the
theoretical perspective — the communist modification of social democratic welfare
regime (cf. Esping-Andersen) or the weak male wage-earner model (cf. Lewis and
Ostner). With the FRG being a paradigm of a conservative regime or the strong
wage-earner model, each German state could be seen as the very antithesis to the
other. However, there is at least one point in which East Germany reached a goal
which is desperately sought after in the other part. In West Germany, there is a
consensus that family policy should unburden the financial worries of having
children. That is exactly what the socialist policies succeeded in doing. It was
estimated that financial transfers in the former GDR reimbursed two-thirds of the
costs of raising children (Ott et al., 1990). There is a simple reason for that. Unlike
the conservative approach of the West German welfare state, the higher
employment rate of East German women first and foremost unburdened the family
policy of this state from a liability, namely to provide for a huge amount of
home-making wives. Thus, the GDR policies could successfully target the costs of
children by securing a high level of economic independence for women.
2.3.2 Unification and gender relations — what is the outcome?
In the following chapter, we will present data on the question how gender relations
and gender inequality in both East and West Germany have changed through
unification. Mainly this process is taking place in East Germany which adopted the
political, economic, social and legal framework of the West.
Although it might be impossible to distinguish the different factors involved in this
transformation, the German unification can be seen as a huge experiment on the
societal level. Every policy measure of the former GDR was dismantled by
introduction of the West German family policy via Unification Treaty of 1990.
Pro-natalist birth incentives were abolished or reduced in the system of West
German family benefits. Marriage benefits were transformed from a means to
further early weddings to a measure for supporting the wage-earner/home-maker
marriage. The unification brought tremendous changes to the system of child day
care in East Germany; it became less generous and less secure, although the
provision level is still high (see pp. 28). And, last but not least, the economic
position of women dramatically changed. They experienced high rates of
unemployment and came in contact with the inferior place the West German
labour-market offers women (see also pp. 49ff.). Therefore, the German unification
could be seen as a litmus test for the regulation approach (pp. 70f.) which targets
38
the role of policies in the division of labour: Has the less traditional division of
labour in East Germany prevailed — based on modern gender role attitudes and the
life-course experiences of East German women and men? Or: Has the complete
change of the political framework succeeded in re-traditionalizing the division of
labour — by force of the incentives and regulations of the conservative welfare
regime? As will be clear later (see pp. 41ff. and 81ff.), we tend to the latter.
39
40
Chapter 3
Structure and development of gender inequality
3.1
Gender ideology
According to a widespread conviction, attitudes towards the appropriate roles of
women and men have become much more liberal in the last decades throughout the
OECD countries and in Germany as well. Again, conditions of change and paths of
development differ among countries. This is the case for the two halves of
Germany. According to Geißler (1996, p. 275), women’s liberation was promoted
by different groups in the FRG and in the GDR. In the GDR, women’s liberation
was a paternalistic top-down process initiated and controlled by an autocratic
regime. The motives of the socialist state were a mixture of ideological reasoning
and the poor performance of the East German state-run economy. In the FRG, the
women’s movement was said to be the most important actor in the modernization
of gender relations, which was allegedly a democratic down-top process. If this
description is true, attitudes should be more liberal in West Germany than in East
Germany. For East Germans, the ideal of gender equality should be discredited
together with socialist ideals of egalitarianism. In other former state socialist
countries in Eastern Europe, the transition to the Western model coincided with a
wave of anti-feminism (Jalušig, 1997). Obviously, East Germany did not follow the
pattern of traditionalization, and rolling-back modernization in this respect. Studies
of gender role attitudes in Germany after unification in 1989 repeatedly found
differences between East Germany and West Germany, with West Germans
holding more traditional attitudes. Some longitudinal analyses found a growing gap
between East Germany and West Germany due to traditionalization in West
Germany. Research on gender role attitudes in Germany has at least two
shortcomings: The few longitudinal studies analyze short-term changes. Most
authors analyze changes at the level of items (Adler & Brayfield, 1996; Braun &
Borg, 1997, 1998; Braun & Nowossadeck, 1992; Künzler, 1995; Kurz, 1998). Until
now, a longitudinal analysis is still lacking which covers the 1980s and 1990s using
a scale of gender role attitudes. The German General Social Survey (ALLBUS)
offers this opportunity.
The German General Social Survey is a biannual survey of a cross-sectional
representative national sample. In the FRG, the first wave was in 1980. Starting in
1991, East Germany participated in the survey, too. Items on respondents’ gender
ideology were included in many waves, but the same questions were asked only in
1982, 1991, 1992 and 1996. In these four waves, 9,093 respondents were
interviewed in West Germany, and 3,752 respondents in East Germany.
Respondents were asked to what extent they agree or disagree with the following
statements: "A working mother can establish just as warm and secure a relationship
41
with her children as a mother who does not work"; "It is more important for a wife
to help her husband’s career than to have one herself"; "A pre-school child is likely
to suffer if his or her mother works"; "It is much better for everyone if the husband
is the wage-earner and the wife takes care of her home and family"; "It is even
better for a pre-school child when his or her mother works and does not concentrate
on homemaking"; "A married woman should refrain from working if jobs are
scarce and her husband is able to earn the family’s living". Respondents indicated
their strength of agreement or disagreement on a scale ranging from 1 = strongly
agree to 4 = strongly disagree. Answers to traditional statements were reversed and
a summed scale was constructed ranging from 6 to 24. By another transformation,
zero became the value representing the neutral midpoint of the scale. The scale
ranges from -9 to +9. High scores represent liberal attitudes. Cronbach’s alpha is
.789 for women in West Germany, .722 for women in East Germany, .753 for men
in West Germany, and .718 for men in East Germany. Appendix-Table A19 shows
the percentage of traditional answers to each item and overall score means for the
different years of the survey.
Between 1982 and 1996, respondents in Germany developed a more liberal gender
ideology, but the trend was by no means linear and of the same magnitude for
women and men and for West Germany and East Germany (Figure 1). In the early
1980s, a majority of West German respondents still held traditional gender role
attitudes. Obviously, attitudes became less traditional in the 1980s, but not until
1991 did the overall mean rise to the neutral midpoint of the scale. In 1982, there
was no difference between women’s attitudes and men’s attitudes, but by 1991 a
gap had opened up. Compared to respondents in West Germany, both women and
men had more liberal attitudes in East Germany, with women taking the lead in
liberalization. In the 1990s, attitudes in East Germany became even more liberal,
with the gap between women and men first widening and then closing again. In
West Germany, there was a marked traditionalization of attitudes between 1991
and 1992, widening the gap between women and men. Men on average returned to
traditional views of gender roles. By 1996 West Germany had returned to a path of
(slow) liberalization and reached the level of 1991. In the area of gender role
attitudes, there was no adoption of the West German point of view by respondents
in East Germany. On the contrary, dissimilarities between East Germany and West
Germany have grown since unification.
42
Figure 1:
Gender ideology in Germany, 1982-1996
4
3
Means
2
1
0
-1
-2
-3
1980
1985
Women West
1990
Men West
1995
Women East
2000
Men East
Source: ZA, 1999, own calculation.
3.2
Gender differences in education
Level of education is a major predictor of a person’s position in the labour market
and hence of his or her wage prospects. For this reason, gender differences in
education should be considered as a condition of gender differences in the labour
market.
During the last century, gender differences in educational attainment in Germany
have continuously diminished. The GDR was ahead of the FRG, esp. in vocational
and tertiary education. In unified Germany, younger men and women are currently
almost equally qualified.
In this section, we will discuss the reduction in gender inequality in education using
cohort data from the ALLBUS. As educational level is an achieved status, only a
cohort approach can properly inform on the chronological development of gender
inequality.
With regard to recent developments since unification, the cohort approach implies
severe limitations. As the younger cohorts might not have received their degrees
yet, cohort figures cannot account for recent developments.25
To make the different types of schools internationally comparable, we translate
school degrees and vocational degrees into CASMIN26 categories (for classification
criteria see Appendix-Table A20).
For our assessment of gender inequality in educational attainment, we will first
consider degrees from the general school system and, second, certificates from the
43
vocational training system. We use the logarithm of the female/male ratios in the
following figures. The logarithm centres the ratios equidistantly around zero. If the
ratio is > 0, there are relatively more women, if it is < 0, there are relatively more
men (for the data and further information see Appendix-Table A21Appendix-Table A24).
In the following three figures, the development of gender inequality is shown for
three educational levels in the East and West German population: no degree or only
general elementary education, intermediate degree, and maturity degree.
Figure 2:
Female/male ratio (ln) of persons in Germany with no degree or
general elementary education by birth cohort
0,4
ln (f/m)
0,2
0
-0,2
-0,4
-0,6
before
1920
1920-1929 1930-1939 1940-1949 1950-1959 1960-1969
Birth cohort
West (n=15,731)
Note:
East (n=2,341)
No degree or general elementary education: CASMIN 1a or 1b.
Source: Zentralarchiv für empirische Sozialforschung an der Universität Köln (ZA), 1999, own
calculation.
The older cohorts of both East and West Germans show that women are
over-represented at the lowest level of education. In recent cohorts, this relation is
reversed. In the youngest cohort more men than women received no degree or only
general elementary education.
In East German cohorts, the development was even more favourable to women than
in West German cohorts: A greater discrimination of women in the older cohorts
changed into an over-proportion of men at the basic educational level: In the
44
youngest cohort, 72 women without a degree or with only eight or nine years of
schooling corresponded to 100 men with the same educational level.
Figure 3:
Female/male ratio (ln) of persons in Germany with intermediate
degree by birth cohort
0,4
ln (f/m)
0,2
0
-0,2
-0,4
before
1920
1920-1929 1930-1939 1940-1949 1950-1959 1960-1969
Birth cohort
West (n=6,467)
Note:
East (n=2,166)
Intermediate degree: CASMIN 2b.
Source: ZA, 1999, own calculation.
At the intermediate level, the ratio seems more favourable to West German than to
East German women: In West German cohorts, there is a remarkable rise in
women’s shares, starting with an equal distribution and ending with a proportion of
144 women per 100 men in the youngest cohort. In the older cohorts of East
Germans, the ratio develops surprisingly unsteadily, but in the two youngest
cohorts, the ratio is close to equality.
45
Figure 4:
Female/male ratio (ln) of persons in Germany with maturity
degree by birth cohort
0.2
0
ln(f/m)
-0.2
-0.4
-0.6
-0.8
-1
-1.2
before
1920
1920-1929 1930-1939 1940-1949 1950-1959 1960-1969
Birth cohort
West (n=5,371)
Note:
East (n=923)
Maturity degree: CASMIN 2c_gen.
Source: ZA, 1999, own calculation.
The maturity degree, which is a prerequisite for university study, has been obtained
by more men than women in all cohorts studied here. The general trend, both
among East and West Germans, moves from noticeable inequality towards gender
equality. Other data show (not shown in figure), that this ideal has been reached
and even surpassed recently. In the FRG in 1989 already 30.7% of all female 13-14
year-old teenagers, compared to 27.1% of their male peers, were attending
grammar school (Gymnasium) (Köhler, 1992, p. 67). In 1999, 53.3% of all
school-leavers with a maturity degree were female. The share of women was
greater in the East (59.1%) than in West Germany (51.9%) (Statistisches
Bundesamt, 2000c).
In the West German age-groups born after 1929, women’s share at the maturity
level has continuously increased from 50 women per 100 men in the 1930-1939
birth cohort to a proportion of 79 women per 100 men in the youngest cohort
studied. In the East German age-groups, the development went faster than in West
Germany but stagnated at a proportion of 85 women per 100 men in the youngest
cohort.
All in all, we may state that women have constantly been able to better their
position in general education. In recent cohorts, the inequalities have virtually
46
vanished (see also Klammer, Klenner, Ochs, Radke, & Ziegler, 2000, p. 195). In
the East German cohorts, the development towards equality went faster and
included the intermediate and maturity level in a similar manner. In the West
German cohorts, women came to a remarkable lead on the intermediate level
(144 women per 100 men in the 1960-1969 cohort), but their "conquest" of the
maturity level stood at a ratio of 79 women per 100 men in the 1960-1969 cohort.
Although there are East-West differences, the overall tendencies have been similar,
which also applies to the second area to be discussed here, i.e., vocational
education.
Figure 5 shows the development of gender differences in completed vocational
training at a medium level, including degrees such as the apprenticeship certificate,
the advanced technical school degree, the specialized vocational school degree or
similar grades.
Figure 5:
Female/male ratio (ln) of persons in Germany with completed
vocational training by birth cohort
0.2
ln (f/m)
0.0
-0.2
-0.4
-0.6
-0.8
before
1920
1920-1929 1930-1939 1940-1949 1950-1959 1960-1969
Birth cohort
West (n=5,229)
Note:
East (n=3,027)
Completed vocational training: CASMIN 1c, 2a, or 2c_voc.
Source: ZA, 1999, own calculation.
Since the first cohort, the female/male ratio in completed vocational training
substantially increased and reached parity in the youngest cohort studied. In the
cohorts born before 1920, about 50 women corresponded to 100 men with this
training; now, this gender gap has been closed. In this development, all East
47
German cohorts were ahead of the West German ones in the past, reaching an equal
distribution already in the 1940s cohort.
However, there is another aspect which should not be ignored: Over the years the
gender-typed choice of occupation has not been reduced. Female teenagers tend to
choose training or apprenticeship in the fields of "social issues", "education",
"health", and services occupations, while male teenagers dominate technical
occupational fields and more frequently choose an apprenticeship in production
(Klammer et al., 2000, p. 195).
ln(f/m)
Figure 6:
Female/male ratio (ln) of persons in Germany with university
degree by birth cohort
0.0
-0.2
-0.4
-0.6
-0.8
-1.0
-1.2
-1.4
-1.6
-1.8
-2.0
before
1920
1920-1929 1930-1939 1940-1949 1950-1959 1960-1969
Birth cohort
West (n=1,101)
Note:
East (n=592)
University degree: CASMIN 3a or 3b.
Source: ZA, 1999, own calculation.
In tertiary education, there have been the most far-reaching improvements in the
position of women. Nevertheless, still in all cohorts, relatively more men than
women hold a university degree (Figure 6).
While in the 1930-1949 cohorts, women’s share in completed tertiary education
was still equally low for East and West Germans (around 40 women correspond to
100 men in those age-groups), the reduction in inequality in the subsequent agegroups occurred faster for East than for West Germans; in the 1960-1969 cohort,
90 women in the East, compared to 81 women in the West German cohort,
correspond to 100 men with a university degree.
48
The latest figures indicate that in unified Germany gender equality in tertiary
education has not yet been reached: In 1999, 43.5% of university/college graduates
were female (Statistisches Bundesamt, 2000b). Furthermore, gender specific
differences have to be stated in relation to the choice of subjects: There is a high
percentage of women studying languages and cultural subjects, while engineering
studies continue to be a male domain (Klammer et al., 2000, p. 218).27
In international comparisons, it is usually the highest educational level, i.e., a
university degree, that is used as an indicator for the assessment of gender
inequality in education. This makes sense because of great differences in
educational systems and a greater availability of information about higher
education (cf. Künzler, forthcoming, p. 13).
To sum up, the development of gender inequality in East and West Germany has
taken usually similar, but sometimes different paths.
In both parts of Germany the overall picture shows that there were enormous
advances in the position of women throughout the Twentieth Century.
Nevertheless, full equality has still not been reached. Up until now, more men than
women have received a degree in higher education. Using this indicator, unified
Germany cannot be called a fully modern country with respect to gender equality in
educational attainment.
The GDR was ahead of the FRG in the general modernization process, resulting in
a more equal distribution of educational attainment already at an earlier point in
time. But even in the GDR equality in higher education was never completely
achieved.
After unification, the West German educational system was transferred to East
Germany. At that time, the proportions of men and women had reached a quite
similar level in East and West Germany. It can be assumed that, in the future, the
female/male ratios on the different educational levels in East and West Germany
will develop in a similar manner.
As we will see in the following section, the relatively equal position of younger
men and women in education does not translate directly into a similar position in
the labour market.
3.3
Gender differences in the labour market
Labour force participation is a central indicator of gender inequality in the division
of paid and unpaid work. Over the last three decades, general differences between
female and male labour force participation have decreased in all OECD countries
(Künzler, 1998, p. 105). However, forms and structures of female employment are
very different. In the following, we will address gender differences in East and
West Germany concerning overall labour force participation, unemployment, the
labour force participation of mothers, part-time employment, and employment
without social protection. For our depiction, we use cross-sectional data, mainly
official statistics provided by the Federal Statistical Office; those data only account
49
for the FRG and for unified Germany. To describe the situation in the GDR, we
have to rely on the existing literature.
3.3.1 Overall participation
In this field, East and West Germany differed widely, as in the GDR female
employment was politically supported and taken for granted for a long period,
while in West Germany the development towards more female employment
occurred more slowly.
Figure 7:
Labour force participation in Germany, 1965-1999
100
90
80
70
%
60
50
40
30
20
10
0
1960
1965
Women West
Sources:
1970
1975
Men West
1980
1985
Women East
1990
1995
2000
Men East
Statistisches Bundesamt, 1976, 1982, 1988b, 1992b, 1996b, 2000f.
Figure 7 shows, that, from 1965 on, the difference between male and female labour
force participation in the FRG and thereafter in the western part of unified
Germany decreased by more than 24 per cent. While male participation dropped
steadily, women’s participation rose. In 1999, around 80% of 15- to 65-year-old
men and around 61% of 15- to 65-year-old women were either gainfully employed
or looking for work.
In the GDR, there were hardly any differences between women’s and men’s labour
force participation (not shown in figure). Since the 1950s, employment rates for
women rose steadily. In 1990, 92% of women aged 25-60 were working (not
including students; Geißler, 1996, p. 281).
Due to the transformation of the East German economy, both men’s and women’s
labour force participation decreased in the first two years after unification.
50
Afterwards, East German men’s percentage rose again to the level of West German
men. The labour force participation of women in East Germany remained stable in
the second half of the 1990s. In 1999, women’s labour force participation in East
Germany was 73%, 7 points lower than men’s (80%), but 11 points higher than the
rate for West German women.
Altogether, East German women are noticeably more integrated into the labour
market than West German women, while men’s integration into the labour market
has been similar in East and West Germany during the 1990s. Viewed from the
opposite angle, the gender gap in labour force participation is much greater in West
Germany.
Female employment is restricted to a few economic branches. In 1996, two thirds
of gainfully employed women (about one half of gainfully employed men) were
working in the service sector, mainly in public and private services or commerce
and the catering industry (Bäcker, Bispinck, Hofemann, & Naegele, 2000,
pp. 270f.). In the GDR, there was a broader spectrum of women’s occupations, and
comparatively more women than in the FRG held management positions. In spite
of that, there was also a sex-segregated labour market in the GDR, although it was
less marked (Klammer et al., 2000, pp. 60f.).
In the light of these facts, we have to state that after unification, East German
women were partly able to keep their advanced position relative to West German
women in terms of overall labour force participation. But their situation is
worsening, as can be seen from unemployment rates.
3.3.2 Unemployment
In the 1960s and early 1970s, the West German "economic miracle" (Wirtschaftswunder) produced nearly full employment in the FRG. Since the recession
following the first oil price crisis in 1974/75, unemployment oscillated in line with
the economic situation, but the base line of unemployment grew continuously
(Bäcker et al., 2000, p. 318). In the GDR, there was officially no unemployment.
As Figure 8 shows, there was an increase in unemployment in West Germany after
unification, with unemployment rates rising from 6.3% in 1991 to 11.0% in 1997.
During this period, gender differences in unemployment rates in West Germany
seem to have totally vanished.
51
Figure 8:
Unemployment rates in Germany, 1976-1999
30
25
%
20
15
10
5
Women West
Sources:
Men West
Women East
98
19
96
19
94
19
92
19
90
19
88
19
86
19
84
19
82
19
80
19
78
19
19
76
0
Men East
Statistisches Bundesamt, 1976, 1982, 1988b, 1992b, 1996b, 2000f.
The reconstruction of the economy in East Germany after unification caused an
extreme increase in unemployment rates. In 1991, the unemployment rate in East
Germany was already 10.4%; it rose to 19.5% in 1998 (Statistisches Bundesamt,
1992d, 1999b).
An extremely unequal development of male and female unemployment can be
observed in East Germany in the early 1990s (Figure 8). Especially during the first
years after unification, women were much more severely affected by
unemployment than men (Beckmann & Engelbrech, 1994; Holst & Schupp, 1994,
1995; Pischner & Wagner 1995; Pfeiffer, 1996; as quoted in Künzler, 1998,
p. 105). In spite of an overall reduction after the maximum level reached in 1993,
women’s unemployment rates in East Germany have continued to be high: 21.6%
in 1999. In the second half of the 1990s, male unemployment in East Germany has
also increased substantially and reached its maximum level in 1998 (18.9%).
In addition to high female unemployment, a sex-specific re-structuring of the
labour market is taking place in East Germany. Women are losing their former
positions and fields of activity. Since the beginning of the 1990s, an outstandingly
high proportion of women has lost their highly-qualified, well-paid, or management
jobs (Klammer et al., 2000, p. 63).
These figures confirm widespread criticism that East German women have been the
losers of unification. While there are nearly no gender differences in
unemployment in West Germany, there were enormous differences in East
52
Germany at the beginning of the 1990s, which are still visible. Even though the
general level of unemployment is much higher in East than in West Germany,
women in East Germany have been hit hardest by unemployment.
3.3.3 Overall participation by mothers
The degree and extent of maternal employment, especially the employment of
mothers with very young children, depends on cultural norms, economic
restrictions, and the availability of child day care. In this respect, the two German
states differed widely.
In the FRG, the life courses of many women were influenced by the political ideal
of the so-called "three-phases-model". After school and vocational training, women
should be employed; after founding a family (in earlier times this implied marriage,
later the birth of the first child) they should be homemakers for some years, and
after this "family phase", they should return to work. This pattern has been
modified in the course of the last decades: Mothers stay at home for shorter periods
after the birth of a child, and more mothers return to the labour market as their
children grow older (Bäcker et al., 2000, pp. 272f.).
Table 3:
Employment of mothers 1972, 1991, and 1996 by age of youngest
child in Germany
1972 (FRG)
1991
1996
Employment rate of mothers, %
youngest child < 6
33.9
youngest child < 3
youngest child 3-5
West
East
West
East
37.3
75.9
47.6
82.8
42.4
49.3
48
65.7
youngest child 6-14
44.2
West
59.2
62.3
East
86.6
77.9
Note: The table shows employment rates of 15- to 64-year-old mothers; unemployed mothers are
not included. Especially the percentages for the 1990s for mothers of children under 3 years of
age have to be interpreted with caution: In the concept of employment applied in the Mikrozensus,
all mothers who had a contract of employment before childbirth are regarded as employed. As a
consequence, the percentages overestimate the actual number of employed mothers of infants, and
some of those "employed" mothers are actually on parental leave and not present at the workplace
(see Engstler, 1998).
Source: Engstler, 1998.
Table 3 provides figures illustrating this development for West Germany. There
was a higher percentage of employed mothers of children under six in the 1990s
than in 1972. While in 1972 only 44.2% of mothers with their youngest child aged
6-14 were employed, this percentage reached 59.2% in 1991 and 62.3% in 1996.
One of the underlying factors in this development was the growing labour force
participation of married women. In West Germany, maternal labour force
participation generally depends highly on the number and age of children
(Klammer et al., 2000, p. 74).
53
In the former GDR, continuous full-time employment of mothers was demanded
and supported by the supply of child day care facilities (see Chapter 2). This model
can be called "simultaneous compatibility" between family duties and employment.
In 1991, the first year after unification, this model remained visible: In East
Germany, a high percentage of mothers of infants was employed (75,9%, see Table
3). This percentage fell dramatically to 49.3% in 1996. The main reason is the high
unemployment rate among women, especially among mothers. In spite of that, still
more married mothers with children are employed, and more mothers are employed
full-time in East than in West Germany (Klammer et al., 2000, p. 76).
To sum up, the influence of the former models of compatibility between family and
work (three-phase vs. simultaneous) is still visible, but they are being modified.
Today, more East German mothers stay at home, at least when they have an infant,
and more West German mothers return to work after their children have reached
school age. Still in all stages of child care, the employment of mothers is clearly
more common in East than in West Germany.
3.3.4 Part-time employment
According to Künzler (1998), Germany belongs to a group of four OECD countries
with a very high proportion of female part-time employment: In 1993, the
female/male ratios of part-time employment rates were 18 to 1 in Luxembourg,
13 to 1 in Austria, 12 to 1 in Belgium, and 11 to 1 in Germany. Female and male
part-time employment was less unbalanced in Finland and in the USA (about 2 to
1). In the OECD countries, the average female/male ratio of part-time employment
was 6 to 1 (sd = 4.2).
The rise in female labour force participation in West Germany is for the most part
due to part-time employment (Bäcker et al., 2000, p. 273). Until unification, the
percentage of gainfully employed West German women with a part-time job
hovered around 30% (see Figure 9). In the GDR, more women worked full-time
(not shown). There was a percentage of about 27% part-time working women, but
this group included mainly older women at the end of their employment life course,
who worked only slightly shorter shifts than regular hours (Klammer et al., 2000,
p. 60). In contrast, most part-time-workers in the FRG were mothers with
dependent children who worked by the hour (Klammer et al., 2000, p. 74).
In 1999, 87% of all part-time employed persons in unified Germany were women
(1991: 92%) (Statistisches Bundesamt, 2000a).
Figure 9 informs about the rates of part-time employees among men and women in
East and West Germany.
54
Figure 9:
Part-time employment in Germany, 1980-1998
45
40
35
30
%
25
20
15
10
5
0
1980 1982 1984 1986 1988 1990 1991 1992 1994 1996 1998
W om en W est (n=5,297)
W om en East (n=1,538)
Men W est (n=8,962)
Men East (n=1,740)
Note: The figure shows the percentage of gainfully employed people who, in the German
General Social Survey, declared a "half-day" job as their main occupation.
Source: ZA, 1999, own calculation.
After unification, a growing number of East Germans took part-time work. In the
second half of the 1990s, the percentages were slightly falling for both East and
West German women. Only a tiny group of men works part-time in both parts of
Germany.
The Federal Statistical Office, whose wording of the question in the 1999
Mikrozensus was different28, found higher percentages: 22% of all gainfully
employed women in East Germany and 42% of all gainfully employed women in
West Germany worked part-time, whereas the respective percentages for men were
4% (East) and 5% (West) (Statistisches Bundesamt, 2000a).
Part-time employment is more widespread among West German women than
among East German women. Asked about their personal motives for working
part-time, 65% of West German women, but only 21% of East German women
named personal or family reasons for their part-time employment, whereas, for
53% of East German women working part-time, the main reason was a lack of
available full-time positions (West: 8%).
Men in both parts of Germany chose vocational and further training as the most
important motive for working part-time (30% in West and 20% in East Germany).
55
Only 13% of men in West Germany and 4% of men in East Germany mentioned
personal or family obligations (Statistisches Bundesamt, 2000a).
Part-time work still means substantial disadvantages for employees: Part-time work
stands for less qualified, more encumbering, and poorly paid jobs. As social
benefits in case of unemployment, disease, and old age, are income-based,
part-time work offers insufficient social protection. As a result of part-time work,
family and household tasks can more easily be assigned to women (Bäcker et al.,
2000, pp. 273, 293). Hence, part-time work can be said to back up a traditional
gender division of labour.
3.3.5 Employment without social protection
For a long time, a work contract with tenure and statutory insurance that guarantees
a life-long employment history has been the ideal and the reality for (at least most)
men — the so-called Normalarbeitsverhältnis (regular employment life course). In
the last decade, this concept was subjected to erosive pressures: Temporary
contracts, regular and pretended self-employment, and part-time employment
without below the social insurance threshold created a lot of less well-insured and
less permanent jobs. In 1985, 75% of all gainfully employed persons still held a
regular full-time contract for an indefinite period, whereas in 1995 this percentage
decreased to about 63%. Some 78% of gainfully employed men; but only 51% of
gainfully employed women (Bäcker et al., 2000, pp. 291f.) had a full-time, fully
secured job.
About two thirds of the part-time jobs for less than 15 hours a week (or less than
630 DM per month, with no statutory insurance; so-called "630-DM jobs") are held
by women (Bäcker et al., 2000, p. 296). About one quarter of those part-time jobs
are second jobs, but for about 10% of all employees in Germany a 630-DM job was
the only employment in 1997. In the same year, 17% of all gainfully employed
women had no employment other than such a part-time job (Klammer et al., 2000,
p. 97). In the 1990s, this type of employment expanded remarkably, while the
number of full-time employed women decreased (Klammer et al., 2000, p. 97). The
630-DM jobs were an opportunity for employers to lower personnel costs and to
replace regular contracts. Persons with such contracts are dependent on either their
partner’s (mostly husband’s) social insurance or on another form of social
insurance (e.g., student insurance, etc.). Since 1999, new regulations are forcing
many employers to provide social insurance for these jobs. A first study on the
consequences of this new regulation shows that the number of persons who have
only a 630-DM job, has virtually not decreased. There are still no data on the
distribution of the sexes in 630-DM jobs since 1999, but a reduction in the share of
women is improbable (ISG/Kienbaum, 1999, as quoted in Klammer et al., 2000,
p. 98).
Those findings indicate that women are generally worse off in terms of social
security in the labour market. Fewer women than men can rely on a stable,
full-time contract. In contrast, the majority of precarious jobs fall to women.
56
3.3.6 Income
Women still earn less than men: Several studies in Germany have shown that a
considerable difference remains between female and male earnings even if
differences in work time, vocational training, and duration of employment are
controlled for (Diekmann, Engelhardt, & Hartmann, 1993; Engelbrech 1996;
Hübler, 1992; Künzler, 1998, p. 106; Schömann, Hannan, & Blossfeld, 1991;
Wirth, 1996). This difference in earnings has to be interpreted as an effect of wage
discrimination.
Figure 10 gives the female/male income ratios for West and East Germany. In
1983, the average yearly female income in the FRG amounted to 70% of the
average yearly male income. Full-time employed women in the GDR received
71% (1980) to 76% (1988) of male earnings (Nickel, 1993, as quoted in Geißler,
1996, p. 283); so they received slightly more than West German women.
Figure 10:
Income of full-time employees in Germany, 1983-1996
100
95
Women/men, %
90
85
80
75
70
65
60
55
West
96
19
95
19
94
19
93
19
92
19
91
19
90
19
89
19
88
19
87
19
86
19
85
19
84
19
19
83
50
East
Sources:
Statistisches Bundesamt, 1987, 1988a, 1989, 1990, 1991a, 1992a, 1993a, 1994,
1995a, 1996a, 1997, 1998, 1999a, 2000d, own calculation.
Until 1996, the income share of West German women rose and reached 75% of
men’s earnings. East German woman earned on the average around 90% as much
as full-time employed men during the first half of the 1990s.
There is a remarkable difference between East and West Germany since
unification: The difference in income between the sexes is much greater in West
than in East Germany. However, a gender gap in income still remains.
57
All in all, in contrast to the similarities in educational developments, the position of
women in the labour market differed markedly in the GDR and the FRG. Although
women’s participation has risen in both parts of Germany, the structure and scope
of female and maternal employment were very different.
In the GDR, full-time employment of women was normal. It was demanded,
necessary for economic subsistence and supported by public day care. Thus, overall
female labour force participation was similar to that of men (around 80%). As a
result, women and men had a quite equal position in the labour market, even if
women earned on the average only about three quarters of the average male
income. Unemployment such as we know today in unified Germany was a quite
unknown phenomenon in the GDR.
In the FRG, due to insufficient coverage with child day care and a traditional
motherhood-ideology, it was much more difficult for mothers to work full-time.
For many women, part-time work became the only possibility to combine child
care and employment. The rise in female labour force participation to a level of
about 58% in 1989 was for the most part due to a rise in part-time employment. As
men rarely choose part-time work, it has been a women’s domain. Female
unemployment rates were always above male unemployment rates during the 1970s
and 1980s. With respect to the incomes of full-time employees, women earned
about 70% of men’s wages. Women’s position in the labour market was generally
worse than men’s, regarding working hours, job security, unemployment, and
income.
After unification, the position of East Germans and especially of East German
women worsened dramatically. Due to the reconstruction of the economy, the
general level of unemployment increased in East Germany, but East German
women have been hardest hit by unemployment. In the recent poor economic
situation in East Germany, women have been pushed out of their former positions
in the intensified job competition between the sexes. A group (about one fifth) of
East German women has had to accept part-time work, even though a majority
would prefer a full-time contract. If they get a full-time job, East German women
do, however, achieve a higher female/male ratio in income than West German
women.
In Germany overall, all precarious forms of employment increased during the
1990s; the percentage of employed women with a regular, stable, full-time job is
currently falling.
In spite of the obstacles, the orientation towards employment is still stronger among
East German than among West German women. Female labour force participation
and the percentage of fulltime working women are noticeably higher than in West
Germany, and an even higher percentage would like to work full-time, if possible.
The employment of mothers is in all stages of child care more common in East than
in West Germany. Contrary to prognoses predicting an adaptation to the West
German model, employment has remained a central element of female identity and
life course in East Germany.
58
3.4
Division of unpaid work
Whereas statistical offices continuously gather and report various indicators of
gender inequality in the labour market and in paid work, longitudinal data on the
gender division of unpaid work are rare. Starting with the participation of the FRG
and the GDR in the Multinational Project on Time Use in 1965 (Szalai, 1972),
representative time use studies have been repeatedly conducted in the two German
states. Several caveats have to be kept in mind when the findings of these studies
are compared: Studies differ with regard to the instruments applied (time diary
method or time estimates). The definition of unpaid work and even of housework
varies from study to study (ranging from all household work including child care to
routine housework which is often stereotyped as female housework). Results are
reported for different subgroups (ranging from all respondents to two-parent
families with specific numbers of children and specific combinations of partners’
employment). When analyzing trends in overall averages, it is impossible to
differentiate between changes in population composition and changes in behaviour.
Nevertheless, some clear-cut trends may be identified. Obviously, East Germany
always was in the lead in the modernization of the gender division of unpaid work.
In the 1960s, the division of housework was extremely traditional in West
Germany. Only 35.9 per cent of all men reported doing any housework, compared
to 72.8 per cent in the GDR. Men spent less than three hours a week doing
housework. Women did between 13.0 times (in a city sample) and 14.5 times (in a
national sample) as much housework (30.8 or 35.4 hours a week). In the GDR, men
spent more than seven hours a week doing housework — women did 4.2 times as
much (33 hours a week) (see Künzler, 1999a, p. 182, Table 31; Szalai, 1972). In the
GDR, another time budget survey was conducted in 1974. Women’s housework
time had not changed much, but within ten years the time men spent doing
housework had more than doubled and risen to 18 hours a week. In 1974, women
did only 1.8 times as much housework as men in the GDR (Künzler, 1999a, p. 182,
Table 31; Statistisches Bundesamt, 1991b). In international comparison, the FRG
was comparatively traditional and the GDR was comparatively advanced in the
1960s (Figure 11 and Figure 12).
59
Figure 11:
Participation in housework in international comparison, 1965
Participation rate (%doers)
100
90
80
70
60
50
40
30
20
10
U
SS
R
D
R
Z
Men
4
5
2
0
0
Men´s time
D
G
C
FR
Women´s time
U
SS
R
10
BG
6
R
15
Z
8
PL
20
U
SA
10
F
25
YU
12
H
30
G
14
Ratio
Housework time in international comparison, 1965
35
B
Hours/week
C
G
Women
Figure 12:
PL
F
H
U
SA
BG
YU
FR
B
G
0
Women/men
In East Germany, there was no further change in the division of housework from
the 1980s onward (Figure 13 and Table 4). Until the 1990s, West Germany gained
ground and almost caught up with East Germany. In the 1991 time budget study of
60
the Federal Statistical Office, in West Germany married women did 2.4 times as
much housework as married men. In East Germany, between 1974 and 1991 no
further change had taken place: Women still did 1.8 times as much housework as
men. In an analysis of the 1995 wave of the German Socio-economic Panel Study
(GSOEP), Künzler (1998, p. 108) found that in two-earner families with a wife
working full-time, women did 1.6 times as much housework as men in West
Germany. In East Germany women did 1.4 times as much housework as men. In
two-earner families with a wife working part-time the ratios were 2.4 in West
Germany and 1.7 in East Germany.
Figure 13:
1965-1995
Ratios of women’s/men’s time in housework in Germany,
Ratios women´s/men´s time
16
14
12
10
8
6
4
2
0
1960
1965
1970
1975
1980
West Germany
1985
1990
1995
2000
East Germany
Sources: See Table 4
61
Table 4:
1965-1995
Time use studies in Germany: Weekly time in housework,
Study year
1965
1965
1974
1980
1981
1981
1981
1981
1981
1981
1981
1981
1981
1983
1983
1983
1985
1988
1988
1988
1988
1988
1988
1988
1990
1991
1995
1995
1995
West Germany
Women
Men
35.4
2.5
30.8
2.7
33.3
29.5
34.2
34.4
25.6
26.8
22.9
30.1
31.6
39.6
40.1
21.5
22.5
21.4
23.6
15.9
18.6
18.6
21.3
31.5
38.1
28,4
21,4
6.4
7.0
9.7
9.8
10.9
11.2
11.2
11.4
11.6
17.2
14.2
12.1
3.7
4.0
3.6
5.1
4.2
4.7
3.6
13.2
10.9
12,1
13,7
East Germany
Ratio /
Men
Women
14.5
11.5
31.0
7.4
33.0
18.0
30.2
19.1
5.2
4.2
3.5
3.5
2.4
2.4
2.1
2.6
2.7
2.3
2.8
1.8
28.9
18.7
6.0
5.3
6.5
3.1
4.4
4.0
5.9
24.0
17.6
2.4
27.3
15.5
3.5
38.0
16.1
2,4
27,5
16,0
1,6
24,2
17,5
Ratio /
4.2
1.8
1.6
1.6
1.4
1.8
2.4
1,7
1,4
Sources:
Kössler, 1984; Krüsselberg, Auge, & Hilzenbecher, 1986; Künzler, 1998; Schulz,
1990; Statistisches Bundesamt, 1991b, 1995b; Szalai, 1972; see the compilation in Künzler,
1999a.
In the 1990s, differences between East Germany and West Germany have been
controlled in multivariate analyses only twice. Controlling for other factors, men in
East Germany still spent more time doing housework in the 1992 wave of the
GSOEP (Althammer & Wenzler, 1996). In the 1995 wave of the GSOEP, the
62
difference disappeared when controlling the assumptions of the time-availability
approach (Künzler, 1999b, p. 254).
63
64
Chapter 4
Explaining the division of unpaid labour: Theoretical
approaches
In the last decades, several theoretical approaches and middle range theories were
developed in order to explain the gender division of unpaid work. Developments in
theory and research were reviewed repeatedly in the 1990s (Coltrane, 2000;
Godwin, 1991; Künzler, 1994; Künzler & Walter, 2001; Shelton & John, 1996).
Coltrane mentions seven different approaches or families of theories: gender
construction approaches, economic and exchange perspectives, conceptual
approaches that focus on institutional constraints, socialist-feminist theories,
morality theories, psychological and socialization theories, and middle-level
hypotheses on life-course factors. Only some of these approaches got over the
hurdle of operationalization for a quantitative testing of hypotheses.
4.1
New home economics
According to Gary S. Becker’s new home economics (1993), the household is not
only a unit of consumption, but also a unit of production. It operates like a factory:
Income is used to buy goods which still have to be made ready for consumption.
The members of a household have to invest time in this processing which
transforms goods into commodities. The household tries to maximize its overall
utility by optimizing its members’ time allocation to the market and to household
production. If there are differences in the wage rates of household members,
specialization becomes a means of increasing a household’s utility. The household
member with the higher wage rate specializes in paid work and devotes as much
time as possible to labour-market activities. The household member with a
comparatively lower wage rate will, in turn, take over a larger share of the routine,
unpaid work which has to be done in the household (Althammer & Wenzler, 1996;
Becker, 1993; Berk & Berk, 1983). In principle, the model is gender-neutral: The
gender division of housework will diminish when differences between women’s
and men’s wage rates disappear. Until recently, studies testing the assumptions of
new home economics used wage rates (hourly wages) as an indicator. In order to
include persons without any income from employment in the analysis, e.g.,
housewives, shadow prices for their time had to be calculated and imputed
(Althammer & Wenzler, 1996).
4.2
Time-availability approach
Until the early 1990s, the time-availability approach and new home economics
were considered to be competing approaches. The time-availability approach
argues that a household member’s time spent doing housework is primarily a
function of the time subject to no other obligations. The less time a person has at
65
his or her disposal, the less time he or she will be able to spend doing housework.
Recently, Coltrane has proposed interpreting available time as an operationalization
of the assumptions of new home economics (2000, p. 1214). New home economics
models how a household decides about household members’ time allocation in paid
work. The time-availability approach models household members’ time allocation
in unpaid work afterwards, when decisions about employment have imposed
different restrictions on household members. Coverman (1985) proposed a
modified version of the time-availability approach that allows additional
inferences: The demand/response-capacity approach tries to identify both the
factors influencing the demand for housework in the household (household size,
number and age of dependent children, size of dwelling, household furnishings)
and the factors restricting household members’ possibilities to meet the demand
(time spent in employment and training, health impairment), i.e., their response
capacity. The time-availability approach is also gender neutral: The gender division
of housework is above all an effect of differences in women’s and men’s time spent
in employment.
4.3
Resource theory
Resource theory shares several assumptions with both new home economics and
the time-availability approach: All approaches assume that there is an invariant
demand for housework in the household. Both new home economics and resource
theory are rational choice theories. In new home economics, the household is the
unit of utility maximization. Household members combine their efforts and come to
unanimous decisions for the sake of household utility. Of course, new home
economics does not drop the assumptions of individual rational choice: Household
members will stay in the household only as long as they are better off within than
outside the household. In resource theory, individuals are the units of utility
maximization, and household members are primarily concerned with their own
utility. This individualistic orientation may result in conflicts within the household
when there are competing interests. In contrast to new home economics and the
time-availability approach, resource theory explicitly takes into account the
individual cost of doing housework. Chores are said to be repetitive, onerous, and
sometimes even disgusting (for a critique see the proponents of the morality
approach; Coltrane, 2000) but it would be sufficient to consider the opportunity
costs of housework: Doing chores prevents a person from spending time in more
pleasurable or more rewarding activities. Anyway, people who are maximizing
utility will avoid investing much time in housework. If the amount of housework
that has to be done in a household is relatively invariant, when one household
member avoids doing housework the workload of the other household members
will increase. The members of the household will have to bargain over the division
of the workload. In this bargaining process, they use their relative power as an
argument. In spite of the fact that there are several categories of resources as
66
sources of power (Foa & Foa, 1980), empirical tests of the assumptions of resource
theory rely solely on economic resources. Indicators usually used in empirical
research are respondents’ absolute income, their relative contribution to household
income, and their education, which stands for human capital, and thus for potential
income. Resource theory is also gender neutral: The gender division of housework
occurs because men usually have more resources, which in turn is a result of gender
differences in labour-market participation.
4.4
Role theory
Another approach, normative role theory, assumes that people behave according to
their normative orientation. Sometimes this approach is called the gender ideology
perspective. Without much theoretical elaboration, role theory implicitly posits that
gender role attitudes have only one dimension and that they vary between the
extremes of traditionalism and liberalism: Supporters of the traditional model of
separate spheres for women and men are firmly convinced that there are natural
differences (ordained by God) between women and men. The provider role is a
man’s natural vocation, women should be homemakers and rear children. Female
employment takes away jobs that should be reserved for men as family-income
providers. Maternal employment is detrimental to children’s development. In most
gender role scales used in empirical research, there is no unique definition of the
liberal position. People with liberal orientations are viewed as those who reject
traditional items. Role theory searches for consistency between people’s attitudes
and behaviour. It hypothesizes that men with liberal attitudes will do more
housework than men with traditional attitudes, whereas women with liberal
attitudes will do less housework than women with traditional attitudes. Recently,
Greenstein (1996) suggested that the interaction between spouses’ attitudes should
play a crucial role in the division of housework. Holding liberal attitudes is not a
sufficient condition for increased male participation in housework. Wives are the
gatekeepers for men’s participation in housework. Wives with traditional attitudes
will be reluctant to accept men’s increased commitment to household labour. Only
in couples where the partners share liberal attitudes is a more equitable division of
housework likely to develop. Greenstein confirmed this hypothesis in an analysis
using data from the 1987/88 wave of the National Survey on Families and
Households (NSFH). The standard indicator used in the test of the assumptions of
role theory are Likert-like attitude scales. Role theory assumes that orientations and
attitudes are internalized by socialization processes at critical ages, i.e., in
childhood and adolescence. For this reason, another label of the approach is the
"socialization perspective". Adults normally do not change their attitudes: Overall
changes in attitudes take place by cohort replacement. In this perspective, age, or
better, birth cohort may be used as an indicator of a person’s gender role attitudes,
with younger cohorts holding more liberal attitudes. Without giving any theoretical
reason, sometimes education is used as an indicator of a person’s gender role
67
attitudes, suggesting that higher education correlates with more liberal attitudes.
Due to differences in attitudes between persons cohabiting without being married
and married persons, cohabitation is sometimes used as another indicator. Married
respondents are supposed to be more traditional in their orientations. Normative
role theory, too, is gender neutral: If support for the separate spheres model
declines, differences in women’s and men’s time allocation to paid and unpaid
work should also decline.
4.5
Doing gender approach
In the late 1980s, the mainstream approaches to the explanation of the division of
housework, above all normative role theory, were challenged by an approach called
doing-gender. With a background in symbolic interactionism and ethnomethodology, West, Zimmerman, & Fenstermaker have argued that doing or not
doing housework plays a major part in the routine production of gender identity in
everyday interaction (Berk, 1985; Fenstermaker, West, & Zimmerman, 1991; West
& Fenstermaker, 1993, 1995; West & Zimmerman, 1987). Men avoid being caught
doing routine housework in order to maintain gender accountability in the eyes of
significant others. As evidence, West and Zimmerman mentioned Hochschild’s
(1989) finding that all the unemployed men in a qualitative study, i.e., men who
were unable to fulfil their provider role, did no housework at all. Brines (1984)
extended these considerations, developing a compensation hypothesis open to
quantitative testing. She argues that men’s reluctance to do housework grows the
more their gender accountability in the area of providing is threatened. Gender
accountability in the area of providing is measured by an index of economic
dependence proposed by Sørensen and McLanahan (1987). According to Brines,
the relation of spouses’ economic dependence on each other and the division of
housework should be U-shaped: As long as men’s position as chief family
providers and, consequently, their male identity is not threatened, a reduction in
women’s economic dependence will result in increased bargaining power and a
tendency towards a more equitable division of housework. But as soon as men
become economically dependent on their wives’ incomes, they try to allay any
doubts about their gender accountability by avoiding housework. There are findings
supporting the compensation hypothesis (Brines, 1994; Greenstein, 2000) but most
authors using this interpretation overlook that the overall influence of economic
dependence on the division of housework is consistent with the assumptions of
resource theory (Künzler, 1999b; Künzler & Walter, 1999).
4.6
Integrating findings
Multivariate analyses simultaneously testing the hypotheses of the different
approaches have produced mixed evidence. Until now, two quantitative
meta-analyses have tried to integrate the sometimes contradictory findings
systematically. The results of meta-analyses depend, to a great extent, on the choice
68
of procedure. Using the box-counting method, Godwin was unable to identify a
consistent pattern of results in 30 publications. Her conclusion was pessimistic:
"Despite the dozens of studies and the years of effort on the part of researchers
from the three disciplines (economics, household economics, and family sociology;
the authors) little cumulative knowledge about the causes of family time allocation
exists, and many questions remain without definite answers" (1991, p. 279). The
box-counting method tends to overlook significant findings and results in an
increased type II error. Meta-analytical type II errors are lower for the
Stouffer-method, which takes sample size and exact probability of test statistics
into account. When using the Stouffer method for integrating the results of studies
using multiple regression analysis, Künzler (1994) found that the major hypotheses
of all approaches are confirmed. According to the meta-analyses conducted by
Godwin (1991) and by Künzler (1994), the explanatory power of multivariate
models explaining the gender division of housework was moderate. Godwin
analyzed 30 studies which reported squared coefficients of determination ranging
from R² = .04 to R² = .54 with a median R² = .18 (calculation: J. Künzler). Künzler
analyzed 58 studies which reported squared coefficients of determination ranging
from R² = .01 to R² = .56 with a median R² = .17. Usually, models of women’s
contributions to housework explain a greater proportion of variance than models of
men’s contributions. Models of the relative division of housework lie in between,
which may be attributed to the fact that the relative division of housework is a
function of both women’s and men’s absolute contributions (see Künzler, 1994).
Measures of the relative division of housework between spouses (e.g., men’s
percentage share) only allow inferences on a couple’s degree of sharing or
specialization. Inferences on their behaviour are not possible. Godwin, as well as
Künzler, sampled studies published in the 1970s and 1980s. Until now, no
meta-analysis of studies published in the 1990s has been reported; but obviously in
spite of both theoretical and methodological efforts in the 1990s, the explanatory
power of the models is still moderate in the 1990s.
A major problem for any systematic comparison of the explanatory power of the
competing theories and approaches is that they partly use the same indicators, or, as
Coltrane put it: "...theories in this area are neither exhaustive nor mutually
exclusive" (2000, p. 1213). Besides the lack of effort to integrate contradictory
findings empirically there is also a lack of effort to integrate the different
middle-range theories into a more comprehensive theoretical model. In such a
comprehensive model, interactions between theories should be taken into account.
For instance, it is highly plausible that wives will use their resources in order to
bargain for a more equal sharing of housework only if their gender role attitudes
legitimize these attempts. On the other hand, the compensation hypothesis in the
doing-gender approach should only apply to men who are eager to maintain a
traditional male identity. There are some topics which have not been covered by
theoretical considerations until now, e.g., long-term effects of biographical
decisions (but see Gershuny 1996; Gershuny, Bittman, & Brice 1997; Gershuny,
69
Godwin, & Jones 1994) or the possibility of reciprocal causation between the
quality of a relationship and the division of housework. There are next to no studies
making use of gender-schema theory (Bem, 1981, 1983, 1984; Frable & Bem,
1985; for an exception see Denmark, Shaw, & Ciali, 1985; Guntner & Guntner,
1990). Neither the proponents of normative role theory nor the proponents of the
doing-gender approach discussed the question of how attitudes and the search for
gender accountability interact with a persons’ basic gender identity (femininity,
masculinity, androgynity).
4.7
Regulation approach
A major shortcoming is the lack of both theoretical consideration and of empirical
research on the influence of policy measures on the gender division of unpaid
work. In a growing number of countries, equality between men and women in all
areas of society becomes a political goal incremented at the constitutional level. In
addition, sexual discrimination is banned by a number of international treaties and
by the directives of international organizations (e.g., ILO directives). Most
countries have developed a range of equal-opportunity policies. Most of these
policies try to reduce women’s disadvantages in the labour market and
employment. There are few policies aiming at increasing male participation in the
family and in unpaid work. This official commitment to gender equality is found in
Germany, too. On the other hand, in the FRG’s actual policy mix, as shown above,
a majority of family policies, taxation legislation, and social security regulations
favour the traditional model of separate spheres with a male wage-earner role and a
female homemaker and child care provider role. In general, the one-earner model is
supported by all measures and policies which lower the opportunity costs of a
household member reducing, interrupting, or even totally retreating from
employment. All financial transfers to married couples and families lower the
opportunity costs of a withdrawal from employment due to marriage or childbirth.
As long as for various reasons women’s incomes are lower than men’s, and as long
as income losses are not completely replaced by transfers, financial transfers are
biased and support women’s withdrawal from employment. On the other hand, by
definition the promotion of the two-earner model requires policies and measures
which help women stay employed independently of their family obligations. This
objective can be achieved by getting men to participate in care-giving and by
externalizing other aspects of care-giving obligations. The supply of affordable and
reliable high-quality child day care with adequate hours of availability is of crucial
importance to relieve women from time constraints. Until now, the husband’s
obligation to support his family through full-time employment often serves as an
argument for low participation in household work. Whether men who work fewer
hours would increase their household contribution and to what extent needs
additional research. Both financial transfers and public child day care supply
should primarily exert a strong direct influence on women’s employment and
70
thereby have an indirect effect on their housework time and the couple’s division of
unpaid work. In addition to this indirect effect via employment, the possibility of a
direct effect of these policies on the division of unpaid work should not be
excluded in advance, even if the lines of influence are not clear.
71
72
Chapter 5
Gender division of labour in Germany: The study
5.1
Sample
The data for our analyses come from the German Survey of the European Network
on Policies and the Division of Unpaid and Paid Work.29 In the study 3,001
respondents of German nationality in age between 20 and 50 were interviewed by
telephone between mid-May and mid-August 2000. In West Germany, 2,019
(67.3%) persons were interviewed, in East Germany 982 (32.7%). The East
German population was over-sampled to allow more detailed analyses.
The sampling procedure was a multistage random sampling including random last
digit dialling. Within households, a respondent was selected by "last-birthdaymethod". Data were gathered by computer-assisted telephone interviewing (CATI).
In married couple households and cohabiting households, the respondent’s spouse
or partner was also asked for an abbreviated interview.
There are 1,939 couple households in the sample. In 1,031 cases (53%) both
partners were interviewed (Table 5).
Table 5:
Design and procedure of the survey
Division of paid and unpaid work in Germany
— survey design and procedure —
Population
Selection procedure
Main study
Persons of German nationality
aged between 20 and 50
Households: multistage
random sampling, including
random last digit dialling;
Individuals within households
by "last-birthday" method
n = 31
n = 3,001
Telephone interview
Respondents of pre-test
Respondents of main study
Survey method
Average duration of
51.2 min.
interview
Source: Methodological report from INFAS, 2000.
Partner study
Partner living together with
respondent of main study
Selection of partners of target
persons who were willing to
participate in study
n=5
n = 1,031
Telephone interview
29.0 min.
A total of 1,288 (42.9%) of the respondents were male and 1,713 were female
(57.1%). The mean age of the respondents was 36.4 years in West Germany and
35.9 years in East Germany (Table 6). Besides the deliberate over-sampling of the
73
East-German population, there are minor deviations from official statistics (i.e.,
women and older cohorts are over-represented).
Table 6:
Number and average age of respondents
Average
age
35.8
sd
8.0
n
876
%
29.2
Women
36.9
7.7
1,143
38.1
Total
36.4
7.9
2,019
67.3
Men
35.4
8.2
412
13.7
Women
36.3
8.4
570
19.0
Total
35.9
8.4
982
32.7
Men
35.7
8.1
1,288
42.9
Women
36.7
8.0
1,713
57.1
Total
36.3
8.0
3,001
100.0
Men
West-Germany
East-Germany
Total
Source: Gender Division of Labour in Germany, 2000.
There are considerable differences between West and East Germany concerning
household types (Table 7). In West Germany, 16.7% of the households were single
households, 17.2% were childless-couple households, 5.4% were one parent
households, 48.1% were couple-with-children households, and 12.4% were other
households (i.e., adult respondents who were living together with their parents). In
East Germany, 12.8% were living in single households, 12.5% were living in
childless-couple households, 8.4% were one parent households, 50.5% were
couple-with-children households, and 15.8% were other households.
Concerning household types, there were differences not only between West and
East Germany, but also between men and women. For instance, in West Germany
only 1.9% of men were living in one parent households, as opposed to 8.9% of
women. In East Germany, 1.2% of men were living in one parent households, but
more than ten times as many women were (13.5%).
74
Table 7:
Household types of respondents
West-Germany
Single
Childless
couple
Type of
household
(n = 3,001)
East-Germany
n
Men
182
Women
156
Total
338
Men
76
Women
50
Total
126
%
20.8
13.6
16.7
18.4
8.8
12.8
n
165
183
348
52
71
123
18.8
16.0
17.2
12.6
12.5
12.5
%
One parent
households
n
17
93
110
5
77
82
%
1.9
8.1
5.4
1.2
13.5
8.4
Couple with
children
n
365
607
972
187
309
496
%
41.7
53.1
48.1
45.4
54.2
50.5
Other
households
n
147
104
251
92
63
155
%
16.8
9.1
12.4
22.3
11.1
15.8
n
876
1,143
2,019
412
570
982
% 100.0
100.0
100.0
100.0
100.0
100.0
Total
Source: Gender Division of Labour in Germany, 2000.
Some 46.4% of the respondents in West Germany and 41.1% in East Germany live
in a childless household30; 19.5% of the West German respondents live in a
household with only one child, 25.6% with two children and 8.5% with more than
two children. In East Germany, 30.8% live in a household with only one child,
24.5% in a household with two children and 3.6% of the persons interviewed are
living together with three or more children. Most of the men live in childless
households (56.4% in West Germany, 53.4% in East Germany). In contrast, women
live chiefly in households with one or more children (61.2% in West Germany;
58.9% in East Germany) (Table 8).
There was no register of more than six children living in the same household. On
average, .95 (sd = 1.02) children live at all respondents’ households; with respect to
respondents with children in the same household, there are 1.73 (sd = .75) children
on the average.
75
Table 8:
Number of children living in respondents’ households
West-Germany
0
Number of
children
(n = 3,001)
1
2
>2
Total
East-Germany
Men
Women
Total
Men
Women
Total
n
494
443
937
220
184
404
%
56.4
38.8
46.4
53.4
32.3
41.1
n
148
246
394
85
217
302
%
16.9
21.5
19.5
20.6
38.1
30.8
n
182
334
516
90
151
241
%
20.8
29.2
25.6
21.8
26.5
24.5
n
52
120
172
17
18
35
%
5.9
10.5
8.5
4.1
3.2
3.6
n
876
1,143
2,019
412
570
982
%
100.0
100.0
100.0
100.0
100.0
100.0
Source: Gender Division of Labour in Germany, 2000.
As Table 9 shows, most respondents were married (56.6% in West Germany;
49.9% in East Germany). Some respondents (2.6% in West Germany; 2.7% in East
Germany) are married and living separately, a few respondents (.8% in West
Germany; 1.1% in East Germany) are widowed, 6.5% of the people interviewed in
West Germany and 9.7% in East Germany are divorced, 33.4% of the respondents
in West Germany and 36.6% in East Germany were still unmarried. There are
differences between men and women in regard to marital status. For example, in
West Germany 61.7% of the women were married, but only 50.0% of the men. In
East Germany, 52.1% of the women and 46.8% of the men were married; whereas
42.1% of the men in West Germany and 43.7% in East Germany were still
unmarried, compared to 26.8% and 31.4% of the women.
76
Table 9:
Marital status of respondents
West-Germany
Married
Married and
living apart
Marital status
(n = 2,997)
Widowed
Divorced
Still
unmarried
Total
East-Germany
Men
Women
Total
Men
Women
Total
n
437
704
1,141
193
297
490
%
50.0
61.7
56.6
46.8
52.1
49.9
n
19
33
52
8
19
27
%
2.2
2.9
2.6
1.9
3.3
2.7
n
2
15
17
1
10
11
%
.2
1.3
.8
.2
1.8
1.1
n
48
83
131
30
65
95
%
5.5
7.3
6.5
7.3
11.4
9.7
n
368
306
674
180
179
359
%
42.1
26.8
33.4
43.7
31.4
36.6
n
874
1,141
2,015
412
570
982
%
100.0
100.0
100.0
100.0
100.0
100.0
Source: Gender Division of Labour in Germany, 2000.
5.2
Dependent variables
Routine housework and child care. Respondents were asked to produce estimates
on their time expended in work (separately for workdays and weekend days) in four
types of activities (paid work, housework, child care, and leisure/voluntary work).
In each area, there was a detailed list of different activities. CATI technique was
used to check for consistency in order to minimize implausible estimates.
Respondents with weekly estimates in all areas of activity of less than 140 hours or
more than 196 hours per week were asked to rethink their estimates.
In the following analyses, we use routine housework and child care as dependent
variables. Routine housework is the total amount of time respondents spent cooking
and preparing meals, washing dishes, doing laundry, cleaning and shopping during
the whole week in contrast to other housework (the total amount of time
respondents spent gardening/repairs, repairs and maintenance of cars and bikes and
managing finances) which is often stereotyped as male housework. Child care is the
total amount of time respondents spent on joint activities with their children (like
swimming, cinema, etc.), playing with children and reading, transporting children
(e.g., to school, Kindergarten, events, doctor ...), looking after homework, feeding,
clothing and bathing. Only respondents with one or more children under 18 years
were interviewed as to how many hours they spent per week on child care.
77
5.3
Independent variables
Table 10 gives an overview of theories, concepts and their operationalization. The
operationalization of most independent variables is self-evident, but two concepts
need additional description.
Respondent’s economic dependence. The earnings of a respondent’s partner are
subtracted from the respondent’s earnings; the value of this subtraction is divided
by the addition of the respondent’s and partner’s earnings and multiplied by 100.
The potential values of this measure range from -100 (respondent’s complete
economic dependence on his or her partner) to +100 (partner’s complete economic
dependence on respondent). A value of 0 means that each partner is economically
independent of the other (the partners have equal earnings) (Sørensen &
McLanahan, 1987).
Gender role orientation. Respondents were asked to state how much they agreed
or disagreed with the following four statements: "A working mother can establish
just as warm and secure a relationship with her children as a mother who does not
work"; "A pre-school child is likely to suffer if his or her mother works"; "All in
all, family life suffers when the mother has a full-time job"; "A man’s job is to earn
money; a woman’s job is to look after the home and family". Possible answers
ranged from 1 = strongly agree to 5 = strongly disagree. The coding of items
expressing the traditional point of view was inverted. The answers to the four items
were combined in an unweighted Likert-scale with scores ranging from 4 to 20,
high scores representing liberal attitudes. Cronbach’s alpha is .703 for women in
West Germany, .658 for men in West Germany, .675 for women in East Germany,
and .615 for men in East Germany.
78
Table 10:
Theories, variables and operationalization
Theories
Variables
Children
Time-availability
approach
Income-oriented work
Partner employed full-time
Number of household
appliances
Size of dwelling
Owner of dwelling
Garden
Years in education
Resource theory
Respondent’s economic
dependency
Operationalization
In couple households, a set of dummy
variables indicates whether there are
children of different ages living in the
household:
- no children
- children 0-6 (reference group)
- children 7-12
- daughters 13+
- sons 13+
Weekly hours spent on paid work,
education, and travelling to or from
work or school/training centre
Dummy coding:
respondents with a partner employed
full-time = 1
Count index summing car, second car,
freezer, dishwasher, washing machine,
microwave, and personal computer
Measured in units of 10 square metres
Dummy coding:
owner of dwelling = 1
Dummy coding:
Households with a garden = 1
Blossfeld’s and Timm’s (1997, p. 24)
classification of the educational level
in years of education:
- General elementary education = 9
- Intermediate degree = 10
- General elementary education and
vocational training = 11
- Intermediate degree and vocational
training = 12
- Maturity degree = 13
- Maturity degree and vocational
training = 15
- Degree from a university of applied
sciences (Fachhochschule) = 17
- University degree = 19
(earningsrespondent - earningspartner) /
(earningsrespondent + earningspartner)
* 100
(Sørensen & McLanahan, 1987)
79
Theories
Variables
Operationalization
Age of respondents
Age of respondents in years
Dummy coding:
Unmarried respondents living with a
partner = 1
Coding s. above
Likert-scale of four items (see above);
scale ranging from 4 to 20;
high scores = liberal attitudes
Squared economic dependency index
Cohabitation
Role theory
Years in education
Gender role orientation
Doing-gender approach
Regulation approach
Control variables
80
Economic dependency
squared
Cohabitation
Coding s. above
Total time in hours of care on a typical
working day between 6 a.m. and
22 p.m. the youngest child is in public
day care (day nursery, Kindergarten,
Youngest child external care
school), family day care, and cared for
by others (mother, father, grandparents,
sibling, domestic servants, neighbours,
youth centres/associations
Monthly amount of public transfers
from child benefit, child-raising benfit,
Financial transfers
supplementary child benefit, child care
tax credit, and long-term care
insurance benefits (in units of 100 DM)
Dummy coding:
East-/West Germany
East Germany = 1
Total monthly household income
Household income
minus taxes and social insurance
contributions
Five different types of households were
represented by a set of dummy
variables:
Singles
One parent households
Type of household
Couples without children
Couples with at least one child up
to six years
Couples with children over 6 years
(reference group)
Chapter 6
Stalled modernization in the West — back to tradition in
the East?
6.1
Univariate findings
Historical changes. In 2000, there are no longer any differences regarding the
division of routine housework between East and West Germany at an aggregated
level:31 Women in West Germany reported to do 35 hours a week in routine
housework, women in East Germany reported doing 34 hours a week. Men in both
parts of Germany reported to do 17 hours a week in routine housework. Compared
to the early 1990s, women and men in both parts slightly have increased the time
they invested in routine housework. In West Germany, increases in men’s
housework time have surpassed increases in women’s housework time resulting in
a more equitable division. In 1991, women had done 2.4 times as much housework
as men; in 2000, they do only two times as much housework. In East Germany,
increases in women’s housework time have surpassed increases in men’s
housework time, the division of housework becoming more traditional again: In
1991, women had done 1.8 times as much housework as men; until 2000, the ratio
has risen to 2.0 times and is the same as in West Germany. Between the 1960s and
the early 1990s, the division of housework had changed enormously but obviously
in the 1990s the modernization of gender inequality in the division of unpaid work
was stalled (Figure 14 and Figure 15).
81
Figure 14:
Housework time in Germany, 1965-2000
40
35
35
31
32
31
Hours/week
30
34
27
25
20
16
17
13
15
10
5
17
7
3
0
1965
W omen W est
1991
W omen East
2000
Men W est
Men East
Sources:
1965: Szalai, 1972; 1991: Statistisches Bundesamt, 1995b; 2000: Gender Division
of Labour in Germany, 2000.
82
Figure 15:
12
Housework ratios in Germany, 1965-2000
11.4
Ratio women/men
10
8
6
4.2
4
2.4
2
1.8
2
2
0
1965
1991
West
2000
East
Sources:
1965: Szalai, 1972; 1991: Statistisches Bundesamt, 1995b; 2000: Gender Division
of Labour in Germany, 2000.
At an aggregated level, the modernization of the gender division of paid work is
more advanced with a lead in East Germany. There are no differences between East
German and West German men in their time in paid work and education, both
reporting that they work for pay 52 hours a week. In West Germany, women’s time
investments in paid work are much lower, with an average of 29 hours a week. The
gender gap is smaller in East Germany, women reporting 37 hours a week in
employment. In East Germany, men invest 1.4 times as much time in paid work as
women, in West Germany they invest 1.8 times the amount. A traditionalization in
the division of housework emerges when developments in male one-earner
households, households of men working full-time and women working part-time,
and two full-time earner households are compared for the years 1995 and 2000
(Figure 16, Figure 17, & Table 11). Whereas there are only minor changes in
households with a working wife in West Germany, the ratios of the spouses’
housework time has changed to the disadvantage of women in all household types
in East Germany. The modernization lead of two-earner households with both
partners working full-time has vanished between 1995 and 2000: In 1995, women
had done 1.4 times as much housework as men, compared to 1.9 times as much in
2000 in these households. In households with a part-time working wife and in
one-earner households, the extent of traditionalization has been even greater, the
ratios rising from 2.4 to 3.4 and from 1.7 to 2.5.
83
Figure 16:
Housework ratios by earner type in West Germany, 1995-2000
4
Ratio women/men
3.5
3
2.5
2
1.5
1
0.5
0
1995
Male earner
2000
Full-time/part-time
Full-time/full-time
Sources: See Table 10.
Figure 17:
Housework ratios by earner type in East Germany, 1995-2000
4
Ratio women/men
3.5
3
2.5
2
1.5
1
0.5
0
1995
Male earner
Source: See Table 10.
84
2000
Full-time/part-time
Full-time/full-time
Table 11:
1995-2000
Household type
Housework and the extent of spouse’s employment in Germany,
Study
year
West Germany
Women
38.1
22.1
n = 622
One-earner
44.1
2000
13.8
n = 329
28.4
1995
15.9
Two-earner: woman
n = 376
with part-time
37.7
employment
2000
11.5
n = 212
21.4
1995
12.6
n = 413
Two full-time earners
28.7
2000
10.5
n = 194
Note: Means and standard deviations.
1995
Sources:
Men
10.9
9.6
n = 622
14.5
8.6
n = 212
12.1
9.8
n = 376
14.7
8.6
n = 126
13.7
10.4
n = 413
18.4
11.4
n = 135
East Germany
Ratio
3.5
3.0
2.4
2.6
1.6
1.6
Women
Men
38.0
22.9
n = 264
44.4
16.3
n = 84
27.5
14.9
n = 157
36.9
11.4
n = 55
24.2
13.1
n = 515
31.1
10.9
n = 187
16.1
11.3
n = 264
12.9
8.1
n = 55
16.0
11.5
n = 157
15.1
6.4
n = 37
17.5
12.1
n = 515
16.5
8.9
n = 128
Ratio
2.4
3.4
1.7
2.5
1.4
1.9
GSOEP, Wave L, 1995; Künzler, 1998.
Overall averages mask differences between different types of living arrangements.
Patterns of time use may change when a couple starts cohabitation; they change
when a woman gives birth to a child, and they continue to change as children grow
up. Patterns of time use are different for lone parents. The differences in time use
between different types of households are shown in the following four figures. We
calculate average time use in paid work (including travel and education), routine
and other housework, child care, and other care (including care for elderly or sick
members of the household, and voluntary work) for five different types of living
arrangements, i.e., respondents living alone, one-parent families, couples without
children, two-parent families with a pre-school child, and two-parent families with
pre-school children.
Men’s time use. Men’s time in employment does not vary much among the
different types of household (Appendix-Table A25 to Appendix-Table A28); nor is
there much variation between East and West German men. In West Germany
(Figure 18), hours in employment are highest for fathers in two-parent families
with school children ( = 52.5 hours/week) and lowest for lone fathers ( = 47.6
hours/week). In East Germany, men living alone spend the fewest hours in
85
employment ( = 47.9 hours/week). Cohabiting men without children and fathers
in two-parent families with school children spend the most hours in gainful
employment ( = 53.8). In most household types, men in East Germany (Figure 19)
are employed longer hours compared to men in West Germany. There is more
variation in men’s time spent in doing chores in the different living arrangements.
On the average, men living alone spend 19 hours a week doing routine housework
in West Germany and 21 hours in East Germany. Men do one hour less in West
Germany and more than two hours less in East Germany when they live with a
partner. In couple households with minor children, men again do less housework
( = 16 hours/week in West Germany and = 15 hours/week in East Germany).
Lone fathers spend the most time doing chores compared to other men ( = 22
hours/week in West Germany and 26.9 hours/week in East Germany). In time spent
in child care, there are again next to no differences between men in East and West
Germany. When there is a pre-school child to be cared for, men spend about 21
hours a week in activities with the children. When the children are older, fathers
spend less time in child care (13.2 hours/week in West Germany and 11.6
hours/week in East Germany). Lone fathers are in-between, spending on an average
15 hours a week in child care.
86
Figure 18:
Men’s time use in West Germany, 2000
120
Hours/week
100
80
60
40
20
0
Single
Paid work
Childless
couple
Routine housework
One parent
Other housework
Couple with
child <= 6
Child care
Couple with
child(ren) > 6
Other care
Source: Gender Division of Labour in Germany, 2000.
Figure 19:
Men’s time use in East Germany, 2000
120
Hours/week
100
80
60
40
20
0
Single
Paid work
Childless
Couple
Routine housework
One parent
Other housework
Couple with
child <=6
Child care
Couple with
child(ren) > 6
Other care
Source: Gender Division of Labour in Germany, 2000.
87
Women’s time use. Women’s time use varies in different types of living
arrangements (Appendix-Table A25 to Appendix-Table A28). Differences between
East and West Germany are also more marked. In West Germany (Figure 20),
women living alone spend the same amount of time in gainful employment and do
only slightly more housework compared to men who live alone (49.1 hours/week of
gainful employment and 22.7 hours/week of routine housework). Women’s time
spent in gainful employment is lower and their housework time is higher when they
live with a partner. Living with a partner and raising a child of pre-school age
results in another sharp reduction in time spent in gainful employment. At the same
time, not only does the time spent doing chores increase to an average of 41 hours a
week, but another 36 weekly hours are devoted to direct child care activities. When
children begin to grow up and all the children in a family attend school, women
halve the time they devote to child care activities and double the time spent in
gainful employment. The amount of routine housework remains fairly constant.
There are next to no differences between women in East and West Germany
regarding the time spent in routine housework and child care activities, but the
pattern of changes in employment is different for women in East Germany.
In East Germany (Figure 21), more mothers raising a pre-school child in a
two-parent family are employed full-time (20.9% compared to 9.3% in West
Germany); when all children are attending school, only a minority (18.8%
compared to 43.8% in West Germany) of mothers in two-parent families stays at
home, and the majority works full-time (61.7% compared to 17.0% in West
Germany). On average, women in East Germany spend 19 hours a week in
employment when living with a partner and a pre-school child and 39 hours a week
when living with a partner and school children. In East Germany, the patterns of
time use of lone mothers are very similar to those of cohabiting mothers with
school children. In West Germany, lone mothers work longer hours for pay than
mothers with school children in two-parent families.
88
Figure 20:
Women’s time use in West Germany, 2000
120
Hours/week
100
80
60
40
20
0
Single
Paid work
Childless
couple
Routine housework
One parent
Other housework
Couple with
child <= 6
Child care
Couple with
child(ren) > 6
Other care
Source: Gender Division of Labour in Germany, 2000.
Figure 21:
Women’s time use in East Germany, 2000
120
Hours/week
100
80
60
40
20
0
Single
Paid work
Childless
couple
Routine housework
One parent
Other housework
Couple with
child <= 6
Child care
Couple with
child(ren) > 6
Other care
Source: Gender Division of Labour in Germany, 2000.
89
The division of child care is more equitable than the division of routine housework,
both in East and in West Germany. In both parts of Germany it is more equitable in
families with school children compared to families with a pre-school child. In East
and West German two-parent families, mothers spend 1.7 to 1.8 times as much
time in direct child care activities as fathers when there is a pre-school child in the
household. Above all the sharp reduction in mothers’ time spent in child care
results in the division of child care seeming more equitable in two-parent families
with school children. In East Germany there is no longer any difference between
mothers’ and fathers’ investments. In West Germany, mothers still spend 1.4 times
as much time as men performing household work.
In addition to routine housework and child care, other activities in everyday life
should be considered when analysing unpaid work. Burdens like other housework,
care for older or sick persons within or outside the household, and voluntary work
add up to an average of 8.1 hours a week for women in West Germany, 11.6 hours
a week for men in West Germany, 9.7 hours a week for women in East Germany,
and 14.4 hours a week for men in East Germany. Taken together, all unpaid and
paid work makes a double day both for women and men. In this respect, the weeks
of both women and men have only weekdays and no days off. The lowest average
total workload is that of single women in East Germany ( = 76.9). Lone fathers in
East Germany have the highest total workload ( = 107.5). The total workload of
parents is about 14 hours higher compared to couples without children. In general,
women’s total workload is slightly lower than men’s total workload. In terms of
time allocation, a state of equity seems to be present, but below this surface
appearance of justice, a specialization following the model of separate spheres for
women and men is alive and well.
Independent variables. Means and standard deviations of the predictors used in
the subsequent multivariate analyses are reported in Appendix-Table A29. East and
West German respondents differ significantly in some respects: Due to the steep
decline in birth rates in East Germany after unification there are fewer two-parent
families with pre-school children in East Germany, but there are more childless
couples in West Germany. West German households have more consumer
durables; respondents in West Germany are more often the owners of the dwelling
or house where they are living; their dwellings and houses are larger in terms of
living space. Women are less dependent on their partner’s income in East
Germany. Parents in East Germany receive fewer public transfers but have more
child care at their disposal. In some respects, male and female respondents differ
irrespectively of the part of Germany where they are living: Women report living
with a higher number of children than men, which is a result of well-known
differences in the mean age at the birth of the first child between women and men.
Both in East Germany and in West Germany men more often live alone. With
regard to gender role attitudes, our survey replicates the differences found in 1996
90
(see above, Section 3.1) There is only a small and non-significant difference
between women’s and men’s liberal attitudes in East Germany. Women in West
Germany are significantly more traditional in their orientations, but West German
men are by far the most traditional group. Appendix-Table A30 and
Appendix-Table A31 report Pearson’s zero-order correlation of respondents
housework and child care time with independent variables and control variables.
Nearly all relationships are in the expected direction; the vast majority of
coefficients is significant.
6.2
Multivariate findings
We test major hypotheses of most of the approaches mentioned above using
women’s and men’s weekly hours spent doing routine housework and child care as
dependent variables applying ordinary least squares multiple regression analysis.
We calculate different models for women and men. Testing additional hypotheses
results in a successive reduction of the sample. A first set of regression analyses
uses samples of all respondents (n = 1,397 women and n = 1,067 men).
Respondents who are still living at their parental home are excluded (n = 406).
Another 131 cases were lost due to missing values. In order to analyze the effects
of economic dependence on partner income and of the partner’s available time, all
respondents not living in a partnership are excluded. The second set of regression
analyses uses samples of respondents living together with a spouse (n = 921
women and n = 653 men; 366 cases are lost due to missing values). In order to test
the effect of political regulations, i.e., the effects of the supply of child care outside
the family and of child benefits, all couples without children have to be excluded.
The remaining sample consists of respondents living together with a spouse and
raising minor children in the household (n = 534 women and n = 378 men; 557
cases are lost due to missing values).
All respondents. In the first two regression models (Table 12Fehler!
Verweisquelle konnte nicht gefunden werden.), the different types of living
arrangements are represented by a set of dummy variables. Two-parent families
with school-aged children are the reference category. At the level of descriptive
findings, women’s but not men’s contributions in housework varies greatly by type
of living arrangement. The regression models give a different picture. Controlling
for other factors, there are no more any differences between women with children
of different ages in two-parent families and lone mothers. There is a tendency for
women in childless-couple households to do two hours less of housework each
week. Women living alone spend significantly less time doing housework than the
reference group (7.4 hours/week, p .0001). In the descriptive analysis, men’s
contributions in doing housework seemed to be the same in the different types of
living arrangements. Again, the regression models show a different picture. Men’s
time doing household chores does not vary with the age of the youngest child. In
91
two-parent families, there is no difference between fathers of pre-school children
and fathers of school children. All other men do more housework. Single men and
men in childless-couple households both spend more than two hours more a week
compared to the reference group. Lone fathers spend six hours more a week doing
chores than fathers of school-aged children in two-parent families. An inspection of
standardized regression coefficients shows that for both women and men, the
amount of time spent in employment is the most important factor influencing
contributions to housework. In practical terms, each additional hour in paid work
results in a reduction of housework by 19 minutes for women and 12 minutes for
men. The time women spend doing housework is also influenced by age, household
income, gender role attitudes, and education. Young women do less housework
compared to older women. In the youngest cohort, born in 1980, women do 9 hours
less housework a week compared to the oldest cohort, born in 1950. Due to the
cross-sectional nature of our data, it is not possible to decide whether this is a
cohort effect or an age effect. The higher the income of the household, the less time
women spend doing housework. Women with traditional gender role attitudes do
more housework than women with liberal orientations. The difference between the
most traditional and the most liberal women is 5.1 hours a week. For women,
additional education results in decreases in housework time. There is a difference
of 3.7 hours a week between women with a university degree and women with no
degree or a degree in lower secondary education and no additional vocational
training. The time men spend doing housework is also influenced by their gender
role attitudes. Men with liberal attitudes do more housework than men with
traditional attitudes but the difference between the most traditional and the most
liberal men is only 3.5 hours a week. Neither age (birth cohort) nor household
income nor education influence the time men spend doing housework. Neither
men’s nor women’s housework time is influenced by indicators representing the
demand side of housework, with one exception: Men who own their dwelling do
two hours a week less housework than men living in rented accommodations.
Finally, neither for women nor for men is there a difference between East Germany
and West Germany. The explanatory power of the regression model of women’s
housework time is much greater than that of men’s housework time. As adjusted
coefficients of determination show, 35.7% of the variation in women’s housework
time, but only 17.1% of the variation in men’s housework time is explained by the
model.
92
Table 12:
OLS-regression models predicting time spent on housework for
all respondents and couples
Independent variables
East Germany
Age
Household income (ln)
Type of household:
Couple all children > 6
Single
Couple without children
One parent households
Couple with children (at
least one < 7)
All respondents
Women
Men
1.14
-.31
.04
-.02
.30***
.03
.16
.02
-1.96***
-.62
-.09
-.04
reference
-7.44***
-.16
-1.99+
-.05
-1.55
-.03
.76
.02
-1.70
-.05
reference
Children aged 7-12
Girls aged 13 and older
Boys aged 13 and older
-.32***
-.45
-.20***
-.32
Partner employed full-time
Owner of dwelling
Garden
.02
.00
.10
.04
-.15
-.01
-.05
.00
Men
-1.77*
-.09
-.02
-.02
-.21
-.01
2.10*
.09
2.25**
.09
5.99**
.08
-.57
-.02
Children aged 0-6
Number of household
appliances
Dwelling (in 10 square
meter)
Women
1.19
.04
.24***
.11
-1.99**
-.08
reference
Children: no children
Income oriented work
(hours/week)
Couples
.01
.00
-.01
-.01
-1.94**
-.10
-1.09
-.05
.54
.02
-.19
-.01
1.04
.03
-.31***
-.46
1.67
.04
-.28
-.03
.22*
.08
-.82
-.03
-.44
-.01
1.10
.05
reference
-.45
-.02
-1.82+
-.08
1.93*
.08
-.20***
-.33
.76
.04
-.07
-.01
-.04
-.02
-2.2**
-.12
-.53
-.02
93
Couples
Women
Men
-.29*
.38***
Gender role orientation
-.06
.13
-1.23
.93
Cohabitation
-.03
.04
-.37**
-.11
-.52***
.01
Years in education
-.07
-.04
-.11
.00
Respondent’s economic
-.01
-.06***
dependency
-.03
-.23
Economic dependency
.00
.0003+
squared
-.04
.12
Constant
45.72***
26.79***
49.19***
26.86***
Adj. R²
.357
.171
.310
.220
F
56.26***
16.67***
24.01***
11.19***
n
1397
1067
921
653
Note: Unstandardized regression coefficients and standardized regression coefficients.
Independent variables
All respondents
Women
Men
-.32**
.22*
-.07
.07
+p ≤ .10. *p ≤ .05. **p ≤ .01. ***p ≤ .001.
Source: Gender Division of Labour in Germany, 2000.
All couples. Central hypotheses of the time-availability approach, resource theory,
and the doing-gender approach apply only to couple households. In order to test
these hypotheses, in the next two regression models respondents living alone and
lone parents are excluded from the sample. In the models, the additional housework
caused by children of various ages is controlled for by a set of dummy variables.
Couple households with children of pre-school age are the reference group.
Repeatedly, studies found that especially teenage girls do more routine housework
than teenage boys. Teenage girls may be a support in household work, but there is
still no test of whether this relief is shared equally by the parents or whether one
parent profits more. In order to analyze these hypotheses, two dummy variables are
included, indicating whether there are girls or boys aged 13 or older living in the
household. In couple households without children, women do less housework
compared to mothers of a pre-school child, and men do more housework compared
to fathers of a pre-school child, but the differences are far from significant. Neither
women’s nor men’s time spent doing housework is changed significantly by the
presence of children of primary-school age. Teenage girls’ support in housework
does not result in relief for their mothers, but their fathers profit by a reduction of
their housework time by almost two hours a week. Surprisingly, fathers of teenage
boys increase their time in housework by almost two hours a week. Controlling for
economic dependence and household income, time spent in employment and a
partner’s full-time employment are true and exclusive indicators of the
time-availability approach. In the models for couples, too, respondents’ own time
spent in employment is the most important predictor for their housework time.
94
Neither absolute nor relative effects differ from the first two models. Women
employed full-time do 6.2 hours a week less housework compared to women
employed part-time.Women with a partner working full-time do as much
housework as the small group of women with a partner who works part-time or
does not work for pay at all. The time men spend doing chores does not vary with
the extent of their wives employment (full-time versus less than full-time), but only
with the extent of their own employment. A reduction of men’s time spent in
employment of one hour results in another 12 minutes spent doing household
chores. Again, men who are owners of their dwelling do two hours a week less
housework than men living in rented accommodations. For women, but not for men
in couple households, time spent in housework increases with the size of the
dwelling, but in terms of practical importance, the effect is rather small: Ten
additional square meters result in another 13 minutes of housework each week.
Other hypotheses of the time-availability approach are not confirmed by the data,
e.g., the reduction of housework time by labour-saving household appliances. In
couple households, too, respondents behaviour accords with their attitudes: Both
women and men with traditional gender role attitudes do less housework than their
liberal counterparts. In couple households, the effect is stronger for men than for
women, both in absolute and in relative terms. The most liberal men spend
additional 6.1 hours doing routine housework compared to the most traditional
men. Spouses who cohabitate without being married do not differ in their
housework time from married couples. Again, younger birth cohorts of women
invest less time in housework than older ones, but there is no relation between
men’s age or birth cohort and their contributions to housework. For women,
education and birth cohort are in second place with regard to the relative
importance in predicting housework time. The influence of education on women’s
housework time increases, both in absolute and relative terms: Each additional year
in education reduces women’s weekly housework time by more than half an hour.
The difference between the most and the least educated women is 5.2 hours
housework a week. Household income (logged) comes in third place. In wealthier
households women (but not men) do less housework. For men, the predictor in
second place is respondents’ economic dependence. In accordance with the
assumptions of resource theory, men significantly increase their contributions to
housework when their wives’ contributions to household income increase. On the
other hand, the coefficient of the squared dependence term only slightly fails to be
significant (p = .062). At first glance, the doing-gender approach is confirmed by a
tendency for a curvilinear relation between economic dependence and housework
time. In fact, the relation is not U-shaped, as hypothesized by the doing-gender
approach: There is an overall positive relation between men’s economic
dependence and their housework time, but changes in housework time are different
at different degrees of dependence. Contrary to the assumptions of doing-gender’s
compensation hypothesis, the marginal utility of changes in wives’ income
contributions increases the more husbands become economically dependent on
95
their wives (Figure 22). The predicted housework time for men who are the sole
earner is 13.6 hours a week. In a two-earner household with equal contributions to
household income, the predicted housework time is 16.6 hours a week. In contrast
to this increase by three hours, men’s housework time increases by another 9 hours
a week when they become totally dependent on their wives’ income.32
Figure 22:
Dependence in couple households and husbands’ housework.
Predicted values (hours/week)
28
26
24
22
20
18
16
14
0
10
80
60
40
20
0
0
-2
0
-4
0
-6
0
-8
-1
00
12
Economic Independence
Source: Gender Division of Labour in Germany, 2000.
In the couple sample, a significant difference is found between East and West
German men. East German men spend 1.8 fewer hours doing housework each week
compared to West German men when other factors (e.g., differences in gender role
attitudes or in economic dependence) are controlled. Compared to the first two
regression models including all respondents, the explanatory power of the models
for couples decreases for women and increases for men. The models explain 31.1%
of the variation in women’s housework time and 22.0% of the variation in men’s
housework time.
Couples with children. In Germany, many family policies are explicitly targeted
towards households with dependent children. In order to analyze the effect of these
policies, the sample has to be restricted to couples with children. For this
subsample, in addition to housework time, time in child care activities is used as a
dependent variable (Table 13). There are only a few changes in the set of predictors
explaining the time spent on housework compared to the model using a subsample
96
of all couples. Women in wealthier households no longer spend less time doing
routine housework. In the subsample of two-parent families, men tend to reduce
their housework time with increasing household income. There is no longer a
significant relief of fathers by their teenage daughters, but fathers of teenage sons
now spend almost four additional hours doing routine housework compared to
fathers of pre-school children. For women, the size of the dwelling does not matter
any longer. In spite of the fact that the coefficent of the squared term of economic
dependence does not change in magnitude, the probability is now far from
significant (p = .188). For most significant predictors in the models with a sample
of all couples, failing to become significant in the new model probably results from
the reduction in sample size. Two new predictors are added to the model: the hours
a week the youngest child spends in external child day care indicates whether and
to what extent child care needs are met. External care may be public day care, but
also care by relatives, licensed or unlicensed family day care, or care by au pairs.
At present, external child day care is a political measure only in part. Especially for
many parents in West Germany, it is an onerous day-to-day task to organize
additional care for their children. Due to low public subsidies paid to day care
centres for children below the age of three and for school children, especially
centre day care is costly. Nevertheless the variable indicates the potential effects of
a family-policy measure. It gives a hint as to what would happen if the supply of
affordable and reliable public child day care were expanded. Somewhat
surprisingly, fathers but not mothers reduce their time in routine housework when
their children are cared for outside the family for longer hours. A possible cause
could be that men use the time when they are monitoring their children to do
chores. They invest the time saved by reductions in monitoring time in other
activities (employment or leisure) thus also reducing housework time. Women, on
the other hand, do not display this systematic pattern of behaviour. The other new
predictor entered into the model, is the amount of public financial transfers the
household receives (e.g., child benefits and paid parental leave). In a multivariate
OLS-regression model (results not shown) of time in paid work and education on
various controls in a sample of couples with children, there is a positive relation
between the time the youngest child spends in external child day care and mothers’
time in employment (b = 1.07, p .001, to be precise). One additional hour in child
care at an ordinary workday results in more than an additional hour a week in
employment. On the other hand, reducing the opportunity costs of reductions in
women’s employment with financial transfers actually decreases women’s
employment by almost one hour for every 100 Marks (51.13 Euro) (b = .91,
p .001). External child care is the most important predictor in relative terms
( = .234). Financial transfers come in third place ( = .169). A traditionalization
of the gender division of unpaid work by financial transfers is not only the indirect
result of a reduction of wives’ employment. There is also a direct effect of
traditionalization in the division of housework. Public transfers influence mothers’
97
but not fathers’ time in routine housework. Each additional 100 Marks received by
a household results in women spending another half an hour a week doing chores
(controlling for their time spent in gainful employment). Again, respondents’ time
spent in employment is the most influential factor in explaining their housework
time. In absolute terms, the trade-off between employment time and housework
time is greater for women than for men. Bringing women’s and men’s time in
employment into line by reducing men’s time and by increasing women’s time by
ten hours a week would result in women doing 3.1 hours less and men doing
one-and-a-half hours more housework. Controlling for other factors, the gap
between West German and East German men becomes even larger in the sample of
two-parent families: East German men are much more traditional in their actual
behaviour, taking into account that they are more liberal in their attitudes and that
their wives are economically less dependent. If there were no other differences
between East and West Germany, East German men would have to do additional
three hours of housework to catch up with West German men.
On the other hand, there are no differences in the time spent in child care activities
between men in East and West Germany. Parents’ time in child care activities is
influenced above all by the time they spend in employment. In the case of child
care activities, the trade-off with time in employment is the same for mothers and
for fathers. For both, a reduction of one hour in employment results in an additional
quarter of an hour spent in activities with their children. For women, the
employment elasticity of housework is greater than the employment elasticity of
activities with children. For men, it is the other way round. Depending on the point
of departure, both high and low elasticity may be interpreted as beneficial. Lower
elasticity means that child care activities are not used as a resource to buffer
increases in workload in employment; on the other side, only a smaller part of
decreases in time in employment are invested in activities with children. Neither
women’s time nor men’s time in child care activities varies with the time they
spend doing chores. For women, there is a tendency to reduce child care activities
when doing more housework, but in terms of practical importance the trade-off of
four minutes for every hour in housework may be neglected. Next to time in
employment, the age of children in the household is the most influential factor.
Especially the raising of children of pre-school age is a time-consuming task. For
older children, the time spent in direct activities with children is reduced by more
than five hours for women and by about three hours for men. Men who are owners
of the household dwelling reduce not only their housework time, but also their
child care time (by two hours a week). On the other hand, women’s time in child
care activities is reduced by more than two hours a week when there is a garden.
Whereas women’s time doing chores depends on birth cohort and education, child
care time does not. As with their time doing chores, fathers’ time spent in child care
activities is influenced by the degree of their wives’ economic dependence.
Confirming resource theory, men’s activities with their children increase when their
wives contributions to household income increase. Financial transfers and external
98
child day care influence mothers’ but not fathers’ time spent in direct child care
activities. In families receiving more public benefits, mothers spend more hours in
child care activities. An increase by 100 DM increases their child care time by three
quarters of an hour. On the other hand, and less surprising, the supply of external
day care reduces women’s child care time. Again, there is no one-to-one trade-off:
Every hour that the youngest child is cared for outside the family at an ordinary
workday reduces the mother’s child care activities by 23 minutes a week.
For both women and men in two-parent families, the model explains a greater
proportion of variance in child care time than in housework time. 44.6% of
variation in women’s child care time is explained by the model compared to 35.2%
of their housework time. For men, 31.6% of the variation in child care time are
explained, but only 21.1% of the variation in housework time.
Table 13:
OLS-regression models predicting time spent on housework and
child care for couples with children
Independent variables
East Germany
Age
Household income (ln)
Children aged 0-6
Children aged 7-12
Girls aged 13 and older
Boys aged 13 and older
Income oriented work
(hours/week)
Partner employed full-time
Couples with children
Housework
Child care
Women
Men
Women
Men
1.15
-3.01**
.52
-1.50
.04
-.17
.02
-.08
.31*
-.005
-.06
-.09
.13
-.004
-.03
-.06
-1.40
-1.97+
-.73
-.69
-.06
-.11
-.03
-.03
reference
.30
.01
-1.48
-.05
.99
.03
-.31***
-.41
1.85
.04
reference
-.03
.00
-1.24
-.06
3.79***
.18
-.15***
-.27
1.23
.06
Housework (hours/week)
number of household
appliances
Dwelling (in 10 square
meter)
Owner of dwelling
-.36
-.03
.004
.00
-.80
-.03
-.28
-.04
-.03
-.02
-1.90*
-.11
reference
-5.47***
-.20
-5.07***
-.15
-5.18***
-.16
-.25***
-.33
-.04
.00
-.07+
-.07
.25
.02
.00
.00
-1.71
-.06
reference
-3.79***
-.02
-2.55*
.10
-3.75**
-.16
-.25***
-.40
-1.33
-.06
-1.27
-.01
.43
.06
.04
.03
-2.03*
-.11
99
Couples with children
Housework
Child care
Independent variables
Women
Men
Women
Men
-.63
-.09
-2.20+
-1.23
Garden
-.02
.00
-.07
-.05
-.16
.360**
.06
.19
Gender role orientation
-.04
.14
.01
.06
-1.07
-1.32
.23
1.50
Cohabitation
-.02
-.05
.005
.05
-.72***
-.004
.31+
.05
Years in education
-.16
.00
.07
.02
Respondent’s economic
.002
-.06**
.03
-.05*
dependency
.00
-.27
.10
-.21
Economic dependency
-.0002
.0003
.00
.00
squared
-.04
.13
.19
.19
Youngest child external
-.06
-.24*
-.39**
-.07
care (hrs/week)
-.02
-.12
-.12
-.03
Financial transfers (100
.53***
-.003
.78***
.09
DM)
.14
.00
.20
.03
Constant
47.75***
28.65***
37.39***
36.90***
Adj. R²
.352
.211
.446
.316
F
9.83***
6.61***
20.68***
9.71***
n
534
378
533
377
Note: Unstandardized regression coefficients and standardized regression coefficients.
+p ≤ .10. *p ≤ .05. **p ≤ .01. ***p ≤ .001.
Source: Gender Division of Labour in Germany, 2000.
6.3
Discussion
Theory testing. We test hypotheses derived from time-availability approach (new
home economics), resource theory, role theory, doing-gender approach, and
regulation approach. Hypotheses of all approaches are partly confirmed in
different subsamples. Most relations are in the predicted direction but a majority of
hypotheses is not confirmed by the analyses: 99 out of 142 tests (69.7%) of
coefficients in multiple regression fail to become significant. Respondents’ time in
paid work (including education) is the most important factor (both in absolute and
in relative terms) in predicting time spent in housework and child care, both for
women and for men; it is the only predictor which is significant in all models. This
supports the core assumption of time-availability approach but most of the other
assumptions of the approach are not confirmed. Especially children of different
ages do not influence the amount of housework as much as common sense would
assume. Other approaches are predictive only for women’s housework time or only
for men’s housework time or only for some of the subsamples. Gender role
attitudes are most predictive for the housework time of men in couple households:
100
Finding a partner is a prerequisite for traditional men trying to avoid routine
housework. Another correlate of gender role attitudes, i.e., birth cohort, influences
women’s but not men’s housework time: For men, cohort replacement will not
result in the gender division of unpaid work becoming more equitable. Support of
the compensation hypotheses of doing gender approach is weak at best. Marginal
utility of women’s escape from their dependence on a male provider differs
according to the degree of their dependence, but contrary to the assumptions of the
approach and concordant with resource theory, marginal utility is higher when their
economic dependence is higher. The general trend of the relation anyway supports
the assumptions of resource theory but is restricted to men’s housework time: Men
but not women are bargaining and buy off their housework obligations.
The effect of policies. Policies influence the gender division of unpaid work in
families with children both directly and indirectly. There is a strong and positive
relation between supply of external child day care for the youngest child and the
time women spend in employment. Independently of external child day care,
financial transfers reduce women’s time in employment. Time in employment in
turn is the most important predictor for women’s (and men’s) time in housework
and child care. Besides the indirect effects of external child care supply and
monetary transfers, especially monetary transfers have a direct effect, too,
increasing women’s time in housework and child care even when controlling for
time in employment. The importance of the time spent in employment gives a hint
which policies might be most efficient in changing the traditional gender division
of labour: Bringing women’s and men’s employment time into line by increasing
women’s time and reducing men’s time will result in a more equitable division of
housework and child care. Besides the direct effect, indirect effects are also to be
expected. A levelling out of gender differences in employment time brings
women’s incomes into line with men’s income. According to our findings,
decreases in women’s economic dependence motivate husbands to invest additional
time in housework.
East-West differences. A traditionalization in East Germany, both in relative and
in absolute terms, can be observed when the findings of our study are compared
with the findings of other studies conducted in the 1990s. In East Germany, the
ratio of women’s housework time to men’s housework time had been at a historical
low level in two-earner families with both partners working full-time in 1995. Until
2000, it has risen from 1.4 to 1.9 and is now higher than the spouses’ housework
ratio in this type of household in West Germany. In male one-earner households
and in two-earner households with women working part-time, traditionalization is
even more pronounced. Controlling for other factors in multivariate analyses,
differences between men’s housework time in East Germany and West Germany
are reversed between 1992 and 2000. In 1992, East German men had done more
housework than West German men; in 1995, there was no longer any difference; in
101
2000, West German men do more housework (but not more child care) compared
to East German men, taking into account that East German men have more liberal
attitudes and live with less dependent partners. The pattern of development in the
division of unpaid work differs from the development in other areas of gender
inequality. In the labour market and in paid work, the East German modernization
lead had decreased in the decade following unification but is still marked in the late
1990s. In gender role attitudes, there is even a continuous and pronounced
modernization in East Germany. The standstill of attitude change in West Germany
in this area produces an increasing gap between East and West. Comparing findings
of cross-sectional studies, we do not know for certain whether the division of
unpaid work is actually more traditional in East Germany or whether East
Germans’ behaviour simply is not keeping pace with their modernizing attitudes.
102
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110
Appendix
111
112
Appendix-Table A1:
Germany in the modernization of gender relations, 1980s-1990s
Area
Indicator
1. State de-familialization
1.1 Public spending on family services
(% GDP)
1.2 Public day care coverage (% < 3)
1.3 Home care coverage (% aged)
1.4 Net, post-transfer/tax cost of child
care as a percentage of average family
income
2.1 Percentage of aged living with
children
2.2 Unemployed youth living with
parents as a share of total
2.3 Weekly unpaid hours, women
2. De-familialization within
households
3. Welfare-state
incentives/disincentives for
working mothers
4. Female work desirability
3.1 Child benefits as a percentage of
average worker’s income
113
3.2 Percentage benefit loss to
unemployed person if spouse works
3.3 Percentage extra marginal tax if wife
works
4.1 Female/male percentage in
unemployment
4.2 Female/male percentage in labour
force participation
4.3 Female/male percentage of industrial
wages
4.4 Female/male percentage in
management positions
Year
West
Germany
Relative position /
(range)
East
Germany
Relative
position
13 / 18 (.04 – 2.57)
-
-
7 / 17 (1 – 48)
4 / 18 (1 – 24)
-
-
4 / 8 (39.3 – 9.4)
-
-
1992
.54
1980s
1990
3
2
1990s
19.4
1980s
14
7 / 11 (65 – 4)
-
-
1991-3
11
8 / 9 (63 – 8)
-
-
19851990
35
5 / 12 (45.8 – 24.6)
-
-
1990
4.6
5 / 17 (11.4 – .7)
-
-
1991
10
5 / 16 (100 – 0)
-
-
1992
5
5 / 15 (14 – 0)
-
-
1980s
130
10 / 23 (247 – 60)
-
-
1980s
64
12 / 23 (41 – 91)
-
-
1980s
73
14 / 23 (52 – 90)
-
-
1980s
20
13 / 21 (6 – 61)
-
-
114
Area
Indicator
Year
4.5 Female/male percentage of
1980s
post-secondary students
4.6 Multiplied score of the indicators for
1980s
this area
5. Family welfare orientation Overall average of different ranks33
1980s
6. Recognition of wives’
6.1.a Support for a non-earning wife at
1992
labour
half of average male earnings34
6.1.b Support for a non-earning wife
1992
equivalent to average male earnings
6.1.c Support for a non earning wife at
1992
1..5 times average male earnings
6.2.a Support for a non-earning wife with
1992
1 child35
6.2.b Support for a non-earning wife with
1992
3 children
6.3 Support for a working wife36
1992
7. Policies that support
7.1 Policies for mothers with children
1984-7
employment for mothers37
under six
7.2 Policies for mothers with school-aged
1984-7
children
8. Level of social care services 8.1 Public day care coverage (% < 3)
1985/6
8.2 Public day care coverage (% > 3 < 6) 1985/6
8.3 People over 65 in institutional care
1985/6
(% age-group)
8.4 People over 65 receiving home help
1985/86
services (% age-group)
9. Economic intervention
Public spending on families (% GDP)
1995
10. Ecological intervention
Public day care coverage (% < 3)
around
1990
West
Germany
Relative position /
(range)
East
Germany
Relative
position
72
5 / 23 (47 – 113)
-
-
.40
10 / 23 (.25 – .65)
-
-
3.0
10 / 23 (4.75 – 1.25)
-
-
8.3
7 / 15 (20.2 – 3.1)
-
-
11.9
4 / 15 (15.2 – 3.1)
-
-
13.9
4 / 15 (25.2 – 2.2)
-
-
17.3
5 / 15 (20.0 – 4.9)
-
-
36.0
4 / 15 (57.1 – 8.2)
17.0
4 / 15 (26.1 – -14.5)
-
-
34.1
7 / 14 (17.1 – 64.9)
-
-
32.6
1 / 6 (32.6 – 57.0)
-
-
3.0
60.0
6 / 14 (.5 – 44.0)
6 / 14 (25 – 95)
-
-
6.0
10 / 14 (.5 – 10)
-
-
3.0
4 / 13 (1 – 20)
-
-
10 / 23 (2.71 – .12)
see left
1.31
38
2.97
4 / 23 (2.17 – 58.28) 58.28
23 / 23
Area
Indicator
Year
West
Germany
Relative position /
(range)
East
Germany
Relative
position
11. Educational attainment
11.1 Male/female ratio (log.) of
post-secondary education in younger
1990s
.32
6 / 23 (1.37 – -.18)
.07
12 / 23
cohorts
11.2 Difference between the respective
1990s
-.74
18/ 23 (-013 – -1.23) -1.07
22 / 23
ratio in older cohorts and the former ratio
12.1 Average gender role attitudes in
12. Gender role attitudes
1994
15.9
8 / 21 (14.3 – 19.1) 18.4
19 / 21
younger cohorts
12.2 Ratio (log.) of the former indicator
1994
.25
21 / 21 (.07 – .25)
.07
1 / 21
to the respective average in older cohorts
13.1 Male/female ratio (log.) of labour
13. Labour force participation
1995
.305
9 / 23 (.832 – .0)
.069
21 / 23
force participation
13.2 Difference between the former ratio
1995 /
.275
6 / 23 (.103 – .908) .103
1 / 23
and the respective ratio 22 years ago
1973
14. Division of household
14.1 Average z-transformed ratios of
1982-97
.11
9 / 23 (2.13 – -1.10) -.71
18 / 23
labour
division of household labour
14.2 Difference between the former ratio 1982-97 /
.27
15 / 19 (-1.52 – .83)
.18
13 / 19
and the respective ratio for 1961-1981
1961-81
Note: Relative position is given as the rank of West and East Germany, respectively, on a scale ranging from a traditional to a modern pole in
relation to the number of countries compared. Therefore, low ranks indicate traditionalism, high ranks modernism. The range is represented with
the value of the most traditional and the value of the most modern country in the respective data-set. The order in which the range is given
reflects the traditional-modern poles, not in every case lower and higher values. E.g., in the section on de-familialization in households, high
values indicate traditionalism and vice versa.
Sources:
Esping-Andersen 1999, ch. 4 (the first three areas); Siaroff, 199439 (area 4-5); Shaver and Bradshaw, 1995 (area 6); Gornick,
Meyers, & Ross, 1996 (area 7); Anttonen & Sipilã, 1996 (area 8); Künzler, 1999a (area 9ff.). The countries compared are in most cases members
of the EU (or their predecessors EEC, EC) or the OECD or sub-samples of them. See the references for further information.
115
Appendix-figure A1: Rate of income tax in Germany, 1999
Note: Marginal tax rate (Grenzbelastung, grenz99), tax rate (Durchschnittsbelastung, durch99)
in percentages, respectively.
Source: http://www.bundesfinanzministerium.de.
Appendix-Table A2:
Tax
credit
for
first
from child
1946
400
1948
600
1953
600
1954
600
1955
720
1957
720
1958
900
1959
900
1961
900
1962
1,200
1964
1,200
1970
1,200
1975
abolished
1978

1979

1981

116
Development of child benefit/tax credit in the FRG,
1946-2000
Tax
credit
for
second
child
400
600
600
600
720
1,440
1,680
1,680
1,680
1,680
1,680
1,680
abolished



Tax
credit
for third
child,
etc.
400
600
740
840
1,680
1,680
1,800
1,800
1,800
1,800
1,800
1,800
abolished



Benefit
for
first
child












50
50
50
50
Benefit
for
second
child








25
25
25
25
70
80
100
120
Benefit
for
third
child




25
30
30
40
40
40
50
60
120
150
200
240
Benefit
for
fourth
child




25
30
30
40
40
40
60
60
120
150
200
240
Benefit
for
fifth
child, etc.




25
30
30
40
40
40
70
70
120
150
200
240
Tax
Tax
Tax
Benefit Benefit
Benefit
Benefit
Benefit
credit
credit
credit
for
for
for
for
for
for
for
for third first
second
third
fourth
fifth
first
second
child,
child
child
child
child
child, etc.
from child
child
etc.
1982
50
100
220
240
240



1983
432
432
432
50 100 (70) 220 (140) 240 (140) 240 (140)
1986
2,484
2,484
2,484
50 100 (70) 220 (140) 240 (140) 240 (140)
1990
3,024
3,024
3,024
50 130 (70) 220 (140) 240 (140) 240 (140)
1992
4,104
4,104
4,104
70 130 (70) 220 (140) 240 (140) 240 (140)
1994
4,104
4,104
4,104
70 130 (70)
220 (70) 240 (70) 240 (70)
1996
6,264
6,264
6,264
200
200
300
350
350
1997
6,912
6,912
6,912
220
220
300
350
350
1998
6,912
6,912
6,912
250
250
300
350
350
2000
9,936
9,936
9,936
270
270
300
350
350
Note: Figures in DM (before 1949 in Reichsmark), only years with at least one change, changes
in bold, base figures in parentheses. The child benefit for the second child was means-tested
between 1961 and 1974. Income limits (in DM): 600 (1961-1964), 650 (1964-8/1970), 1,100
(9/1970-1971), 1,250 (1972), 1,400 (1973), 1,530 (1974). The child benefit for the second child
and additional children were partially means-tested between 1983 and 1995 and were gradually
reduced to the base figure given in parentheses depending on income. The tax credit in 2000
includes a child care tax credit (see below), this tax credit is valid for children under 16 or
disabled children without age-limit. For older children (16+) it is still 6,912 DM.
Sources:
Bundesministerium für Arbeit und Sozialordnung, 1998; Gerlach, 1996,
pp. 205-210; http://www.bmfsfj.de; http://www.bundesfinanzministerium.de; Lampert, 1998,
pp. 339f.; Münch, 1990, pp. 77-79.
117
Appendix-Table A3:
Comparative advantages of child benefit/tax credit in
the FRG, 1996-2000
Child
tax
credit
Benefit
for first
child
Range of
marginal
tax in %
1996
6,264
200
25.9 – 53.0
38.3
72,000 / 144,000
77
38.5
1997
6,912
220
25.9 – 53.0
38.2
72,000 / 144,000
85
38.6
1998
1999
2000
6,912
6,912
9,936
250
250
270
25.9 – 53.0
23.9 – 53.0
22.9 – 51,0
43.4
43.4
32.6
74,490 / 146,016
91,908 / 180,468
50,922 / 96,984
55
55
152
22.0
22.0
56.3
Year
Marginal Income starting Maximum Maximum
tax rate
tax credit
advantage advantage
starting
advantage
in %
tax credit (single/married)
advantage
in %
Note: Own calculation, figures in DM or per cent, figures for tax credit and income on an
annual basis, for benefit and maximum advantage on a monthly basis. Tax credit advantage is the
gain in net income if tax credit is applied in relation to the benefit for the first child. Maximum
advantage is the difference between the allowance by tax credit on the highest marginal tax and
the child benefit; maximum advantage in per cent is this difference in relation to the child benefit.
Sources:
For child benefit and tax credit, see Appendix-Table A2; for other aspects:
http://www.bundesfinanzministerium.de.
Appendix-Table A4:
Household type
All
Incidence and
Germany, 1995
Recipients
Germany
(%)
duration
3.4%
Recipients
East
Germany
(%)
1.9%
Recipients
West
Germany
(%)
3.8%
.7%
.2%
of
social
Duration of
support
Germany
assistance
32.0
Duration
of
support
East
Germany
13.6
Duration
of
support
West
Germany
34.1
.8%
29.7
11.5
30.9
Married couples without
children
Married couples with
children
- with 1 child
2.1%
1.1%
2.3%
20.3
11.8
21.2
1.6%
.7%
1.8%
18.3
10.3
19.1
- with 2 children
1.9%
1.0%
2.1%
18.9
11.3
19.8
- with three or more children
4.6%
3.9%
4.7%
24.5
14.1
25.6
Lone mothers with children
25.1%
12.5%
29.7%
27.2
15.2
29.0
- with 1 child
21.6%
9.7%
26.1%
25.6
13.6
27.2
- with 2 children
28.8%
15.3%
33.4%
28.7
15.9
30.7
- with three or more children 44.3%
31.2%
48.6%
31.0
19.1
33.3
118
in
Note: Figures from late 1995; children are defined as minors (under 18); duration of support:
the average of the respective group in months of uninterrupted assistance.
Source: Engstler, 1998, p. 172.
119
120
Appendix-Table A5:
Policy function
1. Paternalist
policies
Family policy measures in the GDR
Policy area
Marriage
benefits
Policies
Description
Family-formation credit From 1972 on, employed spouses who married before reaching the age of 30 years
were entitled to an interest-free loan of up to 7,000 GDR-Marks (M) for homebuilding and equipment (Helwig, 1987, pp. 67f.; Lampert, 1991). Repayment was
to take place within 8 to 11 years, but the amount could be reduced if a couple had
children (1,000 M for the first child, 1,500 M for the second child, 2,500 M for the
third child). The GDR slang term for this was "abkindern", which is difficult to
translate, but means something like "down-childing" or "reducing with children".
Taxation
For married couples, 50 M were deducted from the monthly income tax.
Other marriage benefits Spouses who were not employed were entitled to provisions of the statutory
insurance.
The pension was supplemented with 150 M monthly, if his or her spouse did not
have a pension of his or her own.
A widow/er received a pension if the deceased spouse was entitled to one.
University students who were married (or had children) were entitled to support
from the university.
Accommodation
Marriage entitled spouses to their own apartment in the scarce housing market and
thereby enabled them to move out of their parents’ home. However, this was a
practice, not a measure designed as family policy.
Family benefits
Birth subsidy
From 1950 on, mothers who attended courses offered by an agency for pregnancy
and motherhood counselling were entitled to the benefit (see Appendix-Table A6).
Child benefit
From 1950 on, parents received a child benefit (see Appendix-Table A7).
Other family benefits Supplements were paid in health insurance benefits depending on the family status.
Starting from the seventh week of illness, employees received the following
percentages of their net income if they earned less than 600 M / 600 M or more:
70% / 50% with no or one child, 75% / 65% with two children, 80% / 75% with
three children, 85% / 80% with four children and 90% / 90% with five or more
children.
Starting in 1987 there were grants for pupils in the 11th (110 M) and 12th grades
(150 M). Students were entitled to a basic grant (200 M), which was supplemented
for every child of their own (50 M). Additionally, there were special grants based
Policy function
Policy area
2. Maternalist
policies
Lone mother
benefits
Maternity
protection
Parental leave
Policies
121
Description
on achievement. Lone mothers studying at a university who cannot place their child
in a day care facility after birth are granted an allowance of 125 M (1 child), 150 M
(2 children) or 175 M (3 or more).
There were several supplements and additional provisions in some of the policies
described in this table (see above and below).
Pregnancy leave
Expecting mothers had 6 weeks pregnancy leave (Schwangerschaftsurlaub) before
Maternity leave
birth and 20 weeks maternity leave (Wochenurlaub) afterwards (22 weeks in case
Maternity leave benefit of multiple or complicated births) for which the net-income was paid by social
insurance.
After-maternity leave Mother or father could take a parental leave after maternity leave (bezahlte
Freistellung nach Ablauf des Wochenurlaubs). It would last until the end of the first
period
year for the first and second child, until 18 months after birth for the third and
following children, or until the second (third) year in case of twins (triplets).
After-maternity leave The parental leave benefit was paid as a mothers allowance comparable to the
benefit
health insurance benefit (see above: other family benefits), depending on family
status between 65% and 90% of net income, at least 250 M for one, 300 M for two
or 350 M for three and more children.
Child care leave
If a place in a day care facility for infants (Krippen) could not be provided, the
mother or other primary carer who had previously been employed, could take a
leave lasting up until the child’s third birthday. There was no payment in this
period. Lone mothers received the parental leave benefit (see above). Mothers who
gave birth to another child within this period received an allowance of 200 M
monthly.
Sickness leave
Married mothers with at least two children or one disabled child, as well as lone
mothers with a child up to 14 years were entitled to a sickness leave of four weeks
annually with one child, six weeks with two children, eight weeks with three, ten
weeks with four and 13 weeks with five or more children.
Sickness leave benefit The allowance was 90% of net income for the first two days, and 65%-90% (health
insurance benefit, see above: other family benefits) for the following days.
Care of disabled child For the necessary care of a disabled child, the primary care giver who had to
benefit
terminate his or her regular employment received 200 M monthly as long as the
care was provided.
122
Policy function
Policy area
Child day care
Policies
Provision of day care
Work schedule
Reduction of working
time
Housework day
Vacation supplement
Old-Age
Insurance
Care periods under
old-age insurance
Accommodation
3. Socialist
policies
Egalitarianism
Description
For every child for whom day care was sought, a place in a day care facility was
available from birth until the completion of primary school (see Section 2.2.3;
Appendix-Table A9ff.).
Mothers (and lone fathers) who were employed full-time and had at least two
children or one disabled child had to work only 40 hours a week (instead of 43 ¾
hours) without loss of income.
Women who were married and/or had minor children and/or were at least
40-years-old, as well as lone fathers and husbands whose wives needed care were
entitled to a day off every month if they worked full-time.
Mothers who worked shifts, as well as lone fathers who had two or more children
or one disabled child, respectively, were entitled to from two to five additional
vacation days (base vacation: 22 days).
The time in which a mother received the motherhood allowance (see above:
parental leave benefit) was equal to the time of employment with statutory
insurance. For every child, the mother received one year of old-age insurance.
A pension supplement of 45 M was paid for every child.
There were other provisions for mothers with more than two / five children, widows
and orphans (see for details Lampert, 1991, p. 126).
A rental allowance was paid to families with four or more children and lone parents
with three or more children.
Products and food were subsidized.
Subsidies and low
indirect taxes
Surveillance
Meticulous control of The ideal of the socialist personality was enforced.
the up-bringing of
children and youth
Notes: Own compilation. The family policy measures of the former GDR are categorized in a similar way as for the FRG. This may be disputed
because the underlying gender ideology is rather different. The combined women and family ideal in the GDR was comprised of a combination of
motherhood and full-time employment. Therefore many measures were to enable mothers’ labour force participation and/or had a natalist
intention.
All figures are monthly and in the currency of the former GDR, the Mark. Usually, the regulations that were in effect shortly before
unification are given.
Sources:
Gerlach, 1996; Helwig, 1987; Lampert, 1991.
Appendix-Table A6:
Year
1950
1958
1972
Note:
Development of birth subsidy in the GDR, 1950-1990
First child
Second child
Third child
100


500
600
700
1,000
1,000
1,000
Figures in M, only years with changes in the measure.
Fourth child
250
850
1,000
Fifth child, etc.
500
1,000
1,000
Source: Gerlach, 1996, pp. 267-271.
Appendix-Table A7:
Development of child benefit in the GDR, 1950-1990
First
Second
Third
Fourth
Fifth
child
child
child
child
child, etc.
1950
Up to 14 years
20
25



1978
Up to 14 years
20
20
50
60
70
1981
Up to 14 years
20
20
100
100
100
1987
Until end of secondary school
50
100
150
150
150
1990
Up to 12 years
95
145
195
195
195
Between 12 and under 16 years
115
165
215
215
215
Note: Monthly figures in M, only years with changes in the measure. Supplements were paid for
children of university students and of parents in vocational training (until 1989: 60 M, 1990: 110
to 160 M) and for lone parents (25 M).
Year
Sources:
Age of child
Gerlach, 1996; Helwig, 1987; Lampert, 1991.
123
Appendix-Table A8:
Year
Development of the use of day care in Germany, 1990-1999
Infants
Pre-school-children
School children
West
East
West
East
West
East
West
East
West
East
West
East
Germany Germany Germany Germany Germany Germany Germany Germany Germany Germany Germany Germany
full-time full-time
full-time full-time
full-time full-time
6.0
62.0
2.0
52.0
82.0
98.0
21.0
80.0
2.0
35.0
2.0
35.0
1990
63.0
43.0
94.0
70.0
31.0
31.0
1991






57.0
46.0
93.0
72.0
1992








50.0
38.0
91.0
74.0
1993








30.0
22.0
90.0
68.0
1994








6.0
21.0
1.0
14.0
80.0
92.0
15.0
60.0
3.0
27.0
3.0
27.0
1995
23.0
12.0
88.0
47.0
30.0
30.0
1996






33.0
15.0
87.0
45.0
27.0
27.0
1997






8.0
27.0
1.0
14.0
91.0
85.0
20.0
51.0
5.0
30.0
5.0
30.0
1998
34.0
15.0
89.0
56.0
24.0
24.0
1999






Notes: Use of day care on the basis of the question of whether children are in day care or with a child-minder (German Socio-Economic Panel,
GSOEP); proportion of children in day care to the number of children in the age-group in per cent. Infants: children 0-3, pre-school children:
4-6, school children: 7-11. German population. For methodological issues see note 23.
Missing values: not reported in the sources, not included in the data-sets, or not interpretable because of low numbers.
Source: Hank, Tillmann, & Wagner, 2001.
124
Appendix-Table A9:
Development of day care facilities for infants under
three (Krippen) in Germany, 1950-1998
Year
West Germany
West Germany
East Germany
East Germany
places
coverage level (%)
places
coverage level (%)
1950
7,491
.4
8,542
1.3
1955
16,043
.7
67,106
9.1
1960
18,351
.7
104,781
14.3
1965
18,108
.6
142,242
18.7
1970
17,457
.7
183,412
29.1
1975
24,251
1.3
242,553
50.1
1980
26,104
1.5
289,550
61.2
1985
28,353
1.6
343,787
72.7
1989
/
/
535,203
80.2
1990
38,153
1.8
/
/
1991
/
/
255,280
54.2
1994
47,064
2.2
103,689
41.3
1998
58,475
2.8
108,452
36.3
Note: Coverage level is the ratio of number of places to the number of children in the age-group
in percentages. For methodological issues see note 23.
Sources:
West Germany: Bundesministerium für Familie, Senioren, Frauen und Jugend,
1998, p. 200; Statistisches Bundesamt, 1992c, 1996c; Statistisches Bundesamt, personal
communication, March 1, 2001; Tietze, 1993, p. 114; East Germany: 1950-1985: Gerlach, 1996,
p. 249; Statistisches Bundesamt, 1993b; 1994: Statistisches Bundesamt, 1996c; 1998: Statistisches
Bundesamt, personal communication, March 1, 2001.
125
Appendix-Table A10: Coverage level of day care facilities for infants under
three (Krippen) in the federal states of Germany,
1990-1998
Change
1990/1
1994
1998
%
%
%
1998-1990/1
Baden-Württemberg
1.1
1.2
1.3
115
The free state of Bavaria
.9
1.0
1.4
154
Berlin (West)
17.9
19.1
23.4
120
The free hanseatic city of Bremen
2.0
6.4
6.8
331
The free hanseatic city of Hamburg
9.8
11.9
11.7
120
Hesse
1.8
2.1
2.6
144
Lower-Saxony
1.6
1.5
1.8
115
North Rhine-Westphalia
.9
1.5
2.5
272
Rhineland-Palatinate
.5
.9
1.4
248
Saarland
.8
1.7
2.5
276
Schleswig-Holstein
.7
1.4
2.3
312
West Germany
1.8
2.2
2.8
153
Berlin (East)
70.1
54.4
52.4
48
Brandenburg
64.6
54.1
51.9
53
Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania
50.0
39.0
30.8
36
The free state of Saxony
51.9
32.8
24.1
30
Saxony-Anhalt
43.4
42.9
47.2
66
The free state of Thuringia
54.0
36.4
25.9
31
East Germany
54.2
41.3
36.3
42
Note: Coverage level is the ratio of number of places to the number of children in the age-group
in percentages. For methodological issues see note 23. The change indicator is calculated by
setting the number for 1990/1 = 100.
East Germany
West Germany
Federal state
Sources:
Künzler, 1998, table 7.4 (see for further reference); for 1998: Statistisches
Bundesamt, personal communication, March 1, 2001.
126
Appendix-Table A11: Day care facilities for infants under three (Krippen) in Germany
Dimension
Availability
Overall situation in West Germany
Krippen are provided by the local
municipalities and the NPOs (Tietze
& Roßbach, 1993, pp. 142f.).
The coverage level is with ca. 2-3%
very low; West Germany ranks in the
lower half in most international
comparisons (Appendix-Table A1,
indicators
1.2,
8.1,
10;
Appendix-Table A9).
Costs

Differences in supply
In West Germany, there is great regional
variation in the coverage level (Appendix-Table
A10). The city-states (Berlin, Hamburg, Bremen)
have the highest level; in the other federal states,
this pattern of concentration of institutional day
care for infants under three in larger cities is also
confirmed (Kreyenfeld & Hank, 1999, p. 6;
Liegle, 1990, p. 163; Tietze, 1993, pp. 113f.).
Krippen are seen as a welfare measure. Priority is
given to the children of lone mothers and those
from low-income families.
There are still great differences in supply
between
West
and
East
Germany
(Appendix-Table A1). It has been suggested
(Bundesministerium für Familie, Senioren,
Frauen und Jugend, 1998, p. 200; Tietze, 1998,
pp. 44f.) that day care for infants was reduced
because suppliers tried to comply with the
entitlement to day care for pre-school children
(see p. 31).
In West Germany, there are great variations in
the costs parents have to pay. In the late 1980s,
they were between 80 DM and 375 DM per child
and month in most cases, with possible
maximums up to 900 DM. Some federal states
subsidize the Krippen, some do not (Tietze &
Roßbach, 1993, p. 144). Recent information on
the differences between East and West are
unavailable.
Overall situation in East Germany
Prior to unification, there were
places for every child for whom day
care was sought. Official statistics of
the GDR stated a coverage level of
80% in 1989 (Wagner et al., 1995;
see Appendix-Table A9). Although
the supply has been reduced in the
process of transformation, the level
is still high.
In the GDR, costs were negligible.
Parents had to pay 1.40 Marks for
food services (Wagner et al., 1995).
Recent information is unavailable.
127
128
Dimension
Overall situation in West Germany
Time schedule In the late 1980s, 87% of the Krippen
were open at least 8 hours, ca. three
quarters of all Krippen opened
between 6 and 7 a.m. and closed
between 5 and 6 p.m. (Tietze &
Roßbach, 1993, p. 146). Usually, the
Krippen are (at least partly) closed
during school holidays.
Quality
The task of child-minding for this
age-group is ascribed to the family or
— more precisely: — to the mother.
Therefore,
almost
no
quality
standards, pedagogical concepts, or
legal regulations exist for these
institutions.
Sources:
See in Table (above).
Differences in supply

Overall situation in East Germany
In the GDR, Krippen were usually
open from 6 a.m. to 6 p.m. (Wagner
et al., 1995).
In West Germany, children-staff-ratios vary
between 6 to 1 and 4 to 1, the size of the groups
between 8 to 14 children (Liegle, 1990, p. 161;
Tietze & Roßbach, 1993, p. 145).
Recent information on the development of
quality standards are unavailable.
After unification, day care for infants
in the former GDR was widely
criticized because of unacceptable
conditions and their function as a
means of transmission of socialist
ideology.
Appendix-Table A12: Development of day care coverage for pre-school
children between three and six (Kindergarten) in
Germany, 1950-1998
Year
West Germany (%)
East Germany (%)
1950
29.1

1955
29.4
34.5
1960
28.1
46.1
1965
28.0
52.8
1970
32.9
64.5
1975
56.1
84.6
1980
67.5
92.2
1985
67.7
[89.9] 94.0
1989
/
95.1
1990
69.0
/
1994
73.0
96.2
1998
86.8
111.8
Note: West Germany: Coverage level is the ratio of number of places to number of children in
the age-group three to six and a half in percentages. East Germany: Coverage level is the ratio of
number of places to the number of children in the age-group three to under six plus ¾ of the sixyear-olds (for 1955-[1985]), plus seven twelfths of six-year-olds (1985-1989) in percentages, since
1994 analogous to West Germany. For methodological issues see note 23.
Sources:
West Germany: Bundesministerium für Familie, Senioren, Frauen und Jugend,
1998, p. 200; Statistisches Bundesamt 1996c; Statistisches Bundesamt, personal communication,
March 1, 2001; Tietze & Roßbach, 1993, pp. 132f.; East Germany: Gerlach, 1996, p. 250;
Statistisches Bundesamt, 1996c; Statistisches Bundesamt, personal communication, March 1,
2001.
129
Appendix-Table A13: Coverage level of day care facilities for pre-school
children between three and six (Kindergarten) in the
federal states of Germany, 1990-1998
1990/1
1994
1998
Change
%
%
%
1998–1990/1
Baden-Württemberg
104
108
125
128
The free state of Bavaria
72
88
97
144
Berlin (West)
65
60
91
120
The free hanseatic city of Bremen
75
76
96
131
The free hanseatic city of Hamburg
52
59
76
156
Hesse
90
91
108
129
Lower-Saxony
66
75
90
153
North Rhine-Westphalia
75
74
96
134
Rhineland-Palatinate
98
106
120
130
Saarland
95
98
115
115
Schleswig-Holstein
64
76
90
157
West Germany
80
85
102
136
Berlin (East)
117
118
91
41
Brandenburg
124
118
127
42
Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania
105
109
126
42
The free state of Saxony
98
118
135
49
Saxony-Anhalt
98
112
129
54
The free state of Thuringia
125
124
153
49
East Germany
114
117
132
47
Note: Coverage level is the ratio of the number of places to the number of children in the
age-group three to six years old in percentages. For methodological issues see note 23. The
difference in the means for West and East Germany compared to the respective figures given in
Appendix-Table A12, stems from the difference in the number of children taken into account (three
to six years old in this table vs. three to six ½ in the other one), for East Germany partly due to the
difference in reference year (1991 in this table, 1989 in the other). The change indicator is
calculated by setting the number for 1990/1 = 100.
East Germany
West Germany
Federal state
Sources:
Künzler, 1998, table 7.5 (see for further reference); Statistisches Bundesamt,
1992c; Statistisches Bundesamt, 1993b; Statistisches Bundesamt, personal communication, March
1, 2001.
130
Appendix-Table A14: Opening hours of day care facilities for pre-school
children between three and six (Kindergarten) in
Germany, 1994
Category
Germany
West Germany East Germany
Full-time with lunch
31.6
14.4
113.2
Morning and afternoon without lunch
41.4
50.0
0.2
Morning without lunch
13.7
16.3
1.0
Morning with lunch
1.3
1.1
2.4
Afternoon without lunch
2.7
3.3
.0
Afternoon with lunch
.1
.1
.0
Note: Figures are a proportion of the respective category in percentages of all places in day
care
for this age-group in 1994.
Source: Statistisches Bundesamt, 1996c.
131
132
Appendix-Table A15: Day care facilities for pre-school children between three and six (Kindergarten) in Germany
Dimension
Availability
Costs
Overall situation in West Germany
Kindergartens are provided by the local
municipalities and the NPOs.
Recent data on coverage levels are
unavailable, because the official statistics
have
not
been
released.
The
comparatively low levels found until the
early 1990s (Appendix-Table A1,
indicator 8.2; Appendix-Table A12)
should have been improved (see also
Appendix-Table
A8),
since
an
entitlement to a Kindergarten place for
all children between three and six (see
p. 31) has been in effect (1996).
Kindergarten are subsidized by the
federal states, the municipalities and the
NPOs. The subsidies differ widely
throughout the federal states (Künzler,
1998, pp. 119f.). A NPO regularly
received 90% of the fixed costs for
maintaining a facility.
Differences in supply
In West Germany, there was regional
variation in the coverage level (AppendixTable A13) with the typical town-country
slope. (Tietze & Roßbach, 1993, p. 135).
This should have decreased since 1996.
Overall situation in East Germany
Prior to unification, there were places for
every child for whom day care was
sought. Official statistics of the GDR
stated a coverage level of 95% in 1990
(see Appendix-Table A12). The supply
of overall day care is now at a level
comparable to the one in the West.
As in the West, Kindergarten are
nowadays provided by the local
municipalities and the NPOs.
The costs to parents depend on how
highly the Kindergarten is subsidized as
well as on their income and the number of
children. At the end of the 1980s, they
were between 0 DM and 400 DM per
child and month for full-time day care in
North Rhine-Westphalia (Tietze &
Roßbach 1993, pp. 150ff.).
Recent information on the differences
between East and West are unavailable.
In the GDR, costs were negligible.
Parents had to pay for food supply.
Recent information on the situation in
East Germany is unavailable.
Dimension
Overall situation in West Germany
Time schedule Most West German Kindergartens are
open in the morning, close at noon and
provide an optional period in the
afternoon (see Appendix-Table A14)
Usually, the Kindergarten are (at least
partly) closed during school holidays.
Overall situation in East Germany
In the GDR, the regular Kindergarten
was open full-time from 6 a.m. to 7 p.m.
(Liegle, 1990, p. 162). In 1994, the East
German Kindergarten were overwhelmingly full-time (Appendix-Table A14).
The data in Appendix-Table A8 indicate
that this standard was maintained for
some time, but full-time places have been
reduced in recent years.
Quality
Critique of the insufficient equipment
and qualification of staff in the former
GDR was similar to the assessment of the
Krippen, although standards have been
raised since the rapid expansion in the
1970s (Tietze, 1993, p. 116). Nowadays,
West German standards apply to the East
German day care system.
Sources:
Differences in supply
Currently, there are efforts in West
Germany to provide day care that allows
the mother at least a half-day job. Recent
data are unavailable. Despite the
reductions of full-time places in the East,
there is still a big East-West-difference
(Appendix-Table A8). It has been
suggested that the overall coverage level
has been increased at the expense of
full-time day care places (Künzler, 1998,
p. 118).
There are standards set by the federal Recent information on the implementation
states.
of quality standards are unavailable.
In West Germany, children-staff-ratios
were about 14 to 1 in 1990, the size of
the groups between 20 to 30 children
(Tietze & Roßbach, 1993, p. 152).
See in Table (above).
133
Appendix-Table A16: Coverage level of day care facilities for school children
(Horte), in the federal states of Germany, 1990-1998
Change
1998-1990/1
Baden-Württemberg
133
The free state of Bavaria
149
Berlin (West)
125
The free hanseatic city of Bremen
120
The free hanseatic city of Hamburg
138
Hesse
134
Lower-Saxony
136
North Rhine-Westphalia
147
Rhineland-Palatinate
168
Saarland
196
Schleswig-Holstein
150
West Germany
139
Berlin (East)

Brandenburg
90
Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania
93
The free state of Saxony
103
Saxony-Anhalt

The free state of Thuringia

East Germany

Note: Coverage level is the proportion of places to the number of children in the age-group six
to under ten in per cent. For methodological issues see note 23.
East Germany
West Germany
Federal state
1990/1
%
2.9
4.5
29.3
15.1
19.6
7.2
3.1
3.6
2.4
1.9
3.9
5.0

61.9
42.4
44.5


49.1
1994
%
2.8
4.8
27.3
16.3
21.2
7.2
3.0
3.9
2.8
2.2
4.2
5.1
22.2
65.6
45.3
52.9
7.0
1.6
34.1
1998
%
3.2%
5.7%
34.8%
16.4%
23.0%
8.3%
3.5%
4.5%
3.3%
3.5%
4.8%
5.9%
26.4%
82.3%
63.2%
69.2%
16.6%
5.0%
47.7%
Sources:
Künzler, 1998, table 7.5 (see for further reference); Statistisches Bundesamt,
personal communication, March 1, 2001.
134
Appendix-Table A17: Indicators of fertility in Germany, 1950-1998
Total fertility rate
Net reproduction rate
Out-of-wedlock births
West
East
Germany
West
East
Germany
West
East
Germany
Year
Germany
Germany
Germany
Germany
Germany
Germany
.93
1.13
9.70
12.80
1950
2.09
2.37



1960
2.36
2.33
1.10
1.07
6.30
11.60



5.50
13.30
1970
2.01
2.19
.95
1.04



1975
1.45
1.54
.68
.73
6.10
16.10



1980
1.44
1.94
.68
.93
7.60
22.80



1981
1.43
1.85
.67
.89
7.90
25.60


1982
1.41
1.86
.66
.89
8.50
29.30



1983
1.33
1.79
.63
.85
8.80
32.00



1984
1.29
1.74
.61
.83
9.10
33.60



1985
1.28
1.73
.60
.83
9.40
33.80



1986
1.34
1.70
.65
.82
9.60
34.40



1987
1.37
1.74
.65
.83
9.70
32.80



1988
1.41
1.67
.80
10.00
33.40



1989
1.39
1.56
.67
.75
10.20
33.60



1990
1.45
1.52
1.45
.69
.73
.70
10.50
35.00
15.30
1991
1.42
.98
1.33
.68
.47
.64
11.10
41.70
15.10
1992
1.40
.83
1.29
.67
.40
.62
11.60
41.80
14.90
1993
1.39
.77
1.28
.67
.37
.61
11.90
41.10
14.80
1994
1.35
.77
1.28
.64
.37
.59
12.40
41.40
15.40
1995
1.34
.84
1.25
.64
.40
.60
12.90
41.80
16.10
1996
1.39
.93
1.29
.67
.45
.63
13.70
42.40
17.00
1997
1.44
1.02
14.30
44.10
17.90




1998
15.90
47.6







Note: Total fertility is the estimate of the final birth rate for all cohorts of women; it projects the actual birth rate into the future by taking into
account that women in some of the cohorts are still able to bear children. The net reproduction rate indicates to what degree the next generation
of women will be reproduced. Births out-of-wedlock are represented as a percentage of all births in a given year.
Sources:
1950-1997: Dorbritz & Gärtner, 1998; 1998: http://www.statistisches-bundesamt.de.
135
136
Appendix-Table A18: Long-term care in Germany, 1984-1998
Incidence in
Recipients of
Persons in
households in %
long-term care insurance
care institutions
1984
3.40


1985
3.45


1986
3.43


1987
3.37


1988
3.28


1989
2.93


1990
3.29


1991
4.04


1992
4.04


1993
4.02


1994
3.99


1995
4.07
1,056,100

1996
3.89
1,190,800
360,800
1997
3.80
1,254,000
425,700
1998
3.82
1,275,100
452,800
Note: Incidence in households is measured by the question "Is anyone in your household
receiving care because of old age or health reasons?" in the German Socio-Economic Panel
GSOEP; the percentage of households in which there is a case in relation to all households.
Figures 1984-1990 for West Germany, from 1991 onwards for Germany. The numbers of
recipients of provisions of statutory care insurance who are the persons who need care and of
persons in care institutions are derived from official statistics.
Year
Sources:
Incidence: GSOEP, own calculation; recipients of long-term care insurance and
persons in care institutions: Bundesministerium für Gesundheit, 2000.
Appendix-Table A19: Gender role orientations in Germany, 1982-1996: conservative answers (percentages of
respective group) and overall scale scores (mean and standard deviation)
A working mother can establish just as warm and secure a Women
relationship with her children as a mother who does not
Men
work.
It is more important for a wife to help her husband’s career Women
than to have one herself.
Men
A pre-school child is likely to suffer if his or her mother Women
works.
Men
It is much better for everyone if the father is the achiever Women
and the mother takes care of her home and family
Men
It is better for a pre-school child when his or her mother Women
works and does not concentrate on homemaking.
Men
A married woman should refrain from working if working Women
places are scarce and her husband is able to earn the
Men
family’s living.
1982
29.7
West Germany
1991
1992
21.0
20.9
1996
19.7
37.8
33.7
31.1
26.4
10.8
7.3
8.9
54.0
33.6
41.5
35.4
31.0
32.0
26.8
49.7
30.9
41.6
35.9
29.7
33.3
23.5
87.2
72.9
72.5
72.8
56.5
51.1
49.0
88.1
79.0
79.4
79.5
59.0
53.8
48.7
70.0
48.9
52.6
47.3
30.0
27.9
25.6
70.7
51.3
59.4
54.8
35.2
36.3
26.6
72.4
59.6
58.3
55.3
35.3
33.3
27.2
79.0
71.8
73.4
72.1
43.7
44.2
38.0
67.9
51.5
49.3
45.2
40.6
35.9
32.9
69.5
53.5
56.3
48.3
47.3
40.8
34.0
3.92
1,438
.49
3.95
663
.23
4.32
1,068
.66
4.28
1,004
2.37
3.71
729
2.89
3.77
517
3.20
3.47
515
-2.22
3.78
1,173
-.34
3.79
621
-.89
3.97
949
-.35
3.85
1,021
1.69
3.61
613
1.97
3.61
431
2.89
3.71
481
Women -1.96
n
Gender role orientations
Men
n
Source:
East Germany
1991
1992
1996
9.5
7.6
6.7
ZA, 1999, own calculation.
137
Appendix-Table A20: CASMIN categories and corresponding educational
levels in the FRG and the GDR
CASMIN
1a: Inadequately
completed
general education
1b: General elementary
education
1c: Basic vocational
qualification/general
elementary education and
vocational qualification
2a: Intermediate
vocational qualification
/intermediate general and
vocational qualification
2b: Intermediate general
qualification
2c_gen: General maturity
certificate
2c_voc: Vocational
maturity
certificate/general
maturity certificate and
vocational qualification
138
FRG
No degree
GDR
No degree
Elementary school leaving certificate or
degree of a secondary general school
(final exams after 9 years of school):
"Volksschule", "Hauptschule"
General elementary education +
completed vocational training
Leaving certificate of the
8th or 9th grade of a
general polytechnical
school
General elementary
education + completed
vocational training
Intermediate general qualification +
completed vocational training
Intermediate general
qualification + completed
vocational training
Degree of an intermediate school (more
academic secondary school than
"Hauptschule") with final exams after
altogether 10 years of schooling
("Realschule", "Wirtschaftsschule") or
corresponding level at comprehensive
school ("Gesamtschule")
Degree from a grammar school
("Gymnasium") ("certificate of general
higher education entrance qualification")
or corresponding level at a
comprehensive school ("Gesamtschule")
General maturity certificate + completed
vocational training
Degree from a general
polytechnical school
("Polytechnische
Oberschule" POS)
Degree from an extended
general polytechnical
school ("Eweiterte
Oberschule" EOS)
General maturity
certificate + completed
vocational training or
degree of an advanced
technical school
("Fachschule")
CASMIN
3a: Lower tertiary
education
GDR
Degree from a technical
university or engineering
college
("Ingnieurhochschule")
3b: Higher tertiary
Degree from a university ("Universität", Degree from a university
education
"Hochschule")
("Universität",
"Hochschule")
Notes: Especially the West German system is very differentiated and under the responsibility of
the individual federal state, so for our purpose only school levels in generalized terms can be
described.40
General elementary education marks the end of the period of compulsory schooling in the FRG,
usually after 9 years. Pupils can obtain certificates on higher levels after altogether 10 or 13
years. In the GDR, the standard schooling period lasted 10 years with a limited number of places
for pupils to go on for two more years; only few pupils left school after 8 or 9 years, which we
assign to the general elementary level according to ZA.
Sources:
FRG
Degree from a university of applied
sciences ("Fachochschule")
Brauns & Steinmann, 1999; The British Council, 1996.
Appendix-Table A21: Level of general education by birth cohort in West
Germany
Birth cohort before 1920 1920-1929 1930-1939 1940-1949 1950-1959 1960-1969
n
2,325 1,467 2,229 1,865 2,258 2,294 2,516 2,466 2,873 2,537 2,393 2,346
No degree or
77.8 69.9 73.9 69.5 71.7 65.4 58.6 54.5 45.4 44.2 31.6 35.5
gen. elem.
Ed. (in %)
Intermediate
16.7 16.4 16.4 14.5 19.9 17.8 28.1 23.7 31.3 22.9 39.0 27.2
degree (in %)
Maturity
5.5
13.7 9.7
15.9 8.4
16.8 13.3 21.8 23.3 32.9 29.4 37.3
degree (in %)
Note: For the characteristics of the cohort approach and its limitations see Section 3.2.
Source:
ZA, 1999, own calculation.
139
Appendix-Table A22: Level of general education by birth cohort in East
Germany
Birth cohort
before 1920 1920-1929 1930-1939 1940-1949 1950-1959 1960-1969
188 110 392 279 600 525 500 446 661 626 661 532
n
No degree or gen.
86.7 79.1 80.1 73.1 80.5 68.2 43.4 41.7 15.9 17.6 15.9 12.6
elem. Ed. (in %)
Intermediate
8.0
10.0 13.3 9.7 9.7 13.3 39.4 30.9 64.6 61.2 64.6 67.7
degree (in %)
Maturity
5.3
10.9 6.6 17.2 9.8 18.5 17.2 27.4 19.5 21.2 19.5 19.7
degree (in %)
Note: For the characteristics of the cohort approach and its limitations see Section 3.2.
Source:
ZA, 1999, own calculation.
Appendix-Table A23: Level of vocational education by birth cohort in
West Germany
Birth cohort
before 1920 1920-1929 1930-1939 1940-1949 1950-1959 1960-1969
359 175 609 486 713 783 753 747 867 876 1,016 1,010
n
Compl.voc.
35.1 67.4 41.1 70.0 49.6 70.0 61.4 70.4 64.5 66.8 65.9 68.4
training (in %)
Universitiy
3.9
16.6 3.8 13.8 4.9 14.3 8.8 20.2 15.5 22.7 12.0 14.8
degree (in %)
Note: For the characteristics of the cohort approach and its limitations see Section 3.2.
Source: ZA, 1999, own calculation.
Appendix-Table A24: Level of vocational education by birth cohort in East
Germany
Birth cohort
before 1920 1920-1929 1930-1939 1940-1949 1950-1959 1960-1969
141
74 301 191 450 394 374 320 464 467 436 399
n
Completed voc.
42.6 82.4 57.5 80.6 67.1 79.2 78.3 77.2 81.5 78.8 81.0 81.7
training (in %)
University
2.1
13.5 3.3 18.8 6.9 19.0 11.8 28.4 18.3 21.0 12.4 13.8
degree (in %)
Note: For the characteristics of the cohort approach and its limitations see Section 3.2.
Source:
140
ZA, 1999, own calculation.
Appendix-Table A25:
Time use in West Germany (hours/week)
All
Men
n = 730
51.9
16.2
Single
Women
Men
n = 155
n = 182
49.1
51.7
12.6
16.0
Childless couple
Women
Men
n = 183
n = 165
41.9
52.0
14.5
16.3
One-parent family
Women
Men
n = 93
n = 17
34.7
47.6
18.0
15.9
35.3
14.4
17.3
10.3
22.7
9.5
18.8
9.7
29.4
11.5
18.3
10.9
33.4
13.1
22.3
11.6
5.5
4.8
8.5
7.9
4.0
5.0
5.5
6.9
4.7
4.3
8.6
9.2
4.9
5.2
7.1
3.5
16.1
17.2
9.1
11.4
17.0
15.0
15.2
11.4
2.6
4.1
3.1
4.9
3.3
4.6
4.1
5.4
2.7
3.8
2.6
4.4
2.3
3.2
2.7
3.8
Total workload
87.9
18.3
89.8
18.5
79.1
15.3
80.1
19.3
78.7
14.9
81.5
16.6
92.2
16.9
94.8
16.7
Leisure
16.3
10.7
17.7
11.5
22.6
12.2
24.8
13.7
22.0
11.4
22.4
10.0
13.5
9.2
11.9
5.1
8.3
4.4
7.6
4.1
8.7
4.7
7.2
4.3
8.6
4.5
8.3
4.6
7.7
3.5
8.0
4.0
Sleep
50.8
7.6
48.9
7.5
50.4
8.4
48.8
8.2
51.7
6.6
49.8
7.5
50.0
6.2
49.4
10.9
Note:
Means and standard deviations.
Paid work, education
Routine housework
Other housework
Child care
Care for sick or old household
members, voluntary work
Meals, personal care
Women
n = 1,038
28.5
20.8
Source: Gender Division of Labour in Germany, 2000.
141
142
Appendix-Table A26: Time use in East Germany (hours/week)
All
Women
n = 507
37.3
20.0
Men
n = 320
52.0
16.8
Single
Women
Men
n = 50
n = 76
42.5
47.9
19.0
20.7
34.1
14.2
17.2
9.2
25.4
10.6
21.0
9.9
29.1
12.0
18.5
10.4
34.4
20.4
26.9
11.2
6.6
5.8
11.2
8.8
5.8
6.6
7.0
7.0
5.6
6.0
10.0
7.7
6.5
7.6
8.9
6.6
13.0
15.0
8.3
10.4
16.5
13.8
15.3
14.1
3.1
6.1
3.2
4.4
3.4
3.9
3.9
4.7
3.0
4.7
3.9
5.2
2.9
6.6
2.7
1.9
Total workload
94.1
19.8
91.8
18.5
76.9
20.6
79.8
20.4
82.7
18.9
86.1
17.5
98.5
20.7
107.5
16.3
Leisure
14.4
9.9
15.8
10.4
24.5
13.1
23.6
12.0
19.7
11.2
20.0
11.0
13.2
10.0
6.3
2.2
8.4
4.7
7.6
4.4
9.5
4.6
7.9
5.9
9.2
4.6
7.5
3.5
7.9
4.5
7.5
7.0
50.9
7.1
49.9
7.5
52.9
8.2
51.2
8.1
52.0
6.5
50.3
9.5
48.6
6.8
48.8
6.9
Paid work, education
Routine housework
Other housework
Child care
Care for sick or old household
members, voluntary work
Meals, personal care
Sleep
Note:
Means and standard deviations.
Source: Gender Division of Labour in Germany, 2000.
Childless couple
Women
Men
n = 71
n = 52
45.1
53.8
17.2
18.6
One-parent family
Women
Men
n = 77
n=5
38.5
53.7
19.2
15.7
Appendix-Table A27: Time use in West Germany (hours/week)
Women
n = 607
18.3
17.7
Men
n = 366
52.1
16.3
Two-parent family
With a preschool child
Women
Men
n = 237
n = 180
11.3
51.6
15.3
15.4
40.6
13.6
15.8
10.0
41.1
13.6
16.1
10.1
40.3
13.5
15.5
9.9
6.2
4.7
9.9
7.4
5.7
4.2
9.1
6.9
6.5
4.9
10.7
7.9
24.9
15.7
17.4
10.3
36.0
14.1
21.7
10.2
17.8
12.2
13.2
8.6
2.5
4.1
2.9
4.9
1.6
2.7
2.5
4.8
3.1
4.7
3.3
4.9
Total workload
92.3
18.3
98.0
14.6
95.5
18.2
100.9
13.4
90.3
18.1
95.3
15.2
Leisure
13.4
8.8
12.4
7.7
11.9
8.3
11.6
6.9
14.4
9.0
13.1
8.3
8.1
4.3
7.5
3.8
7.7
3.9
7.4
3.9
8.4
4.6
7.6
3.8
50.8
7.9
48.5
7.0
50.5
8.2
47.9
7.3
51.0
7.7
49.0
6.7
All
Paid work, education
Routine housework
Other housework
Child care
Care for sick or old household
members, voluntary work
Meals, personal care
Sleep
Note:
Means and standard deviations.
Source: Gender Division of Labour in Germany, 2000.
With school children
Women
Men
n = 370
N = 186
22.7
52.5
17.6
17.1
143
144
Appendix-Table A28: Time use in East Germany (hours/week)
Two-parent family
All
Women
n = 309
34.4
20.4
Men
n = 187
53.2
14.2
With a preschool child
Women
Men
n = 67
n = 47
18.6
51.3
22.4
15.1
36.6
13.9
15.0
7.7
40.4
13.6
14.6
7.4
35.6
13.9
15.1
7.8
7.0
5.0
13.3
9.1
6.0
4.2
9.9
8.6
7.3
5.2
14.5
9.0
17.2
15.5
13.8
10.2
35.9
16.6
20.4
11.4
12.1
10.5
11.6
8.7
3.1
6.6
2.7
4.0
2.8
9.7
1.5
1.9
3.2
5.5
3.1
4.5
Leisure
11.9
7.1
11.8
6.7
9.8
6.3
11.0
5.8
12.4
7.2
12.0
7.0
Total workload
98.3
17.0
97.9
14.8
103.6
18.1
97.7
15.9
96.8
16.4
98.0
14.4
8.2
4.8
7.4
3.8
7.9
3.8
7.1
3.4
8.3
5.0
7.5
4.0
50.9
6.9
49.3
6.6
50.5
6.9
47.9
6.7
51.0
6.9
49.7
6.6
Paid work, education
Routine housework
Other housework
Child care
Care for sick or old household
members, voluntary work
Meals, personal care
Sleep
Note:
Means and standard deviations.
Source: Gender Division of Labour in Germany, 2000.
With school children
Women
Men
n = 242
n = 140
38.8
53.8
17.5
13.9
Appendix-Table A29: Independent variables — descriptives
Independent variables
Age
Household income
(in 1000 DM)
Number of children
All respondents
West Germany
East Germany
All
Women
Men
All
Women
Men
n = 1,639
n = 919
n = 720
n = 825
n = 478
n = 347
36.95
37.31
36.48
36.33
36.60
35.98
7.56
7.39
7.77
8.14
8.30
7.92
5.03
5.69
5.66
5.03
5.06
5.00
7.62
8.64
6.02
8.60
9.59
7.01
1.03
1.18
.83
.97
1.06
.84
1.08
1.09
1.02
.90
.85
.94
Household type
Single
Lone parent
Couple without children
Couple with children
(at least one < 7)
Couple with children
all children > 6
Income oriented work
(hours/week)
Number of household
appliances
Dwelling (in 10 square
metre)
Owner of dwelling
Garden
Gender role orientation
Years in education
.17
.38
.06
.24
.18
.38
.22
.41
.29
.45
.14
.34
.09
.28
.16
.37
.22
.47
.33
.47
.21
.40
.02
.15
.20
.40
.21
.40
.23
.42
.13
.34
.09
.29
.12
.32
.13
.34
.40
.49
.09
.28
.15
.36
.12
.32
.13
.34
.43
.50
.19
.40
.01
.11
.12
.32
.13
.34
.37
.48
39.14
21.41
6.03
1.68
11.85
6.61
.51
.50
.71
.46
13.86
3.15
13.23
3.01
29.51
20.37
6.02
1.70
11.74
6.48
.51
.50
.68
.47
14.31
3.16
12.99
2.89
51.43
15.64
6.05
1.66
12.00
6.77
.51
.50
.74
.44
13.29
3.04
13.54
3.13
43.68
20.04
5.41
1.69
9.93
5.29
.40
.49
.68
.47
15.22
2.84
13.37
3.01
38.01
20.12
5.42
1.62
9.61
4.22
.41
.49
.66
.48
15.44
2.85
13.41
2.85
51.48
17.12
5.40
1.79
10.36
6.47
.40
.49
.70
.46
14.93
2.81
13.41
3.00
145
Independent variables
Cohabitation
Children: no children
Children aged 0-6
Children aged 7-12
Girls aged 13 and older
Boys aged 13 and older
Partner employed full-time
Respondent’s economic
dependency
Youngest child external
care (hrs/week)
Financial transfers
(100 DM)
Couples
West Germany
East Germany
All
Women
Men
All
Women
Men
n = 1,063
n = 616
n = 447
n = 511
n = 305
n = 206
.14
.10
.18
.21
.21
.20
.34
.31
.38
.41
.41
.40
.26
.22
.32
.18
.18
.19
.44
.42
.47
.39
.38
.39
.31
.30
.32
.20
.20
.20
.46
.46
.47
.40
.40
.40
.35
.37
.33
.32
.29
.36
.48
.48
.47
.47
.45
.48
.19
.23
.13
.28
.27
.29
.39
.42
.34
.45
.44
.45
.20
.23
.16
.30
.31
.27
.40
.42
.36
.46
.46
.45
.66
.93
.29
.74
.85
.58
.47
.25
.45
.44
.36
.49
48.23
-5.70
52.93
-1.16
-18.57
24.62
64.18
39.91
40.71
35.03
34.41
40.60
Couples with children
West Germany
East Germany
All
Women
Men
All
Women
Men
n = 639
n = 380
n = 259
n = 273
n = 154
n = 119
6.21
6.47
5.84
7.49
7.05
8.07
4.23
4.34
4.04
3.68
3.72
3.55
6.39
6.43
6.32
5.41
5.63
5.13
3.50
3.64
3.30
2.82
2.92
2.67
Notes: Means and standard deviations.
+p ≤ .10. *p ≤ .05. **p ≤ .01. ***p ≤ .001.
Household types do not sum up to 100%: Differences to 100% are other households. e.g., adult
respondents still living in the parental home.
146
Appendix-Table A30: Housework — zero-order correlations
Independent variables
West Germany
Women
Men
n = 919
n = 720
East Germany
Women
Men
n = 478
n = 347
Income oriented work (hours/week)
-.543***
-.370***
-.563***
-.312***
Age
.184***
.004
.165***
-.067
Household income
-.003
-.139***
-.084+
.017
Number of children
.454***
-.176***
.328***
-.210***
Single
-.333***
-.116***
-.166***
.186***
Couple without children
-.158***
.085*
-.177**
.048
Lone parent
-.028
.074*
.045
.106*
Couple with children (at least one < 7)
-.245***
-.089*
.204***
-.101+
Couple with children (all > 6)
.239***
-.122***
.125**
-.159**
Girls aged 13 and older
.120***
-.107**
.110*
-.136**
Boys aged 13 and older
.171***
.019
.142**
-.037
Partner employed full-time
.048
.201***
.044
.130+
Number of household appliances
.200***
-.143***
.045
.239***
Dwelling (in 10 square metres)
.186***
-.159***
.005
-.143***
Owner of dwelling
.140***
-.166***
.060
-.224***
Garden
.112***
-.120***
.057
-.201***
Gender role orientation
-.234***
.103**
-.228***
.043
Cohabitation
-.084*
.031
-.045
.001
Years in education
-.184***
-.350***
n = 616
-.104*
n = 457
.176***
n = 562
-.077*
-.272***
n = 447
-.007
n = 279
-.102+
n = 336
-.161***
-.239***
n = 305
-.204**
n = 210
.062
n = 277
-.056
-.262***
n = 206
-.130
n = 129
-.022
n = 170
Respondent’s economic dependency
Youngest child external care
(hours/workday)
Monetary public transfers (100 DM)
Note: +p ≤ .10. *p ≤ .05. **p ≤ .01. ***p ≤ .001.
147
Appendix-Table A31: Child care — zero-order correlations
Independent variables
West Germany
Women
Men
n = 539
n = 321
East Germany
Women
Men
n = 478
n = 158
Income oriented work (hours/week)
-.520***
-.355***
-.493***
-.415***
Age
-.352***
-.122*
-.374***
-.158*
Household income
.045
-.129*
.070
.010
Number of children
.084
-.045
.001
.065
Lone parent
-.121**
.011
-.081
-.042
Couple with children (at least one < 7)
.547***
.397***
.557***
.327***
Couple with children (all > 6)
-.392***
-.262***
-.360***
-.216**
Girls aged 13 and older
-.245***
-.209***
-.334***
-.031
Boys aged 13 and older
-.317***
-.238***
-.223***
-.202*
Partner employed full-time
.006
-.131*
-.084
-.033
Number of household appliances
-.031
.063
-.036
-.126
Dwelling (in 10 square metres)
-.076+
-.173**
-.077
-.141+
Owner of dwelling
-.120**
-.157**
-.109+
-.293***
Garden
-.013
-.137*
-.153*
-.170*
Gender role orientation
-.144***
.025
.006
.026
Cohabitation
-.010
.072
.070
.115
-.034
-.060
n = 284
-.216***
n = 279
-.015
n = 304
.027
-.189**
n = 196
-.443***
n = 210
.378***
n = 266
-.049
-.032
n = 146
-.281***
n = 129
.139
n = 146
Years in education
.033
-.289***
Respondent’s economic dependency
n = 436
Youngest child external care
-.376***
(hours/workday)
n = 457
.296***
Public financial transfers (100 DM)
n = 523
Note: +p ≤ .10. *p ≤ .05. **p ≤ .01. ***p ≤ .001.
148
149
Notes
1
In the area of family-related law, there is one exception, the regulation of abortion. As a transitional
provision, the Unification Treaty gave East-German women the right to continue their more liberal
abortion practice until the revision of the law by the newly-elected parliament of the unified Germany.
2
In this section, we will use "Germany" for the FRG before and after unification, i.e., West Germany
until 1990, and unified Germany from October 3, 1990, onwards. Only in some of the following
comparisons to the former GDR or East Germany will we be more specific in our terminology.
3
That the effect of financial support on the traditional homemaker/wage-earner couple increases with
income is another peculiarity of German family policy. It is based on joint taxation and a progressive
income tax whose effects are ameliorated by the splitting of the income of spouses (see below). This
means that the higher a couple’s income is, the higher the marginal tax, and consequently the higher the
benefits for non-earning wives.
4
It should be noted that indicators of public spending on and financial support of the family have been
classified as positively associated with traditionalism. The higher family benefits or workers benefits
(as a form of "paternalist" policy, see below) are, the higher the opportunity costs of female
employment and the incentives for a traditional division of labour – ceteris paribus. However, this
point may be open to debate, because some Scandinavian countries score high on financial support to
families, which leads to their ambiguous classification if we do not take into account the different
political intentions, i.e., — in their case: — supporting individual family members, and the whole
policy profile.
5
It should be noted that for public spending on family services (see indicator 1.1) at least the ranking is
higher and the private costs for child care are below average (see indicator 1.4), which most probably
means that supplying child care is rather expensive, while the contributions of families are kept
relatively low.
6
It should be noted that gender role attitudes themselves could be seen as — at least partially —
determined by political influences (and vice versa). The traditionalism or modernism of a country, the
extent to which its policies provide for educational attainment and employment (esp. for women) plays
a role in the formation of attitudes.
7
As indicator 12.2 shows, the rank positions are reversed. This means that West Germany has
undergone a substantial change from older cohorts, which are very traditional, to younger cohorts that
are moderately traditional, whereas the older cohorts in the former GDR already held more modern
attitudes, making the change only a slight one. There are analogous relations between the indicators of
the state of modernization (11.1, 12.1, 14.1) and of the process of modernization (11.2, 12.2, 14.2) in
West Germany, with the former in the lower half and the latter in the upper. A notable exception is
labour force participation (13.), whose two indicators are more on the traditional side, which means
that less development has taken place in this area in the last twenty years than in other areas.
8
In the four areas for which indicators of the East German situation are available, East Germany is
ahead and at the top of the modernity scale in all of the indicators for the state of modernization except
educational attainment (i.e., gender role attitudes, labour force participation, division of household
labour), in which — nevertheless — a rather steep increase in cohort change has taken place (11.2),
whereas East Germany was already modernized in other areas some years ago (12.2, 13.2). This means
that East Germany shows a pattern (early modernization, small change in recent cohorts) of gender role
attitudes and labour force participation which is the opposite of that found in West Germany (see note
7).
151
9
This type includes nearly the whole of (West) Continental Europe. The other two types are the "SocialDemocratic welfare state regime" of the Scandinavian countries and the "Liberal welfare state regime"
of the Anglo-Saxon countries.
10
Whereas the situation is — due to Esping-Andersen’s rather erratic classification methods — more
complicated in the case of the indicators he uses in his 1990 book, namely de-commodification and
restructuring of stratification by the welfare state, Künzler shows in a cluster analysis of EspingAndersens "de-familialization"-indicators (see Appendix-Table A1, p. 113) that, in the best solution,
they differentiate between the "Social-Democratic" and all other countries (see the comprehensive
overview of the discussion devoted to Esping-Andersen’s typology in Künzler (1999a, pp. 60ff).).
11
Again, we do not claim that Esping-Andersen has succeeded in formulating a clear-cut and empiricallyconfirmed theory of this format, nor that his specific framework is the one best suited for the task at
hand. However, he has set standards that should be considered in further research.
12
The legal situation is more complicated. There were several provisions in German civil law that
directly or indirectly contributed to the traditional division of labour, e.g., the ideal of the wageearner/home-maker type marriage in family law until 1977. On the one hand, the abolishing of
measures like these furthered the equal opportunities of the sexes (for a general overview: Lautmann,
1990; Limbach, 1988; Voegeli & Willenbacher, 1984). On the other hand, despite some progress in
constitutional law following German unification, there is no anti-discrimination law that would give
women (or men who are engaged in family tasks) rights enforceable in legal proceedings (for recent
developments: Berghahn, 1993; Rudolph, 1995). The amendment of the German constitution, called
the ‘Basic Law’ (Grundgesetz), that followed unification resulted in the reformulation of the paragraph
on equal opportunities which now explicitly determines the responsibility of the state to further the
actual implementation of equal rights. However, no concrete measures have been put into effect thus
far.
13
The terminology is widely used but somewhat unclear (see Orloff, 1996, p. 57, for a brief discussion).
14
In Germany, the term "Social Insurance" is widely used to denote the dominant form of statutory
insurance, esp. old-age, unemployment and health insurance. In a nutshell, all wage and salary earners
(with some exceptions) are required by law to contribute to the statutory insurance program. There are
some additional regulations. Old-age insurance: All wage and salary earners are required by law to join
the scheme; employer and employee each pay half of the respective contribution. There is additional
tax-funding for the statutory pension system, which is justified by the additional benefits provided by
the social pension scheme, one of them being the child-raising period (cf. p. 28). Civil servants
(Beamte) receive a tax-financed state pension. Self-employed persons can join voluntarily. Health
insurance: As in old-age insurance, wage and salary earners are required by law to join the scheme,
except at higher income levels; starting at a monthly salary of 6,450 DM on, employees can choose to
join the social insurance program voluntarily or purchase private insurance. Employer and employee
each pay half of the contribution. Statutory health insurance includes marriage and family benefits such
as coverage of non-employed spouses and children at no extra charge. Like high-income employees,
civil servants can choose to join the social insurance program voluntarily or to obtain private insurance.
Self-employed persons can join voluntarily. Since they receive a health subsidy, they do not have to be
privately insured with full coverage. Again, in the regulation of health subsidies, there are marriage and
family benefits comparable to those in statutory health insurance. Unemployment insurance: All wage
and salary earners are required by law to be in the scheme; employer and employee each pay half of the
contribution. Civil servants (Beamte) need not, self-employed persons cannot join the unemployment
insurance program. Unemployment insurance contains a family benefit based on a higher percentage of
income which is granted to unemployed persons with minor children.
15
Some of the regulations that applied to all women (like the ban on night work) had to be dropped
because they conflicted with the European Union’s equal opportunity legislation (Halbach et al., 1994,
152
pp. 32f.). Even in the details of the regulations, one can discern the latent function of maintaining the
traditional division of labour. E.g.: "The general ban on work performed on Sundays or public holidays
does not apply to expectant mothers who are employed in the family household, performing
housekeeping activities." (Halbach et al., 1994, p. 278)
16
Therefore, the economic and social conditions of lone mothers can be seen as a litmus test for how the
traditional family ideal has been put in practice politically (Hobson, 1994). Lone parent families are a
special case, because there is an inherent contradiction in the traditional family ideal; in the
"paternalist" view they should not be supported, because support should be channelled through
husbands, while in the "maternalist" view they should receive assistance. It also follows that programs
such as the recent "welfare reform" in the U.S. (and, in a similar fashion, in the UK), which are
intended to raise the employability and labour force participation of lone mothers in accord with the
norm of family self-sufficiency, are virtually impossible in the German gender regime.
17
This was the overall average household income in 1996. The German tax code is too complicated to
present the average net effects of single measures, because taxable income depends on many individual
aspects and regulations. Therefore, we only illustrate the magnitude of effects. Please note that the
reported average incomes are for available income, which in most cases is net income. Nevertheless,
this average enters the paradigmatic calculation as gross income. The figures are for 1996; see
Statistisches Bundesamt, 2000a, p. 114.
18
The net gain figure for the subsistence level or the income at which taxation starts between the single
and the couple w/o children (11,8%) is only a partial contradiction. There are two effects that are
combined. Besides the splitting, there is a subsistence minimum for every person that cannot be taxed.
The effect of this element diminishes with increasing income, but is rather strong in the low-income
zone.
19
The exception in the lowest income category is explained in note 18.
20
The example shows — although it is, besides alimony, the only one — that "paternalist" policies do not
mean exclusively relieving husbands and fathers of their financial burden. It could also mean enforcing
the obligations entailed by family roles (for further considerations about the development of the father's
role in the family see Lipp, 1999, pp. 39ff.).
21
Every change in the three areas [tax credit, child benefit, income limit] is counted separately starting
from 1953. Tax credit changes for the first three children are counted until 1975, afterwards only for
the first child [because only one figure applies for all children]. Child benefit changes are counted until
the fourth child, but the change in the figure for the fifth child in 1964 [the only deviation from the
figure for the fourth child in the reported period and a change before an election year] is counted as an
exception. Election-year changes are changes occurring in a year before, after or of an election;
changes that result in reduced benefits or tax credits are not counted as election-year changes.
22
This difference can be explained by the employment policies for East Germany that were still in effect
at the time of data collection (Engstler, 1998, p. 139).
23
In this section, we discuss the use of day-care as opposed to the coverage level. Use of day-care is seen
from the perspective of the children: How many children in a particular age-group are actually in daycare outside the home? Coverage level takes the perspective of the facilities: How many places are
supplied for children in a particular age-group? Both indicators are usually given as percentages of the
respective age-group. But, for several reasons, they could not be directly compared. The second
indicator regularly leads to higher rates, because counting without actual use is based on estimates on
the maximum number of children that a facility might be able to accept (on the basis of staff, rooms,
etc.), there may be places not used or simply because of over-supply or false methods of official
counting. This over-counting was, e.g., detected for the official statistics of day-care supply in the
153
former GDR (Hank et al., 2001). Despite these disadvantages, coverage level is a useful indicator,
because it is usually provided by official statistics of the facilities. Consequently, comparative and
time-series data are more readily available. The use-indicator can only be obtained by surveys. Because
panel data for the recent development in Germany fortunately do exist, they can be discussed in this
section. Data on the real use of day-care may be more accurate. E.g., they can also encompass other
forms of day-care outside the home than in facilities (child-minder) as is the case with the data used in
this section. One methodological problem pertains for both indicators. There is no perfect fit between
the particular facilities and the age-groups. E.g., not every child enters Kindergarten at the age of three
and leaves it at the age of six. In other words, the relation of use or places to the respective age-group is
only an approximation to the supply-demand-relation. Although the approximation is optimized in the
data used in this section by setting age-limits different from those used in the statistics of coverage
level (see Appendix-Table A8, p. 124), thus increasing dissimilarity between the indicators, it is still far
from perfect.
24
Employees in firms under a minimum size are excluded and so are any cases in which severe reasons
on the side of the company or employer prevent that part-time work cannot be granted.
25
There are two more restrictions. The first is the data structure of the ALLBUS. Respondents are
classified as East or West German according to their place of residence at the respective time of the
survey. As a consequence of (selective) migration, persons who earned their degree in either the GDR
or the FRG may now live in the other part of Germany. The second restriction concerns the
relationships of the cohorts and their development and history. Not all cohorts earned their degree
(partly or completely) in either the GDR or the FRG. The older age-groups reached their highest
educational level before the end of WW II. We can assume that the 1930-39 cohort in part and the
1940-1959 cohorts almost exclusively experienced only one of the educational systems of the two
separate German states. The youngest viewed cohort includes persons who were fully educated in the
FRG or the GDR, and persons, who might have started their education in the GDR, but who now have
to complete it in the West German system. So the differences between East and West that are discussed
in this section can only in part be attributed to the different educational systems in the GDR or the
FRG, respectively.
26
Comparative Analysis of Social Mobility in Industrial Nations. We do not apply the internationally
accepted ISCED (International Standard Classification of Education), because CASMIN differentiates
between general and vocational-oriented education, which is crucial for our purpose. For further
discussion of the two classification approaches for the German case see Braun & Müller, 1997, p. 198,
footnote 5.
27
In 1997/98, women’s percentage in language and cultural studies was 72.0%, and men’s percentage in
engineering studies in the same time period was 79.3%. There are also subjects with nearly equal
percentages of men and women (e.g., business management and law).
28
The results are based on a self-assessment: "Is your employment full-time or part-time employment?"
29
The survey questionnaire of the European Network on Policies and the Division of Unpaid and Paid
Work (Willemsen, 1997) was adapted to the German situation (Lipp, Künzler, & Walter, 1999; INFAS
2000).
30
Children include children by birth, step-children, adopted children, foster children, and children of the
partner.
31
Differences have been tested for significance using the ANOVA and Scheffé-tests (findings not
shown).
32
Predicted values are calculated using the unconditioned mean of men’s weekly housework time.
154
33
The indicators are ranks in social-security spending, family-policy spending, child care,
maternal/parental leave.
34
The percentage difference in net income (after tax and social security contributions) of a single person
and a one-earner couple set at half of the average, the average and 1.5 times average male earnings.
35
The percentage difference in net income (after tax and social security contributions) of a single person
and a one-earner couple set at average male earnings, one and three children of school age.
36
Difference between the net income of a wife with .66 of average female earnings and a husband with
average male earnings and the respective gross income as a percentage of net income.
37
Calculated index scores with weighted combinations of relevant indicators (see for details: Gornick et
al., 1997). The ranks given in the source have been inverted in order to fit them to the traditionalismmodernism-scale.
38
The value is for unified Germany as a whole.
39
Siaroff (1994) classifies West Germany as one of the Continental European "advanced ChristianDemocratic welfare states" that support families financially and set restrictions on women’s labour
force participation and careers, thereby discouraging women from employment in two ways, indirectly
by lowering the opportunity costs for the decision not to work and directly by creating a societal
climate of low female work desirability.
40
For a brief description of the two school systems see The British Council, 1996, pp. 324ff.
155

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