[ad_1]
While in Switzerland two weeks of paternity leave are voted, in Germany two “daddy months” have worked. A look at the experiences of the neighbor to the north with parental allowance.
The German parental allowance is intended to ensure that parents are more involved in caring for their children.
When Swiss voters vote on the introduction of paternity leave on September 27, it will be about two weeks. Considering the German legal situation, that would still be a modest solution. In Germany, new parents can take a break of up to three years and receive a so-called parental allowance as a salary replacement benefit for the first 14 months of the child’s life if both parents are involved in the care; if only one parent is entitled to 12 monthly contributions. In the case of part-time work, the benefit period can be extended longer, but with lower benefits per month (for details, see the information box).
More parents get involved
Parental allowance was introduced in 2007; It has existed in its current form since 2015. Its goal is to offer families with young children financially secure time off, create incentives to distribute childcare more equitably between parents, and bring mothers back to school. work faster.
The most important terms and rules
- Parental leave: In Germany, each employee can ask the employer to be released from work up to three years after the birth of a child. This parental leave can be divided into up to three shorter phases, of which a part can only be taken between 3 and 8 years of the child. No salary is paid during parental leave, but parental allowance can be claimed for part of it.
- Basic parental allowance: Parents who do not work or work for a maximum of 30 hours to care for their child after the birth of a child can apply for parental benefit. The basic parental allowance is paid for up to 12 months. If both parents request it, it is possible to receive it for up to 14 months. How they distribute the total of 14 months is up to them, but each partner must apply for at least 2 months and can take a maximum of 12 months.
- Parental allowance Plus: Parental Allowance Plus can be taken out for twice as long as the Basic Parental Allowance, but the monthly amount is only half. It is particularly interesting for parents who work part-time early after the child’s birth.
- Partnerschaftsbonus: If both parents work part-time for 4 consecutive months, they will receive a bonus in the form of an additional 4 months of ElterngeldPlus each.
- Amount of parental allowance: It depends on the earnings for the year before the child’s birth. Depending on this income, the basic parental allowance ranges from 300 to 1,800 euros per month (plus parental allowance: 150 to 900 euros per month).
Are the mentioned objectives being achieved? In fact, parental allowance has slowly changed. The average number of children per woman increased almost continuously from 1.33 in 2006 to 1.59 in 2016, before falling back slightly to 1.54 in 2019. However, other factors may also have contributed to this. According to the Federal Statistical Office, the proportion of children whose parents stay at home and receive parental allowance has almost doubled from 21% for children born in 2008 to 40% for those born in 2017. By contrast, only 3 % of parents received the parenting allowance that was paid as the predecessor of the parental allowance until 2006.
However, there is still a long way to go to achieve a uniform distribution of child care. The participation of fathers is still much lower than that of mothers, who continue to receive more than 90% of the child benefit. Also, most men only stay home briefly. 72% of male beneficiaries of the parental allowance, again according to the Federal Statistical Office, had an expected pay period of a maximum of 2 months in 2019. In contrast, 64% of mothers planned a period of 10 to 12 months. In 2019, parents received an average of 2.9 months of basic parental allowance and 8.6 months of parental plus allowance.
A clear pattern emerges: with most couples breaking up, the man receives the necessary minimum of 2 months of parental allowance, which entitles them to 2 additional paid “partner months”, and the mother to the maximum of up to 12 months. This is also shown in the vernacular, in which the couple months have long since become “daddy months” or “father months.”
It depends on the money
Why is that? Wido Geis-Thöne, from the German Institute of Economics (IW), close to the employer, says in a report that this is economically logical for a large part of couples, since the man receives the highest income. The main reason he cites this is the different career choices men and women make. Also, in most couples, men are older than women, so they tend to have more work experience.
According to a study by the German Institute for Economic Research (DIW), the majority of surveyed parents give economic reasons as the most important reason for not taking parental leave or for a maximum of 2 months. Second follows (according to the parents) the desire of their partner to stay longer with the child, thirdly comes the fear of negative professional consequences.
At the same time, according to Geis-Thöne, the parental allowance, together with the expansion of childcare offers for children under the age of three, has helped mothers return to the labor market earlier. Although in 2017 there were significantly fewer mothers active in the labor market in the child’s first year of life than in 2006, conversely, the proportion in the child’s second year of life increased by around 10 percentage points in compared to 2006. In the third year of life, the proportion of actively employed mothers in 2017 was 60% (full-time and part-time combined), more than 15 percentage points more than in 2006.
The introduction of ElterngeldPlus in 2015, which allows to extend the entitlement period with lower income at the same time, may also have contributed to this development. According to the DIW study, it has resulted in a significant proportion of mothers taking advantage of the option of combining parental allowance and part-time work.
Giffey reacts to failure
One failure so far has been the partnership bonus, which should also promote a partnership-based division of family and professional tasks: if both partners work part-time for 4 consecutive months, each will receive an additional 4 months of ElterngeldPlus. But as the Minister of the Family Franziska Giffey (SPD) admitted these days, only 1.9% of parents currently take advantage of this offer. This may also be due to unknown time limits: the right to additional compensation only exists if both parents work 25 to 30 hours per week. So if you work four days a week you are above this corridor and with three days you are below.
For this reason, the German government presented a bill on Wednesday that, among other things, starts here: In the future, the partnership bonus will be awarded to all couples who work part-time from 24 to 32 hours a week . These and other changes will be financed by lowering the income limit: in the future, parents who collectively earn more than 300,000 euros a year before the child is born will no longer be entitled to parental allowance. So far, this limit has been € 500,000. For single-parent families it remains unchanged at € 250,000.
Parental allowance is not financed by employer or employee contributions, but by the state budget. According to the Ministry of Family Affairs, € 7 billion was spent on this in 2019. Since 2007, the total has risen steadily. The ministry sees this as a positive development because it can be attributed to general salary increases (which have an impact on parental allowance rights), higher employment rates, especially among women, higher birth rates, and greater parental involvement.
More children, fewer shoulders
But what do employers think about this? There is little opposition to parental allowance in the economy. Employers’ representatives rate the incentives created by the system for a faster return of mothers to the labor market as positive. Today a company has to give a hand to the association models to have satisfied employees and to be able to maintain them in the long term, it is also said. This is all the more true in view of the widespread shortage of skilled workers in Germany, at least before the Crown crisis.
However, it is not uncommon for smaller companies in particular to worry about replacing employees who are temporarily on paternity leave, especially when it comes to short breaks. If a parent stays at home for 2 months, it is too short to find and train a replacement; then the work would have to be distributed over fewer shoulders, it is said.
You can contact the Berlin business correspondent René Höltschi Twitter Consequences.
[ad_2]
