Taking care of young kids - Politicians must acknowledge and support fathers' involvement in childcare.
From an expert's perspective, there's a high potential for increased father involvement in childcare. Jutta Allmendinger, the president of Berlin Social Science Center (WZB), shared this view with the German Press Agency. Her words, "In all our surveys, fathers say they want to spend more time with their kids," reflect this belief. However, there's a caveat. "All mothers say they want more time for work," she added, highlighting a perceived shift in societal attitudes.
She emphasized that the traditional roles assigned to mothers and fathers in childcare are largely driven by politics. While we urge dads to take parental leave too, Allmendinger points out that the existing systems often work against this idea.
One such system is the "costly spouse splitting," which indirectly encourages mothers to stay at home with their newborns longer and return to work part-time later. According to her, the coalition agreement, which includes provisions for family start-up time and more father months, could help drive this positive change. Moreover, there seems to be a possible shift away from the current setup.
When we look at the statistics, we find that in 2022, only 1.9% of fathers with their youngest child under 6 years old were on parental leave. In contrast, around 24% of mothers were on parental leave. The Federal Family Ministry reveals that on average, women currently spend 44.3% more time daily on unpaid care work than men.
