The German Day Care Experiment
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Fascinating piece from Rachel Cohen about the German experiment to create universal child care. The piece is pretty long and goes into such issues as German attitudes toward mothers raising children (quite traditional) and some of the bigger challenges facing the German economy. Let me just quote a bit here, but it’s worth reading for those of you who, like me, think we need a federal child care mandate in the United States.
In 2023, two-thirds of all mothers in Germany with at least one child under age 18 worked part-time, and about 15 percent worked in a special subsidized part-time category called “mini-jobs,” where German workers can earn a maximum of 538 euros per month.
The federal expansion of part-time work, beginning in 2001, was meant to promote employment flexibility, but labor experts say it has entrenched women in economically vulnerable roles. Allowing women the chance to earn a modest paycheck is simply not the same as supporting them professionally.
“Mini-jobs have been promoted as an attractive, and less bureaucratic way to work … but our research shows they’re harmful to mothers,” Matthias Collischon, an economist at the Nuremberg-based Institute for Employment Research, told me.
Driven by factors such as unfriendly tax policies, significant penalties for extended employment gaps after childbirth, gendered cultural expectations, and uneven access to child care, most partnered moms just do not ever make the leap back to full-time work.
“There was a public debate that part-time would be a bridge to full time, but this is not true,” Friederike Maier, the former director of the Berlin-based Harriet Taylor Mill Institute for Economic and Gender Studies, told me. “Part-time is not a bridge, it’s a threat.”
Verena Wirwohl, a mother of two boys, ages 11 and 8, found that kita really did make her life easier. She credits the child care system with helping her sustain her legal career after her divorce.
“When I decided to have kids, I was still in a marriage with a high-earning husband,” she told me. “I was pretty surprised to find I could actually work full time and still spend time with my kids after becoming a single mom. So I would say the system really helped me to help myself.”
These positive feelings were echoed by Eva Asturizaga, 37, who grew up in the US but felt anxious about raising a family there given the threat of gun violence and attacks on abortion rights. After meeting her German husband while working on a development project in Kyrgyzstan, she decided it was essentially a “no-brainer” to relocate to his country given the myriad family supports the German government provides to parents.
What, is she saying the U.S. is not the greatest country in global history…..