As of: February 29, 2024, 1:16 p.m
By: Jana Stabener
Comments
Press
Split
Women in Germany do 72 billion hours of care work every year.
Saskia Esken explains what needs to change.
In Germany, childcare, caring for relatives and household chores are still primarily carried out by women: around 62 percent of care work, a total of 72 billion hours, goes into their time account, shows a study by the research institute Prognos, which is published by
BuzzFeed News Deutschland,
a portal
IPPEN.MEDIA
is available.
In addition to the care work carried out, the “mental load” – thinking about all the necessary tasks – is also unevenly distributed.
45 percent of women feel that they are primarily responsible for the household.
For men it is 14 percent, according to an evaluation by the Economic and Social Sciences Institute (WSI) just in time for Equal Care Day on February 29th.
“Our results show that women are still primarily responsible for the family,” says Eileen Peters, WSI expert on equality in the labor market,
BuzzFeed News Germany
.
This applies to both childcare and mental load.
“Here, women and especially mothers not only have a double burden in terms of time, but also a mental burden, as they work and at the same time are primarily responsible for the care work.”
Equal Care Day
In 2016, the couple Almut Schnerring and Sascha Verlan introduced a new holiday, “Equal Care Day”, and deliberately set it on February 29th.
This day, just like unpaid care work, is simply ignored most of the time (in this case in three out of four years).
The two are raising three children together and have been dealing with the so-called “gender care gap” for years, i.e. the fact that women do more care work than men.
You have already written several books on this topic.
Less home office has an impact on the distribution of care work
Before the corona pandemic, 70 percent of all mothers felt that they were primarily responsible for child care.
In 2020, this value fell to just over 50 percent, and is now back to 68 percent.
In general, men and women's assessments of the care work done during the pandemic have converged, according to the expert.
Since April 2022, however, the genders' assessments of care work have again diverged greatly.
“One reason for this could be that there is less home office work again and employees are now spending more time at work again.
This makes care work invisible again, true to the motto: out of sight, out of mind,” says Peters.
This is an article from
BuzzFeed News Germany
.
We are part of the
IPPEN.MEDIA
network.
All articles from
BuzzFeed News Germany
can be found here .
More on the topic: Women who earn more than their husbands tell us what it feels like
Family care work “represents glue in our society”
“The family care work, which continues to be carried out overwhelmingly by women, represents the glue in our society,” says SPD leader Saskia Esken
BuzzFeed News Germany.
This care work is “unpaid work that far too often limits women’s participation in the labor market to part-time work.
“Women who work full-time also face a significant health risk due to the multiple physical and mental demands,” says Esken.
She demands that “hurdles to an equal division of tasks in work and family disappear”.
She gave up her job in software development when there was insufficient childcare - because her husband earned significantly more in the same job.
Things should be different for women today.
“In order to take on care work in families as partners, we also have to get men on board,” demands Esken.
Incentives for fathers to take advantage of parental allowance should be strengthened.
Marcel Fratzscher also comments on spousal splitting in an interview with BuzzFeed News Germany.
“The first few weeks set the course for families as to how care work is divided.”
“As a member of the Bundestag and mother of three children, I am very grateful that my husband takes on most of the care work and does it well and happily.
Unfortunately, this distribution of roles is still anything but self-evident,” says Nina Stahr, education policy spokeswoman for the Green parliamentary group,
BuzzFeed News Germany.
Women do more housework even when they earn more.
As a politician, it is important to her that couples can decide freely and depending on their stage of life how they divide work and care work.
In order to achieve this, in addition to “good and comprehensive early childhood education” and “full-day schooling,” there is also a “family start-up period,” i.e. the opportunity for partners to stay at home for two weeks after the birth of the child with full wage compensation.
“The first few weeks can set the course for families as to how care work is divided,” says Stahr.
My news
German Leopard 2: Ukraine soldier ruthlessly names life-threatening vulnerabilities
31 mins ago
Nuclear threat, then election advertising – a highly anticipated topic is not mentioned by Putin in his speech
“Bastards”: Navalny team outraged after Putin’s harassment at funeral – and makes explosive decisions read
EU Parliament accepts controversial driving license reform: “Green control fantasies cannot find a majority” read
“Big worries” in the Red Sea: Frigate “Hessen” is probably suffering from a lack of ammunition
Macron's troop advance: Western special forces have long been in Ukraine, according to EU insiders
More on the topic: Germany actually ranks third from last in Europe when it comes to the “Gender Pay Gap”.