Both partners working in about half of all couples with children
WIESBADEN – As reported by the Federal Statistical Office (Destatis), about half (51%) of all mothers and fathers of two-parent families were in employment in Germany in 2007. However, 35% of all couples with children organised their working life in line with the “traditional” distribution of roles, meaning that it was exclusively the father who had a job. In this context, the term couples refers to married couples and unions of cohabiting partners with at least one child under 15 years of age in the household. The above and other topical results of different statistics on the current situation of families in Germany have been presented by Karl Müller, Head of Department at the Federal Statistical Office, in Berlin today. An essential requirement for reconciling work and family life is the availability of sufficient childcare services, in particular, for very small and small children. As of 15 March 2007, the parents of about 320,000 children under the age of three took their offspring to day care centres or publicly funded professional childminders to supplement the education and care they provided themselves. Hence the share of children in day care in all children of that age group (attendance ratio) amounted to about 16% across the country as a whole. In 2006, the attendance ratio was about 14%. As regards children aged three to five years, the share of children in day care in all children of that age group increased to approximately 89% in March 2007, compared to 87% in 2006. Thus about two million parents made use of the relevant services offered. The way in which fathers and mothers reconcile work and family life right after the birth of a child is reflected, among other things, by the results of parental allowance statistics. More than half (55%) of the total of 720,000 recipients of parental allowance for children born in 2007 had a job before the birth of the child. While more than three quarters (77%) of the total of 87,000 fathers were in employment before the birth of the child, the relevant share of mothers was 52% or 332,000. Detailed data on the above issues are included in the accompanying documentation and supplementary tables provided for the press conference, which are part of the Office’s website content and can be accessed free of charge at http://www.destatis.de (path: Presse/Pressekonferenzen). By 12:00 at the latest, the Federal Statistical Office additionally provides recorded segments of Karl Müller’s speech in what is called the digital press kit for radio news purposes (free of charge).
