Familienpolitik

This Spiegel Online article reports that Family Minister Ursula von der Leyen’s controversial policies of paying parents up to $2,810 for up to 12 months, increasing support for paternity leave and implementing a plan to triple the number of daycare places have worked: The fertility rate was 1.45 children per woman, up from 1.33 in 2006. The fertility rate hasn’t been that high since reunification in 1990.

That’s still far from the 2.1 needed by industrialized countries to maintain their populations and social systems, but von der Leyen has a few more plans up her sleeve.

She told SPIEGEL she would like to build on the success of the Elterngeld scheme by increasing the number of paid months that fathers can take off, given the unexpected success of the so-called “father months” in 2007. “It’s time to give even more support to fathers,” she said.

Only time will tell if her conservative Christian Democratic Union party members will support her this time around or attack her like they did in 2006 and 2007. This Spiegel article summarizes sentiment in Germany at the time.

Tags: Birthrate, family policy, Germany