Status: 06.11.2022 08:55 a.m
Higher employment among women is considered an important means of combating the shortage of skilled workers. However, this requires targeted government measures and more flexibility on the part of employers.
When Lara Marszalek was looking for a new job at the end of her maternity leave, one advertisement caught her eye. “The advertisement explicitly stated that applications from parental leave are also welcome,” she says. The job advertisement came from an IT company in Hilden. Until then, she had nothing to do with IT; However, the wording in the ad persuaded her to apply anyway. Lara Marszalek has now been working as a marketing manager at the company for three years – 28 hours a week part-time.
Skilled labor potential among women
“We wanted to address good people,” Hartwig Tödter, managing director of the IT specialist, remembers the job advertisement. However, the company was not primarily concerned with the social aspect: “It was a self-interested entrepreneurial decision,” says the managing director.
The federal government also sees great economic potential in more employment among women. The Federal Ministry of Economics speaks of the “greatest employment potential for securing skilled workers” in Germany. And the consulting company Prognos calculates on behalf of the Federal Ministry for Family Affairs: If 2.5 million mothers currently working part-time were to increase their weekly working hours by just one hour each, this would correspond to around 70,000 full-time jobs.
“Full-time standard” in the companies?
A lot has happened in Germany in the past few decades, says Yvonne Lott, who researches gender issues at the trade union-related Institute for Economic and Social Sciences (WSI). “This applies, for example, to the right to part-time work or the expansion of childcare,” says Lott. She also praises the introduction of partner months for parental allowance, i.e. the extension of parental allowance by two months if both parents apply for it.
From the perspective of the researcher, however, there is still a lot to do. The federal government is planning a legal right to all-day care in primary schools from 2026. Lott suggests that the state could also increase the number of partner months. In addition, a change in mentality is needed: “The culture in the companies has to change.” According to Lott, a “full-time standard” still prevails, which means that part-time employment can become a career obstacle.
CEO: Part-time workers are more productive
Marszalek has not had this experience before. Her daughter has Down syndrome, which means she has more doctor and therapy appointments than other children. However, this can be reconciled with everyday working life without any major difficulties. There is a specified core working time in your company, but this is not mandatory: “I work in full flextime.”
From Tödter’s point of view, part-time employment has tangible economic advantages: “We have found that part-time employees are much more productive per hour than full-time employees,” says the managing director. However, some of the company’s customers have reservations about part-time employees in project groups. In some cases, Tödter can understand this himself: “The communication effort is greater in a team with many part-time employees because more people are involved overall.” The use of part-time employees therefore has its limits.
Make men aware of part-time work
And the men? In Lara Marszalek’s marriage, according to her, what is also the norm nationwide applies: “I do most of the care work,” says Marszalek, whose husband works as a freelance artist. The term care work includes, among other things, childcare.
According to WSI researcher Lott, women’s employment can only be significantly increased if more men are brought on board: “Otherwise we will accept that women will continue to burn out due to the double burden,” says Lott. In principle, all employees are entitled to part-time work. “However, men must be explicitly addressed in companies.”