It’s a bit like trying to put out the conflagration in the neighboring town while a running tap is quietly and secretly flooding the ground floor at home. While women were paid or unpaid looking after children, the sick and meals for families, the unjust distribution of work and care work has intensified.
“It’s a crisis for women on the job market,” says economist Michèle Tertilt from the University of Mannheim at the SZ PlanW congress in Berlin. During the corona pandemic, the 49-year-old researched the disadvantage of women in the labor market. In Germany and 30 other countries, women took on the greater part of the additional care work, i.e. childcare, housework, caring for relatives. For this, many had to reduce the hours or give up the job at times.
But why women?
On the one hand, it is due to their employment relationships. Even at the age of 25, 30, 35 years of age, many women’s employment biographies get a quirk from the point of view of the economy. Because child care is still really divided 50 to 50 among the fewest couples. In total, four times as many women as men work part-time. Spouse splitting, which favors families with a main breadwinner, encourages traditional roles. Parental leave helps, says communication researcher Almut Schnerring. “But some don’t even know that you can divide it up differently than 12 and two ‘father months'”.
When the daycare centers closed their doors on behalf of the state, it was above average often women who put their professional development behind because of their lower hours and earnings.
This was also expected of them, says Almut Schnerring, who argues in her books against the unjust distribution of care work. “We think we’re super progressive in terms of equality,” she says. It still started in the children’s rooms. While the boys are allowed to be wild and can play outside, girls are more expected to clear the table or take care of smaller siblings. “Boys ‘shoes are waterproof, girls’ shoes are pretty,” says the communications researcher, summarizing her thoughts on the roles children are expected to play.
And later on, one brings money and the other doesn’t. “I’m not working right now, I take care of the children,” Schmerring quotes women on parental leave. But what about the economy if someone didn’t take care of the children, meals and housework. “Care work is the basis of all economic activity,” says the author. And the appreciation must change accordingly.
Corona has exposed the weaknesses in the system
The side effects did not come from the Sars-Cov-2 virus themselves, but rather stubborn structures that survive, although more and more fathers have recently been seen in large cities with baby slings and an East German woman has ruled the country for 16 years. Corona has exposed the weaknesses in the system and shown that the three women on the podium agree, and there is still too little participation by the men.
Marija Linnhof experienced this herself, she is a single parent with two children and is now the head of the association of independent travel agencies. From one day to the next she had women on the phone crying about severe psychological stress. 90 percent of the work in the industry is women, but 50 percent of the travel agency owners are men, says Linnhof. So she started fighting for the independent offices in federal politics. “As a woman, I was totally underestimated, the big bosses in tourism are all men,” she says.
So much for a crisis. In addition to the question of how long it will take for Germany to recover economically, it is also unclear when equality in the labor market will be possible. A serious answer cannot be given even on the Monday after the general election. But the three women who are discussing the Plan W congress agree on many points, at least on the way to get there.
“Spouse splitting should be abolished immediately,” says economist Michèle Tertilt. There are no opposing opinions in the group. The Swedes had already abolished such models in the 1970s. In addition, the Mannheim economist speaks out in favor of more childcare places. But Almut Schnerring warns, “It cannot be the solution to completely outsource the care in order to go to work yourself,” she says. And advocates that men and women should be given more space for care work within their working life, for example for a 30-hour week.
But it just starts with the “waterproof boys shoes” and other little things in the upbringing that help determine whether later all genders feel equally responsible for housework and children.