statistics
Receipt of parental allowance decreases slightly
Last year, of the 1.8 million mothers and fathers who received parental allowance, around 50,400 people were single parents. photo
© Fernando Gutierrez-Juarez/dpa
The number of people receiving parental allowance is falling slightly. The planned duration of benefits varies widely for women and men.
For the first time since the statistics were introduced, figures on single parents receiving parental allowance were published: In 2023, around 50,400 people were single parents among the 1.8 million mothers and fathers who received parental allowance. 49,300 or 97.8 percent of them were women.
Proportion of fathers almost unchanged
The so-called father share remained almost unchanged at 26.2 percent. In 2015, the proportion of male recipients of all parental allowance recipients was 20.9 percent and had risen continuously until 2021. As in the previous year, Saxony was at the forefront of the state comparison in terms of the proportion of fathers receiving parental allowance. It was 30.1 percent, followed by Baden-Württemberg with 28.4 percent and Bavaria (28.2) and Thuringia (28.1). The proportion of fathers was lowest in 2023 – also like the previous year – in Saarland (20.4).
However, there were clear differences between men and women when it came to the length of time they received parental benefit: While women received parental benefit for an average of 14.8 months in 2023, the period men aimed for was only 3.7 months on average. While the planned duration for mothers has increased continuously in recent years, it has remained practically constant for fathers.
Destatis noticed an increase in the receipt of Parental Allowance Plus. Overall, the proportion of recipients of parental allowance who also planned at least part of their parental allowance to receive parental allowance plus was 34.8 percent. In the previous year the value was 32.8 percent and in 2016, in the first year after the introduction of Parental Allowance Plus, it was 20.1 percent. The Parental Allowance Plus amount is usually lower each month than the so-called basic parental allowance, but it is paid for longer.