#Time for a change
“The constant juggling of pandemic, family and work makes women sick”
© Damian Gorczany
That is the conclusion of Beate von Miquel, Chairwoman of the German Women’s Council, after two years of the Corona crisis. What the new government must do now.
Ms von Miquel, this is already the second International Women’s Day in the middle of the pandemic: Did we actually go backwards with equality during this time, as many initially feared?
You could say that. Even before the Corona crisis, women were not treated equally to men. It is now becoming apparent that women in particular with care responsibilities, i.e. mothers or carers or women in systemically relevant professions, are at the limit. And de facto worse off than before the crisis.
How does that show?
In January, for example, one in five mothers reduced their careers to compensate for the additional care work caused by quarantines or closed schools and daycare centers. Fewer fathers than before the crisis like it when mothers work. And the number of families in which mothers are solely responsible for childcare has doubled.
But didn’t fathers also take on more care work during the crisis?
Yes, but studies show that this was almost exclusively the case during the first lockdown. Currently, the lion’s share is again with the mothers. This not only has a negative impact on their salary, their pension and their career opportunities. It also solidifies the role model that was thought to have been overcome long ago: the mothers take care of themselves. And: The constant juggling of the pandemic, family and work makes women sick. We know from the Mothers’ Convalescence Agency that women with care responsibilities come to mother-child cures much more ill than they did before the pandemic.
What would have to happen?
The women need a recovery perspective – beyond child sick days and the prospect of a decreasing infection process in summer. For example, by making it easier to access cures and health services. And then they need a real catch-up program: First of all, the federal government must promote the distribution of care work in a spirit of partnership. If paid and unpaid work were shared equally between men and women, the crisis would not have affected women as much.
Some measures have already been announced in the coalition agreement. For example, paid time off for fathers around the time of birth, paid care leave or the promotion of household-related services. Would that help?
These would be important and urgently needed steps. But they must now be implemented quickly. Also as a signal in the direction of the women who have worn themselves out so much in the pandemic.
So you think the new government could step up its game?
We can see that the government has taken important steps. The abolition of paragraph 219a of the Criminal Code to strengthen women’s right to self-determination is in progress. It was decided to raise the minimum wage, which will also help many women. And we have high hopes for the equality check for laws that the Minister for Women has announced. It would be an important tool to ensure that future laws do not harm equality. But there are also government decisions in these first hundred days that we view critically. For example, that the earnings limit for mini-jobs, in which women in particular are stuck, should increase. Such a step simply thwarts all efforts to increase women’s economic independence. Because these are jobs you can’t make a living from. We would have wished for more headwind from the minister. In principle, everyone in the cabinet must be clear: equality and women’s rights are not luxury goods for good times. They are a human right and a constitutional mandate.