HAPPY NEW YEAR 2002

DAS NEUE JAHR 
von Guenter Schlichte.

Families in Germany as in other countries are currently confronted by profound social change. New lifestyles and new forms of relationships, changes in the world of work, and a variety of hurdles ranging from a shortage of childcare facilities to a lack of financial resources are causing fewer and fewer young people to fulfil their wish to have a family. Germany's population is shrinking and ageing - with dramatic consequences.

Imagine a relaxing breakfast in bed, with fresh fruit and a tasty bowl of muesli, followed by a croissant and a nice long read in the daily newspaper. But it's been cancelled. Just like yesterday, and the day before that. It's not very relaxing during the week at Kerstin Decker's house. Her alarm clock rings at six o'clock, she gets up, makes sandwiches for her three children, prepares breakfast and then Tonio 12, her son from her first marriage storms down the stairs. Unusually for him, he's got his days mixed up, thought it was a free day and now has to rush off to catch the tram to school. A little later there is a peck on the cheek, "see you later" and her partner leaves the house with their daughter Valerie. Volker Herzberg, head of the editorial team that produces the online version of the Leipziger Volkszeitung, drives his seven-year-old daughter to a private school where she will stay until three o'clock in the afternoon, learning, having lunch, playing, making music and doing her homework. And now after the worst of the mess has been quickly cleaned away and the butter is safely stored in the refrigerator, after daughter Annabel, 2, has found her cuddly toy and her teeth cleaned, it is also time for Kerstin Decker to make her way to the crèche with the youngest of her brood. "Come on, come on," she urges Annabel, Kerstin Decker has an appointment at the editorial offices of Leipzig Volkszeitung, where she is responsible for one of the daily's local news section.

It is Wednesday morning and in Leipzig, as everywhere else around the country, the daily struggle has begun: between time for the kids and recognition from the boss, between job promotion and private happiness, between education, income and personal relationships. It can also often involve a struggle for basic needs, for a healthy lunch, or for comfortable clothing.

With two salaries, Kerstin Decker's and Volker Herzberg's family of five can make ends meet. But there is not much left over for luxuries. Experts on the Federal Ministry for Family Affair's scientific committee have calculated that when you add everything up - clothing and food, a new school satchel here, a new bicycle there, the time spent changing diapers, washing clothes and preparing food - a married couple with three children invests 900,000 marks in bringing up their offspring by the time they reach the age of eighteen. The state contributes another 700,000 marks in the form of child benefit and tax relief.

IN GERMANY, A FAMILY still usually means the following: mother does the housekeeping and looks after the children; father goes out and earns a living. Yet the "mother myth" is beginning to break down. Women - self confident and highly qualified - want both: children and a career. Men - influenced by the idea of "balancing" the demands of their careers and private lives, as now propagated by companies and employment researchers - are spending more and more time with their children. Businesses - seriously hit by the loss of female know-how - are providing new in-company childcare facilities. And politics? It, too, has discovered a concern for families. Members of parliament from all parties are outdoing each other with demands for more money for children and parents, for crèche places and all-day schools, for equality for women and mothers. Family policy is once again a major topic in politics and in the media, where for weeks now we have been reading headlines like "Return to the Family," "The Adventure of Bringing up Children," "Baby Carriage, not Convertible."

Social security system under threat
They were all shocked into action a few months ago by a judgment of the Federal Constitutional Court that made one thing absolutely clear: the generational contract, the responsibility of the young for the old and the weak, no longer functions. In Germany, the statutory long-term nursing care insurance plan, the retirement pension scheme and large parts of the public medical insurance system are built upon the principle that the younger generation secures the welfare of the old through its contributions. But now the whole system is threatening to fall apart. The reason is simple: there aren't enough children. As in most modern societies, there is an increasing gap between the numbers of deaths and births. While a total of 1.36 million children were born in the whole of Germany in 1964, the figure for 1999 was only 771,000. The number of deaths, 846,000, was significantly higher than the number of births. Germany's population is shrinking and ageing - a situation which is far from exceptional in Europe. In 1997, 21.5% of the German population was under 20, while almost the same proportion were aged 60 or more. In 2050, however, the share of under-20s will probably have fallen to 15% and the proportion of seniors will have risen to between 38% and 40%.

Competition for resources
Herwig Birg, the Bielefeld-based population researcher, has described what action would have to be taken to protect Germany's social security systems from collapse. Either all women of childbearing age will have to give birth, on average, not to 1.3, but to 3.8 children in coming decades. Or approximately 188 million young foreigners will have to immigrate in the next 50 years. Or the retirement age will have to be raised to 73. Faced with these somewhat unrealistic alternatives, the judges of the Federal Constitutional Court decided that Germany's social security systems required a general overhaul: in future, people who raise children and thus take responsibility for the providers of the next generation must have their social security contributions at least partially reduced.

That would represent a real step forward, feels Kerstin Decker. It was clear to her that she wanted to return to work soon after the birth of her children - not only because she enjoys her job as a journalist, but also because the family would not have been able to make do without her salary for very long. "If there had been more maternity pay, I would have stayed at home a little bit longer after Annabel was born," she admits. However because interesting career prospects also opened up, she returned to her desk after only eight months.

The shortage of childcare facilities
"We must do everything we can to make sure that taking on parental responsibility is compatible with other life aspirations," says Federal Minister for Family Affairs Christine Bergmann, referring mainly to the combination of career and family, "one of the great social challenges of the future." This is why the federal government introduced appropriate measures. Since January 1, 2001, for example both parents are entitled to take "parental time," as maternity leave is now called, and can both switch to part-time working - up to 30 hours a week. However, the federal government remains dependant on support from the states and local municipalities when it comes to one of the greatest obstacles to combining family and career: the shortage of childcare facilities. Of Germany's 35,000 schools, only 2,015 offer instruction during the afternoon. Particularly in the old federal states, public childcare provision is extremely poor. Usually students there arrive from school hungry at around lunchtime. And yet 50% of parents would like their children to receive all day schooling.

KERSTIN DECKER CAN COUNT herself lucky to live in eastern Germany. Here, women benefit from the closely-knit network of crèches, kindergartens and afternoon childcare centres that was created in the GDR to integrate women into the world of work and to provide an appropriate education for socialist youth. Of course, no one wants to see a return to the conditions in the socialist crèches, which were characterized by state planning and authoritarian educational principles. "But we are glad that we have these facilities," says Kerstin Decker, "and we use them, too." She admits that she sometimes has a guilty conscience about "one of them not getting a fair share of my attention: my job or my children."

Nevertheless, Kerstin Decker does not want to forego either and she knows that many envy her position. With the favourable childcare situation that two jobs and two salaries allow - and with two parents - her family cannot be counted among the country's underprivileged. Things are much harder for the growing number of single parents, particularly the mothers. They include by far the largest proportion of welfare recipients. A third of the women who care for two children without a partner receive benefits. A third of the three million recipients of social security are under 18. More and more children and young people are being categorized as "poor," and they are increasingly being seen as a cause of poverty themselves.

Yet young Germans don't care about the statistics. Approximately 80% consider the family "very important." As many as 90% have dreams of marrying and women under 20 still want to have an average of two children. However, the reality of the situation is rather different. Marriage continues to represent the most popular way for people to live together, but after a total of more than 500,000 weddings in the 1980s, only 430,000 couples bother to get married today. The number of couples living together without a wedding ring is increasing year by year. The same also applies to the number of divorces. One in three marriages eventually break up and not every wish to have a child is realized. One important reason for this is that fewer and fewer young women want to give up their careers to fulfil their dream of having children.

"We're pretty exhausted by the evening," says Kerstin Decker, after she has checked the homework, collected her son from sport, served the evening meal, cleaned up the kitchen and packed the children off to bed. She could do without the stress, she says, but never without the children. "Someone can always take your place at work. With the children, though, you have the feeling that you are really needed."

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