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Chancellor Angela Merkel, accused of losing the battle against a falling birthrate that threatens to hobble the German economy, rolled out two family-friendly incentives yesterday, seven weeks before elections. With Europe’s top economy struggling to fill some skilled jobs as well as entice mums back to work, parents now have the right to a nursery place for toddlers, and can lodge a legal complaint if they fail to find one.
More hotly contested is a monthly benefit of initially 100 euros (US$132) dubbed by critics the “stove bonus” or reward to stay home and cook for the children, for families who do not send their under-three-year-olds to state-sponsored childcare.
Merkel’s chief rival in the September 22 vote Peer Steinbrueck has hammered the payment, which later increases to 150 euros, as reactionary, encouraging women not to work, and vowed to scrap it if the Social Democrats (SPD) win.
“Whoever believes just because one offers us women 150 euros we forget immediately all professional ambitions, lives in the 1950s,” Family Minister Kristina Schroeder was quoted by local DPA news agency as retorting.
Schroeder, the first cabinet minister to give birth while in office, was photographed visiting nurseries this week, as the election campaign approaches its home straight when the centre-left SPD will hope to sway many still undecided voters and lose the gap with Merkel’s conservatives.
Merkel has warned that the shrinking and ageing population is one of the biggest challenges that Germany faces this century as the motor of Europe’s economy faces labour shortages and its pension system becomes strained.
Under her helmsmanship, the 59-year-old, who is seeking a third four-year term, has also introduced changes to paternity leave aimed at helping men take on a greater share of the childcare burden.
Germany spends 200 billion euros (US$265 billion) annually on its family policy but has been criticised by the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development in Europe for hindering women being able to combine work and motherhood.
German women have on average 1.3 children, one of the lowest rates in the industrialised world, and, according to the federal statistics office Destatis, 27 percent of under three-year-olds were cared for outside the home last year, compared to one in two in France.
Until now, parents were entitled to a nursery place for children from three years old. — Xinhua.
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