Childcare Trends in Germany: Increasing Socio-Economic Disparities in East and West

Abstract

In East Germany, prior to reunification, day care provision was widely available to encourage mothers to return to work soon after giving birth. Conversely, in West Germany, child care facilities for the under-threes were few and far between and, at the end of the '80s/beginning of the '90s, the length of parental leave was gradually increased to up to three years following the birth of a child. Since 2005, postunification Germany has seen a significant expansion in day care services, primarily to help parents combine employment with family responsibilities. Despite these recent trends, however, 25 years after reunification, there are still major disparities between East and West Germany when it comes to child care for the under-threes. The present article examines how the use of day care facilities (Kitas) and informal child care by relatives or babysitters has changed for this age group in both regions since the '90s. The study specifically analyzes whether the expansion of child day care in recentyears has also resulted in an increase in socio-economic disparities in the use of different types of child care and to what extent this applies to East and West Germany. Using data from the Socio-Economic Panel (SOEP) study, our analyses show that . in West Germany, since 2006, there has been a significant rise in the probability of children with single mothers, or whose mothers have a university or vocational qualification, attending a day care facility. For children whose mothers have alow level of education or whose parents are at risk of poverty, this increase was less pronounced. In East Germany, considerable growth was observed in day-care attendance among children with highly-educated or single mothers as well as of children at risk of poverty. In some groups, the increased use of these institutions was accompanied by a decline in informal child care. However, West German mothers with a university education and single mothers in East Germany still frequently use informal child care options.