EA well-known news site recently headlined: “Shortage of staff: Parents, grandmas and grandpas should go to daycare centers“. Headlines like these are not only a fatal signal to daycare professionals because they show little appreciation for their qualifications. They also reveal the helplessness in dealing with one Staff shortages that will not go away on their own.
The biggest problem with such supposed solutions: they cement gender roles that we urgently need to overcome. Because in the end, it will be mostly women who help out with childcare. After all, they only work part-time anyway.
Despite all efforts to achieve equality, Care work in Germany is still a woman’s job. Although women are now mostly employed, almost every second woman in Germany works part-time, millions of them in marginal employment. Germany has the third highest part-time rate in the EU. And the proportion of women who choose to work part-time is increasing every year.
The main reason for the high part-time quota is the care of the family. If only a third of these women worked full-time instead, we could face the era of unemployment with much more equanimity. Many of them would like to work more, but circumstances do not allow them.
This means there is huge potential that is wasted. Women have never been as qualified as they are today: more women than men complete their Abitur, 52 percent of university graduates are female. It is economic madness that many of them have to devote significantly more time to unpaid care work than to their paid employment. A full-time job would not only give many women greater financial independence and better career opportunities – more women working full-time would also save our prosperity. Because the next economic miracle will only succeed if it is female.
Women tend to take care of children and those in need of care
We are at a turning point. If we as a society do not manage to get women out of the part-time trap in the next few years, the vicious circle of care work could reach new dimensions. Because the era of unemployment that lies ahead of us is also the era of the elderly.
In 2035 we will be short of up to seven million workers – that is around 15 percent fewer workers than today. At the same time, the number of people retiring will increase by 22 percent by 2035. The working generation of today and tomorrow will not only have to look after their children in addition to their work, but also their parents. Here, too, it is mostly women who take care of it.
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According to forecasts, the number of people in need of care will increase by 30 percent by 2030. Three quarters of the approximately five million people in need of care in Germany are cared for at home – mostly by relatives; in two-thirds of the cases by women. Women who reduced their working hours for care – or who did not increase them again after the reduction for childcare. Women who retired earlier to provide care. Just like part-time mothers, they form a hidden reserve that we need to activate.
But how? A solution that has often been suggested: more men should work part-time, assume responsibility for care work and enable women to work more. But this only exacerbates the problem. In the face of drastic staff shortages and stagnating productivity, redistribution is not enough. We have to use all labor market potentials; at least as long as the automation of the economy progresses only slowly.
To avoid the part-time trap, we need to accelerate the expansion of childcare and nursing capacity. The important thing here is that it’s not just about quantity, it’s also about quality. The proportion of employed women will only increase if the care offered for children and those in need of care is reliable and attractive.
According to current forecasts, however, there will be a shortage of more than 200,000 educators by 2030, and even more specialists will be missing in the nursing sector. The expansion will therefore only succeed if the nursing and educator profession is significantly upgraded and becomes more popular. For example through better pay and better working conditions. And: We need significantly more qualified immigration.
We must also finally abolish misguided financial incentives such as spouse splitting. We shouldn’t reward women for taking on the role of “borrower”. In 2023 this should be a matter of course, but traditional thought patterns and stereotypes are still deeply internalized in society and politics and are paralyzing progress. If we really want to prevent care work from having to be organized privately and women from being caught up in the threatening care tsunami, we have to change something.
We no longer need part-time jobs for women, but more educators, more childcare places and better conditions in day-care centers and elementary schools. We do not need job sharing, but more nursing staff and places and better working conditions in nursing. We need women in the labor market. Full time and fully paid. It won’t work without her.
Sebastian Dettmers is CEO of The StepStone Group. He joined the company in 2011 as Managing Director for Germany and was appointed CEO in 2020. Dettmers holds a PhD and an MBA from the University of Munster. His book The Great Unemployment was shortlisted for the German Business Book Prize. Stepstone is a leading digital recruiting platform that brings companies and applicants together.
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