There is criticism from various quarters – not just from wealthy parents who find the loss of parental allowance entitlement to be unfair. “Any form of reduction in parental allowance” points in the wrong direction, says Anja Weusthoff, deputy chairwoman of the German Women’s Council, for example. It is reasonable to assume that “the government wants to make parental allowance less attractive for fathers by restricting parallel receipt.” Weusthoff considers the fact that the announced fathers’ time off has not yet been implemented to be a “serious disappointment”. Union politician Silvia Breher sees it a little differently. The family policy spokeswoman for her parliamentary group in the Bundestag fears, like the BDA, that fathers’ time off will place a “massive burden” on small and medium-sized companies. Breher is also not happy about the changes to parental allowance: the funding cuts are a “quick shot in family policy” and “not well thought out”. The traffic light government is acting “irresponsibly” and is contributing to “families losing trust in politics as a whole,” says Breher.
Also read: “For us, it’s about retaining young employees”