Childcare: “Economically”: You can’t rely on daycare centers

Closing times and short-term absences due to sick staff pose challenges for parents with daycare children. The head of “Wirtschaftsweise”, Monika Schnitzer, therefore considers childcare offers in Germany to be unreliable. She criticizes the newspapers of the Funke media group: “The daycare centers are open far too few hours a day, they are not reliable, they close too many weeks a year. You cannot rely on the daycare centers.”

The care system is based on involving grandparents or, if you can afford it, organizing babysitters privately. “If you can’t do that, you have no choice but to reduce your working hours,” said the economist. She sees similar problems when caring for older people. “There is no nursing support that does not mean that you have to massively limit your work performance.”

Economist: The system strongly encourages part-time work

“We have a system in which we massively promote part-time work. It is cemented by spouse splitting, which no one dares to reform,” said the member of the Advisory Council for the Assessment of Overall Economic Development. Abolishing the right to part-time work is therefore unrealistic.

In order to strengthen the daycare system, more money and staff are needed, said Schnitzer. “With more reliable care, you could gain a lot of additional working time. Highly qualified childcare is also extremely important for integration.”

Study: 125,000 skilled workers are missing

The staff in German daycare centers is overworked in many places and there is a shortage of skilled workers. The result is emergency staffing in the event of illness or short-term closures. In order to maintain operations despite thin staffing levels, according to a nationwide study published at the beginning of December, more and more people without formal educational qualifications are being employed in daycare centers.

At the same time, the proportion of skilled workers who have at least one qualification as an educator is falling, as can be seen from the Bertelsmann Foundation’s “Country Monitoring of Early Childhood Education Systems”.

According to the Bertelsmann Foundation, the early education working group of the federal and state governments recommends a skilled worker quota of 85 percent per daycare team among the educators in each daycare center. However, the proportion per daycare team fell on average from 75.8 percent (2017) to 72.5 percent.

The 2024 daycare report from the Joint Association put the current gap at 125,000 missing specialists in child day care. According to the Federal Statistical Office, there are 60,662 daycare centers nationwide.

Schnitzer: It can’t be that fathers are looked at askance

In addition to the shortage of personnel, the “economic approach” also sees a problem in companies. “It can’t be the case that young fathers are looked at askance if they only want to work 80 percent so that they can also enable their mother to work 80 percent. Companies also need a rethink, said Schnitzer, the mother of three daughters is.