After the birth: the number of parent -gowns decreases

Around 1.67 million fathers and mothers in Germany received parental allowance last year. The number of recipients dropped by around 95,000 people or 5.4 percent compared to 2023, as the Federal Statistical Office in Wiesbaden announced. Accordingly, the value decreased in the third year in a row and was about 10.6 percent lower than in 2021 in 2024.

For comparison: In the same period, the number of births decreased by around 15 percent according to preliminary information. The parental allowance denotes the wage replacement benefit that mothers and fathers receive after the birth of a child when they stay at home.

Parental allowance plus is becoming more popular

However, there was an increase in the parental allowance plus, which is increasingly in demand. According to the statistics, 613,000 recipients of parental allowance planned to take parental allowance plus in 2024 – 42.3 percent of the legitimate mothers and 20.6 percent of fathers. Overall, the proportion of the recipients of parental allowance, which, at least proportionately also scheduled parental allowance in their parental allowance, was 36.7 percent (2023: 34.8 percent).

The parental allowance plus was introduced in 2016 and, according to the Federal Office, is lower than the so -called basic parent allowance, but is paid for longer, so that it results in the same total amount.

Differences in fathers in the federal states

The share of fathers to parental allowance recipients decreased slightly to 25.8 percent in 2024 (2023: 26.2 percent). “This is the first noteworthy decline,” it said. The share of fathers has risen continuously since 2015, at that time it had still been 20.9 percent.

The father’s share indicates the proportion of male recipients in all recipients. So it would be exactly 50 % if both the father and the mother were equally related to parental allowance.

Saxony was the leader in the federal state comparison with a fathers of 29.5 percent in 2024-as in the previous year-Saxony, followed by Baden-Württemberg (28.1 percent) and Bavaria (27.8 percent). The share of the fathers in 2024 – also as in the previous year – was the lowest in Saarland (20.6 percent).

The average duration of the planned parental allowance due to women in 2024 was 14.8 months. The duration of reference intended by men, on the other hand, was significantly shorter at an average of 3.8 months.

Discussion about parental allowance

From April 2025, parental allowance should only go to single parents and couples who have a taxable annual income of a maximum of 175,000 euros. This new border applies if the child is born on or after April 1st. The border had already been reduced to 250,000 euros in April 2024. Before that, she was still at 300,000 euros.

In view of these savings, a discussion about the complete abolition of parental allowance broke out. Among other things, district council president Achim Brötel and Clemens Fuest from the IFO Institute called for the deletion.