Childcare: Warning of daycare die in East German federal states

“Free daycare places”, “Weekly music lessons, forest days and excursions” – with notices on lantern masts and flyers, daycare centers advertise children in the Berlin district of Pankow. The location is already more dramatic elsewhere: daycare centers are closed in major Saxon cities such as Leipzig, Dresden or Chemnitz because there are too few children. After years of building capacities and reports of too few places, there is a risk of a daycare die in some places.

“The risk of a daycare die in the eastern federal states is becoming increasingly real and is regionally a major challenge,” says the deputy chair of the Education and Science Union (GEW), Doreen Siebernik. It warns of the social consequences and a domino effect that politics urgently has to prevent.

First lack of space, now oversupply?

How does that work together with the regular alarm reports about a daycare crisis with hundreds of thousands of missing childcare places? It depends on where the view in Germany is going, because the topic is divided into east and west, but not only – the situation is also different.

Awareness of all growing that the problem situation in the West German countries is completely different than in the eastern countries, says Family Minister Karin Prien when asked. In the big cities, the situation is different, adds the CDU politician.

Study: dismantling “almost essential”

This confirms a recently submitted analysis of the Institute of German Economy (IW). “The east is in a situation in which a dismantling of the capacities in the daycare centers is almost unavoidable. This affects the cities, but is also the case in rural areas,” it says. Falling births have been mentioned as the reasons since the mid -2010s, and at the same time well -developed childcare offer.

In the west, the decline in births only used in the 2020s. But here, too, the figures of the under three year olds have now declined significantly, “so that no additional places are required from a demographic point of view”. However, there are still large gaps in West Germany between the care of the parents actually desired and actually realized by the age of three. The parents’ wishes also continue.

Due to emigration movements in rural areas with “family-friendly living space”, the analysis in the west is most likely to see an end to the previous day care center crisis.

Breakdown through “substructure”?

While in the West, depending on the region, many childcare places are still missing – according to a Bertelsmann study from the end of 2023, well over 300,000 in terms of the childcare requests – in the cities of Saxon cities for over a year have been reporting about impending closings. In Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, the GEW complains that there have already been announcements by personnel at daycare centers in individual municipalities.

In Saxony-Anhalt, daycare staff is used in other areas for lack of child. Closets from Thuringia are reported in Weimar, for example. This is necessary to prevent the daycare system from collapsing through substructure, according to the city.

Do not close, but change the care key

How on? There is no solution for everyone, Prien emphasizes with reference to the different situation in the country. “But we will have to think about in the eastern federal states, how can we use strengths that are in daycare through further training.” It also needs forms of training that are more generally so that the people who could be used in many areas. The IW study advocates not to reduce personnel, but to keep it and to use better care relation – less children per educator or teacher. The GEW is also urged: “The falling number of children is a real opportunity to improve the quality of the offer of daycare centers,” says union vice Siebernik. It must be prevented that the well -trained specialists left the field of work. “The aim is to secure the infrastructure and thus maintain the attractiveness of the regions for families instead of closing facilities and reducing the offer.”

Capacity has been significantly developed since 2013

Since 1996, parents in Germany have been entitled to a daycare center for children aged three and over, in 2013 it was extended to children from the age of one. Since then, a clear daycare expansion has taken place. According to the Federal Statistical Office, almost 61,000 institutions were around 53,000 ten years earlier on the cut -off date of March 1, 2024. The number of educators rose from 530,000 to over 780,000, the number of children cared for from 3.3 to almost 4 million.