Quality of employment Parents working part time

What is the share of fathers and mothers working part time?
A high participation especially of mothers in economic activity is not sufficient to indicate a balanced integration in the labour market. The extent of working hours must be taken into account, too.

For the following results, the group of parents includes persons aged 20 to 49 years, who have at least one child under 6 years and worked in the week prior to the survey. Those who are on leave, special leave or parental leave are not counted.

It is true for parents too, that employment is not always the same. On the one hand, part-time work allows better reconciling one’s job and family in terms of time. On the other hand, reduced working hours often means having to accept losses in earnings and old-age provision and to put up with career restrictions.

For mothers in employment, part-time work is the rule, for fathers it is the exception

In 2023, a total of 65.4% of all parents were in active employment. 91.4% of the employed fathers worked full time while just 8.6% worked part time. For mothers, the opposite relation applied and it was less drastic: among mothers 27.0% worked full time and 73.0% part time.

The part-time employment rate of fathers grows with an increasing number of children, albeit slightly. Whereas 9.0% of fathers with one child below pre-school age have reduced working hours, 9.8% of fathers with three or more children work in part-time.

Part-time: children under 6 years make the difference

Persons with children over 6 years of age are more likely to share the distribution of total active working population. For them, the employment rate with 78.7% is higher than for parents with at least one child under the age of six. Mothers with children over 6 years of age, compared to the same group of fathers, are more likely to work in part-time. Whereas 93.0% of men with children in school age are full-time employed, the share of women is at 37.1%.

Mothers are much more likely than their partners to cut back on work after the birth of a child. However, when compared with other European countries, many mothers in Germany try to stay in contact with working life by taking the opportunity of part-time work.

Information on the Indicator

Description or definition
Part-time employment rate of women and men (aged 20 to 49 years) in active employment with children below under/from 6 years belonging to the family

Active employment is given if a person works during the reference week. Persons who are on leave, special leave or parental leave are not counted.

Source
Microcensus

Information for interpretation

The microcensus with the integrated European labour force survey has been redesigned in 2020. The list of questions and the concept of the sample survey were modified, and with the introduction of an online questionnaire, the form of data collection were also changed. The results from survey year 2020 onward are therefore comparable with those of previous years only to a limited extent.

Further methodological changes affecting the results were performed in 2005, 2011 and 2021. Consequently, the results for those years can be compared with the results for previous years to a limited extent only.

The extrapolation of microcensus data uses the population figures from the 2011 Census, which was conducted as at 9 May 2011. The results have been revised from 2010 onwards. With effect from the year 2016, the sample is based on the 2011 census data. This transition affects the comparability of the results with previous years.

For more information please refer to Methods: Quality Reports and Explanations (only in German).

Further information
Redesigned microcensus as of 2020