Women in particular spend a lot of time on unpaid care work every day: on average 52.4% more than men in Germany. In other words, they spend one and a half times as much time raising children and caring for relatives, doing housework and are often also involved in voluntary work. In the phase of life when the children are small, the time burden alongside work is particularly high. Among 34-year-olds, the gender care gap was 110.6%. Mothers spend 5.18 hours a day on care work, while fathers of the same age only invest 2.31 hours. The hours of unpaid care work are not available to women for paid work at work. As a result, many working women are forced to work part-time, which later results in a gender pension gap in the form of lower pensions and old-age provision.
The traditional "family breadwinner model" has long served as an orientation for state regulations, institutions and culture. As women's employment has increased, a "supplementary earner model" has developed. It is disadvantageous for women. An urgent issue in gender equality policy is the question of how state incentives can be set for a reorganization of work so that the necessary unpaid care work can be carried out jointly by women and men. The situation of non-cis people urgently needs to be investigated scientifically in this regard.
Source: Friedrich Ebert Foundation, 2025, https://www.fes.de/wissen/gender-glossar