Chancellor Friedrich Merz’s CDU has criticized what it calls an “exaggerated” work–life balance and is urging more people to move from part-time to full-time employment. But a new study from the Hans-Böckler Foundation’s Economic and Social Science Institute (WSI) finds that many parents in Germany are effectively forced into part-time work because childcare is unreliable — affected by staff shortages, unexpected closures and shortened opening hours.
“Under the current circumstances, working parents cannot plan reliably, and women in particular have to think twice about whether they can take up or expand gainful employment,” WSI Director Bettina Kohlrausch said. She called for substantial investment in early education infrastructure and staffing, warning of a shortage of hundreds of thousands of childcare places.
Data from the German Youth Institute (DJI) show that just over half of parents need external childcare, yet only about 33% say local services cover the hours they require. In the WSI survey of roughly 900 families across social groups, 54% reported experiencing a sudden lack of childcare. Among those affected, 30% reduced their working hours and 42% turned to friends or relatives — an option that is less available to immigrant and lower-income families.
Rachel, a schoolteacher in Cologne with a 3- and a 7-year-old, told DW she cut her hours two years ago after her children’s daycare began closing earlier because of staff shortages. “A full-time contract is out of the question — we don’t have any family nearby, and if kindergarten closes unexpectedly, or ends early, I can’t be at work,” she said, adding that while part-time work remains possible in Germany, rising living costs are making it harder to manage financially.
The WSI warns that unreliable childcare deepens unequal care burdens between men and women and curbs women’s labor-force participation. The gender divide is stark in affected partnerships: 73% of men said their female partner stepped in to cover childcare, while only 39% of women reported their male partner did the same.
KfW, the state-owned development bank, estimates a nationwide shortfall of about €10.5 billion since 2022 to guarantee dependable, high-quality childcare for every family. Responsibility for creating and financing places, and for training staff, largely rests with state and local governments — and provision varies widely across Germany’s 16 states. For example, 23% of parents in Bremen report inadequate hours, compared with just 5% in Saxony-Anhalt.
Kohlrausch warned that policy moves such as scrapping the maximum eight-hour workday, a measure floated by the CDU to increase working time, could disproportionately harm women who already shoulder the bulk of childcare adjustments.
Merz’s CDU ran on promises of more money for families, dependable childcare and parental allowance improvements. Ten months into the government, many of those pledges remain unfulfilled, and parents continue to adapt their working lives to the instability of local childcare provision.