[14. 5. 2012] The AGF has published a detailed statement on the 8th Family Report of the federal government. In its statement it supports the purpose of the report to establish the solution to family time conflicts as a social task, but criticises the unadequate family perspective.
The German Family Organizations consider the recommendations of the commission, in regard to the needed overall framework for solving the time conflicts of families, as being insufficient. The recommendations almost completely relieve the federal government from its responsibility. Instead they refer to the voluntary commitment of the elderly, the social partners and to the financially weak municipalities.
The AGF strongly rejects the notion that families have a general lack of competence to deal with their time appropriately. Instead, they prove their competence on a daily basis when exposed to the different time structures of the everyday institutions such as employers, schools or daycare.
The AGF criticises the principle of the Commission, to make recommendations that do not add any extra costs to companies. This can particullary be seen in the recommendations concerning the employment law.
In general, the AGF welcomes the approach to examine the employment law from the family perspektive and also the demand-based development of quality childcare. However, some more determination would be desirable.
In detail, the statement of AGF covers the follwoing issues:
- Expansion of the infrastructure
- Redistribution of time between the genders
- Utilizing time resources of pensioners
- Expansion of the grandparental leave in the legislation on parental allowance and parental leave
- Family orientation of employment law
- Strengthening the time competencies of families