The organisations united within the Association of German Family Organisations (AGF) criticise that the Federal Government has lost sight of the consequences of its austerity and reform policies for families. Whilst it is dealing with the various reform proposals in the individual ministries largely in isolation from one another, the multitude of cuts already implemented and planned threatens to place a considerable financial and time burden on families and to make it even more difficult to balance care responsibilities with professional work. There has so far been a complete lack of consideration of the cumulative impact of these reform proposals on families.
We are increasingly asking ourselves: what exactly is the federal government’s plan? Reforms are being pushed forward in various ministries, each justified only in its own right. What may appear to be a limited change in individual ministries adds up to a considerable overall burden in the day-to-day lives of families. Families do not experience political decisions as individual legislative changes, but rather in their entirety. Financial burdens, increased expectations regarding employment, growing demands on time, shortages in childcare centres, schools and care services, as well as new challenges in balancing work and family life, are placing families under considerable pressure from several fronts.
Reform policies are losing sight of families
Cuts to parental allowance (now only 12 months instead of 14), housing benefit, maintenance payments for single parents (now only up to the age of 16) and social security provisions for children (e.g. the abolition of the immediate cash benefit) are compounded by reform plans in the care sector, including reductions in the recognition of care periods for pension purposes. Added to this are uncertain prospects for support for children and young people under Books VIII and IV of the Social Code, alongside longer daily working hours and a requirement for a doctor’s sick note on the first day of absence. At the same time, the expansion of a reliable and affordable family-supporting infrastructure for all-day childcare and care is failing to keep pace with growing demands.
The Federal Government is focusing heavily on expanding the labour supply, but fails to take into account the conditions under which people with care responsibilities can actually hold down a job. Children need to be looked after, and relatives in need of care must be supported. This socially necessary work does not disappear simply because the demands of the labour market are increasing. On the contrary: a lack of investment in appropriate infrastructure makes family care work even more important. At the same time, effective care work is a cornerstone of a functioning economy.
Increased pressure does not automatically lead to more paid work
The hope that financial cuts will mobilise additional workers could prove to be a fallacy. New work-life balance challenges, particularly for mothers and family carers, may make near-full-time employment more difficult rather than easier.
Anyone wishing to increase the labour force must create the conditions that enable people with care responsibilities to actually work more. This also includes an effective equality policy, so that care responsibilities no longer fall predominantly on mothers, but are shared equally between parents. Greater financial pressure and the possibility of longer working hours are no substitute for a nursery place, reliable all-day childcare or a functioning care infrastructure.
In the absence of these conditions, families are often forced to reduce their hours of paid work. What makes work-life balance easier in the short term leads, in the long term, to lower incomes and pension entitlements, particularly when the work is carried out as a ‘mini-job’. Against this backdrop, it is particularly contradictory to simultaneously restrict pension coverage for periods spent providing care.
The burden extends well into the middle of society
The reforms affect all family types right into the heart of society and, at the same time, exacerbate existing social inequalities. Low-income families have fewer resources to offset cuts in benefits. Single parents and families with extensive care responsibilities face an additional burden due to their particular work-life balance situation.
The AGF welcomes the planned increases in child benefit and the child tax allowance. However, these are increases mandated by law, intended merely to offset the rate of inflation, and are insufficient to cushion the burdens described. Furthermore, many families do not benefit at all from an increase in child benefit because it is directly offset against SGB II benefits or child maintenance payments. Consequently, the extent to which families’ financial burdens are alleviated continues to vary depending on their income. The AGF calls for an increase in child benefit to the maximum relief effect of the child tax allowance. The minimum subsistence level for children must also be recalculated and consistently aligned with their specific needs for a healthy upbringing and social inclusion.
AGF calls for systematic support for families
The AGF calls on the Federal Government to stop viewing and justifying its reform plans in isolation. What is needed is an inter-ministerial strategy to relieve rather than burden families, one that takes into account not only the financial implications but also the consequences for time budgets, gender equality, the balance between paid work and care work, and social security. Budgetary consolidation and welfare state reform must not be at the expense of families. If benefits are cut, work requirements are increased and, at the same time, public infrastructure is not sufficiently strengthened, the burdens and risks are shifted from the state onto families, thereby increasing their risk of poverty.
By bringing up children and caring for relatives in need of support, families play an indispensable role in society’s care work. Politicians must recognise this and create the framework conditions to ensure that care work and gainful employment are compatible. This is already a challenge for many families, even without the Federal Government’s current austerity and reform policies.
When federal politicians lament low birth rates whilst at the same time placing burdens on families from all sides, they are acting contradictorily. Investment in families and children is not a consumptive expenditure, but an investment in the future of society. To base budgetary consolidation on this very area means deferring and increasing the costs for tomorrow: the AGF therefore calls on the Federal Government to end its short-sighted austerity and reform policies at the expense of families. Otherwise, the costs supposedly saved today will have to be borne by society as a whole tomorrow.
Berlin, August 2026