“Parental leave – where is the equality of men?” the Greens called their parliamentary question to the family minister Claudia Bauer (ÖVP). The aim was to ask how the federal government plans to ensure more father involvement. After all, current figures show a decline in paternity leave since 2019.
“What measures are you planning to take to end the blatant imbalance in the care of children by fathers compared to mothers?” wanted the Green MP Elisabeth Götze about know. Bauer points out that “a large number of measures have already been taken in the past with a view to shaping family life in partnership”. In addition to the expansion of childcare, this would also include measures to increase father participation, such as doubling the family time bonus, which can be received while taking daddy month, eliminating the crediting of the family time bonus against childcare allowance later received by the father or increasing the additional earnings limits for childcare allowance and childcare allowance. The #papasein campaign already exists, with the aim of broadening society’s perception of the father’s role.
The interministerial working group to strengthen father participation planned in the government program had its first meeting in the Federal Chancellery on April 30, explains Bauer. By the end of the year, she should develop suggestions for “strengthening partnerships and father involvement.
Finally, Götze wanted to know whether there were surveys on the economic consequences of the “current one-sided use of parental leave and childcare almost exclusively by mothers”. According to the Ministry of Family Affairs, this does not exist; in family research, “a multidimensional approach is usually pursued, which does not only focus on the economic component”.
These answers are not enough for God. “Policy should be based on facts. The minister, on the other hand, pursues a family policy based on the principle of hope. It has long been known that the unequal distribution of care work costs women income, career opportunities and pensions and has significant economic consequences,” she says.
Father participation is a summer vacation program in Austria. “This is mainly due to the design of parental leave and childcare benefit models,” says Götze. “It is dramatic that the family minister continues to promote a traditionally patriarchal model, but apparently has not carried out any research into how this model affects children, family income, women’s careers, but also companies and the national economy.”
The answer to the question about the planned measures for more father involvement is particularly sobering. “Instead of finally pulling key reform levers, a working group is once again playing for time. We have a surplus of working groups and a reform deficit,” criticizes Götze.
And then there is another budget item that is still puzzling: In the family subdivision, a new item appears in the amount of 40 million euros for “other donations without compensation to physical persons” – which, as Götze says, “nobody knows what it means”.
