You’ve had a baby—congratulations! Now, when will you be returning to work? For most parents, their answer depends on the arrangements they can find for child care—this is especially true for mothers, who, despite many changes to society over the past century, remain primarily responsible for childrearing across industrialized nations. The difficulty of securing daycare varies drastically country by country.
In 2013, Germany declared that every child over the age of 1 has the legal right to a space in a public daycare facility. This past fall, while America’s election unfolded, Germany’s highest court took this mandate one step further: It ruled that parents may sue for lost wages if they can’t find a place for their child in a public daycare center. This decision came in response to three mothers who filed a lawsuit declaring that authorities neglected to create the necessary daycare slots required by the 2013 ruling. Because the mothers couldn’t find a child-care center with any openings in their hometown of Leipzig, their lawyers argued that they were unable to return to work after giving birth, resulting in a loss of earnings. Chief Justice Ulrich Herrmann ruled in the mothers’ favor on October 20. (Stay-at-home parents, by contrast, wouldn't have damages to recoup because a lack of child-care availability hasn't resulted in a loss of wages.)
This law may seem crazy to Americans, but it follows as a natural development from Germany’s long history of offering governmental support for families, and its more recent history of encouraging mothers’ paid employment. By contrast, the American system, which considers families a private matter, looks crazy in its own right when compared to much of the globe. The U.S. has some of the most overworked parents, the lowest public commitment to caregiving, and highest rates of maternal and child poverty of any western industrialized country.
[For more of this story, written by Caitlyn Collins, go to https://www.theatlantic.com/bu...an-childcare/512612/]
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