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French and German Family Policy 1945–60

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  12 September 2008

Merith Niehuss
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Extract

A country's family policy reflects, either directly or indirectly, the attitude of government, parliament and society to the family as an institution. The way in which a government deals with families, whether it gives them financial support, and why and how it does so, reveals the objectives of its family policy, and also ultimately its population policy.

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Articles
Information
Contemporary European History , Volume 4 , Issue 3 , November 1995 , pp. 293 - 313
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1995

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References

1 This is also the general tone of sociological works. The subject is so overloaded with ideological ballast that there has ‘never been … a thorough discussion of the future of the German population’. Schmid, Josef, Bevölkerungsveränderungen in der Bundesrepublik Deutschland. Eine Revolution auf leisen Sohlen Stuttgart: Kohlhammer, 1984), 111.Google Scholar

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3 On these aspects cf. Grieswelle, Detlef, ‘Diskurs über Bevölkerungsfragen und Familienpolitik’, Aus Politik und Zeitgeschichte. Beilage zur Wochenzeitung Das Parlament, Vol. 18 (1989), 27.Google Scholar

4 ibid.

5 Deutschland im Wiederaufbau, German Government report 1953, 311.

6 In a speech to the World Congress of Family Organisations in Stuttgart in 1954, quoted from: Deutschland im Wiederaufbau, 1954, 341.

7 Bundestag official publication 7/3340, 10/3/1975, quoted from Leenen, Wolf-Rainer, ‘Bevölker-ungsentwicklung und Bevölkerungspolitik in beiden deutschen Staaten’, Deutschland-Archiv, Vol. 10 (1977), 616f.Google Scholar

8 In the third report on the family (1979) several authors detected signs of a transition to population policy, but this never came about. cf. Herlth, Alois and Kaufmann, Franz-Xaver, ‘Zur Einführung: Familiale Probleme und sozialpolitische Intervention’, in Kaufmann, Franz-Xaver, ed., Staatliche Sozialpolitik und Familie (Munich/Vienna: Oldenbourg, 1982), 16.Google Scholar

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12 This was estabilshed by one of the first studies, in 1866, on child mortality in France, quoted from Schultheis, , Sozialgeschichte, 157.Google Scholar

13 ibid., 343.

14 ibid., 339.

15 Bremme, Gabriele, Freiheit und soziale Sicherheit. Motive und Prinzipien sozialer Sicherung dargestellt an England und Frankreich (thereafter Bremme, Freiheit) (Stuttgart: Ferdinand Enke, 1961), 191.Google Scholar

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17 Cf. the explanation in a memorandum by the Federal Labour Minister ‘Probleme der Kinderbeihilfen (Familienausgleichskassen)’, Stuttgart 1952, Bundesarchiv Koblenz (henceforth BA) B153–759, and a study by the German Family Ministry in 1955, quoted from Bünger, Emil Fritz, Familienpolitik in Deutschland. Neue Erkenntnisse über den Einfluβ des sog. ‘Gieβkannenprinzips’ auf die Wirksamkeit sozialpolitischer Maβnahmen (thereafter Bünger, Familienpolitik) (Berlin: Duncker & Humblot, 1970), 29f.Google Scholar

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20 Thus Wuermeling in the presentation of his political programme, published in Zentral-Informationsdienst, No. 8, 12/11/1954, BA B153/829–2.

21 Cf. for example Hockerts, Hans Günter, ‘Integration der Gesellschaft: Gründungskrise und Sozialpolitik in der Frühen Bundesrepublik’, Zeitschrift für Sozialreform, Vol. 32 (1986), 30fGoogle Scholar; von Berlepsch, Hans-Jörg, ‘“Sozialistische Sozialpolitik”? Zur sozialpolitischen Konzeption und Strategie der SPD in den Jahren 1949 bis 1966’, in Tenfelde, Klaus, ed., Arbeiter im 20. Jahrhundert (Stuttgart: Klett-Cotta, 1991), 469.Google Scholar

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23 Schultheis, , Sozialgeschichte, 115–53.Google Scholar

24 cf. Bremme, , Freiheit, 179f.Google Scholar

25 ibid., 182.

26 On these measures see ibid., 184, and Schultheis, , Sozialgeschichte, 344–52.Google Scholar

27 Bremme, , Freiheit, 186.Google Scholar

28 Ritter, Gerhard A., Der Sozialstaat. Entstehung und Entwicklung im internationalen Vergleich (Munich: Oldenbourg, 1989), 152.Google Scholar Cf. here also, ibid., 145–8, a description of the Beveridge Plan, which influenced the French plan for flat-rate social insurance. See also, in detail, Bremme, , Freiheit, 39–67.Google Scholar

29 Cf. ibid. and Hockerts, Hans Günter, ‘Die Entwicklung vom Zweiten Weltkrieg bis zur Gegenwart’, in Köhler and Zacher, Jahrhundert, 147f.Google Scholar

30 See the table in Bremme, , Freiheit, 188.Google Scholar

31 Although there was a clear intention to discourage mothers from going out to work, Karen Offen points out that families with working mothers also profited considerably from all maternity provisions. Karen Offen, ‘Body Politics. Women, Work and the Politics of Motherhood in France, 1920–1950’, in Bock, Gisela and Thane, Pat, eds, Maternity and Gender Policies: Women and the Rise of European Welfare States 1880s–1950s (London/New York: Routledge, 1991) 138–59.Google Scholar

32 This was a fairly lengthy presentation by the UIOF (Union Internationale des Organisations Familiaux), formulated in conjunction with the French authorities, which was given to the Deutscher Familienverband in 1960. It had been requested because Blank, the labour minister at that time, had criticised the French system of family subsidies. According to a letter from the French family association to Herr Gebauer in the Family Ministry, Blank was of the opinion that French subsidies were so high that they discouraged fathers from working. Both documents in BA B153/829–1.

33 Cf. Sozialer Fortschritt, 3rd year 1954, 52f.

34 Gebauer, , Familie, 57.Google Scholar

35 Bremme, , Freiheit, 192.Google Scholar

36 Niehuss, Merith, Familie, Frau und Gesellschaft. Studien zur Strukturgeschichte der Familie in Deutschland 1945–1960 (thereafter Niehuss, Familie, Frau und Gesellschaft) (forthcoming).Google Scholar

37 Letter from Ministerialrat Ludwig in the Family Ministry to the chairman of the Deutscher Familienverband, 10/8/1956, BA B153/829–1.

38 Sozialer Fortschritt, 3rd year, 1954, 213.

39 Cf. the statistics in Gebauer, , Familie, 51.Google Scholar For children up to the age of six there was DM25 in 1953 and from 1959 onwards DM30, up to the age of 14, DM30 and then DM35, and up to the age of 18, or 25 if still in education, DM35 and then DM40.

40 Bünger, , Familienpolitik, 21.Google Scholar

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42 Sources: ‘Gegenüberstellung der familienpolitischen Ausgangspositionen im Jahre 1953 mit den heute erreichten’, Ms., BA B153/829–1; Bünger, , Familienpolitik, 20Google Scholar; ‘Deutschland im Wiederaufbau’, 1955, 402.

43 Source: ‘Gegenüberstellung’.

44 Gebauer, Familie, 53.

45 For example, Wuermeling in his report ‘Gegenüberstellung’, and elsewhere; also Gebauer, , Familie, 53.Google Scholar

46 cf. Adams, Hans, ‘Entwicklung der steuerlichen und wirtschaftlichen Belastung der Familie’, in Pro Familia. Festschrift des Deutschen Familienverbandes, n.d. (1955), BA B153/828–1, 55–57.Google Scholar

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49 cf. Abers, Willi, ‘Familie und Einkommensteuer. Ein internationaler Vergleich’, Sozialer Fortschritt, Vol. 8–9 (1954)Google Scholar, also published in Pro Familia, 58–63.

50 Response by the Family Minister to a question in the Bundestag on 29/4/54, published in Deutscher Familienverband, Informationen der Bundesgeschäftsstelle, 26 May 1954, Frankfurt am M., BA B106/9370.

51 Cf. extracts from the explanation of this verdict in Informationen für die Frau (1957), issue 5, 9; cf. also Joosten, , Die Frau, 59.Google Scholar

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54 Cf. the demands of the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Bevölkerungswissenschaft at the Marburg Conference in March 1954: ‘Generally speaking, the idea that one income can provide for and educate two children must be contested …’, Sozialer Fortschritt (1954), 88.

55 A public-sector salary was sufficient to bring up four children ‘in a style appropriate to the job’. If there were more children than this, additional benefits would be needed. Quoted from the Süddeutsche Zeitung, 8/6/1990.

56 In the Federal Republic the average monthly net loss was still DM623 per month in 1961. Bünger, , Familienpolitik, 59.Google Scholar

57 All quotations from the Family Minister–s report in ‘Deutschland im Wiederaufbau’, 1954, 343.

58 Willeke and Onken, Familienlastenausgleich. For twelve representative income groups, among them a variety of family situations (single people, couples without children, families with from one to four children), but always with only one earner, the authors calculated the real effects of increases in wages and income, tax legislation and child benefits. However, they did not publish the bulk of the statistics, but presented them in the form of graphics, so that it has not been possible to give exact figures in the following section.

59 ibid., 125.

60 ibid., 85.

61 ibid., 108.

62 Bünger, , Familienpolitik, 16.Google Scholar

63 According to Akrami-Göhren, , Familienpolitik, 295.Google Scholar

64 In Zentral-Informationsdienst, No. 8, 12/11/1954, BA B153/829–2.

65 Oeter, Ferdinand, ‘Familiengerechte Sozialpolitik’, Sozialer Fortschritt (1952), 288.Google Scholar

66 Süddeutsche Zeitung, 19/10/1954.

67 Quoted from Akrami-Göhren, , Familienpolitik, 137.Google Scholar

68 Süddeutsche Zeitung, 19/10/1954.

69 This is a study by the authorities in Luxembourg for the area of coal and steel in the then six countries of the European Community. Apart from wage levels, family subsidies and the effects of the tax legislation of 1959 were taken into account; for technical reasons welfare contributions could not be considered. Source: Gebauer, , Familie, 63.Google Scholar

70 This amounts to a normative assessment of how income is, on average, consumed. The assumption is that in the case of couples, expenses do not double when they marry, but that the second adult – in these examples always the housewife – initiates certain savings. This applies variously to children, depending on their ages. For a new and basically differentiated calculation of equivalence figures cf. Triebel, Armin, ‘Vergleichbar machen, ohne gleichzumachen. Äquivalenzzahlen in der ökonomischen Konsumforschung’, in Pierenkemper, Toni, ed., Zur Ökonomik des privaten Haushalts. Haushaltsrechnungen als Quelle historischer Wirtschafts- und Sozialforschung (Frankfurt am M.: Campus-Verlag, 1991), 98–141.Google Scholar

71 Results of an investigation by a study commission of the International Union of Family Organisations (UIOF), quoted from Gebauer, , Familie, 99.Google Scholar

72 Pechstein, and Pechstein, , ‘Familiengerechtigkeit’, 736.Google Scholar

73 From the Constitutional Court's judgement on the ‘Erziehungszeitenbeschluß’ of 7/7/1992, quoted from ibid. Cf. also quotations from the explanation in the Süddeutsche Zeitung, 8/7/1992.

74 Cf. for more detail Niehuss, Familie, Frau und Gesellschaft.