ドイツの男女雇用平等政策

抄録

Gender equality policies at work in Germany consist of 1)targeted promotion of women (e.g. plans to promote women, preferential treatment in recruitment and promotion in certain situations, special training opportunities) and 2)special arrangements for the reconciliation between family and working life (e.g. parental leave, part-time work, child care).

Gender equality policy is obligatory by law in the public sector, but is voluntary in the private sector. In order to encourage the private sector to take positive action, “Total E-Quality” Association was established in 1996 on the initiative of the business society with support of the federal government. In 1997, the first “Total E-Quality” awards were granted to several companies and organizations, who practice a women-friendly policy on personnel.

Most of arrangements for better harmonization of family and work are, as a matter of fact, working time arrangements. Working time arrangements promote gender equality in some cases, while they obstruct gender equality in other cases. Working time policies should be examined from this point of view. For example, it is only mothers who actually to take parental leave in Germany. This situation gives employers good grounds to avoid women as a risk-group. The policy for harmonization of family and work targeted only for women may make weaken the competitiveness of women in the labour market.

In order to encourage fathers to take family responsibilities, the federal government has introduced the new “parental time” in 2001. The new system is based on the partnership-model of the couple, both of whom work part-time and take care of children at the same time.

Part-time work is important as a means of harmonizing family and work and enabling women to work without career breaks. In fact, part-time work has been arranged in principle only for female employees. However, interest in the part-time work also for male employees has been increasing recently based on the viewpoint of employment policy. The federal government promotes the expansion of eligible part-time work by individual reduction of contractual working-time. In this context, part-time work is no more a special working form only for women. The image of part-time work might be improved, if men also choose part-time work according to their own needs at each stage of life. In 2001, the federal government has established the right of employees to request their employers to reduce their contracted working-time without reason of family responsibilities by law. These developments of part-time work can be highly regarded from the viewpoint of the gender equality policy.

It is worth noting, that the policy for better harmonization of family and work is incorporated in the working time policy in Germany. The point of view of gender equality policy should be introduced in the whole working time policy in future in Japan, so that gender inequality is not produced.