In Germany, 100% fully-paid maternity leave for a full-time employee is 6 weeks before birth (estimated due date) plus 8 weeks after that. It was more mindblowing to when, through a short conversation with a family member, I found out it was already so 2 generations above me (so the grandparents’ generation).

As I sat comfortably at home enjoying my maternity leave (before birth, of course), I set out to look into how this came to be, but came to an anticlimatic conclusion that Germany is actually not special. And I was reminded that we all really only see things from a very limited perspective.

I am pretty ignorant at all things being a parent to date. From summaries of what my friends who are parents in the UK and US, official reports from organisations such as Pregnant Then Screwed, and anecdotes from the parents’ generation, I understood that 14 weeks of fully-paid maternity leave is a blessing.

Table of Contents

A Brief German Context

1878 – Maternity benefits started as a ban, where mothers were forbidden to work 3 weeks after birth, unpaid.

1883 – no one took advantage of the 1878 ban, so an insurance benefit was introduced – 50% of their salary which is too little for most.

1919 – The International Labour Organisation (ILO) passed the Washington Maternity Protection Convention, stipulating the following:

  • 12 paid weeks = 6 weeks before plus after
  • Paid nursing breaks 2x 30 mins
  • “Be paid benefits sufficient for the full and healthy maintenance of herself and her child”

1927 – Adaptation of the ILO Washington Convention by Germany, in addition to already available protection against dismissal.

1941-1944 – Nazis presented their own version of mothers protection to show the “defensive strength of the German people” (Jews and foreigners were not covered). It was during this period the maternity benefits were the best – agriculture workers were also protected, longer protection for nursing mothers, and the level of pay was now 100% – but for the wrong reasons.

After WW2 – some benefits reverted to 1927 law, some retained the ones introduced under the Nazis, and there were variances between East Germany and West Germany:

  • East Germany – Women were given leave for five weeks before and six weeks after the birth of their child and received benefits equal to the full amount of their wages. Insured women received additional benefits for various things such as for baby’s laundry, breastfeeding etc. State childcare was expanded. Later, there were also “baby year” reforms, where paid parental leave was extended from 26 weeks to 52 weeks, in 1976 and 1986 – the former for parents with at least two children, and the latter to all parents regardless of the number of children.
  • West Germany – The 1952 Law formed the basis of today’s Germany’s Mothers’ Protection (Mutterschutz) / maternity benefits: statutory leave of 6 weeks before and 8 weeks after birth, and dismissal protection up to 4 months after birth.

The role of women in the German context

What I found interesting about the German context is that there had been different perspectives of the role of women that resulted in different policies. It is not enough to do a simple point-by-point comparison of the policies and say what has been the best.

While maternity benefits seemed to be the “best” during the Nazi period, Dr Katja Nebe said: “During the time of the fascist dictatorship in Germany, the role of women for reproductive purposes came into clear focus. This led to maternity protection being improved. This must also be seen in this context and, against this background, the improvements in the Maternity Protection Act must not be praised.”

In East Germany’s socialist context, women were seen as equal as men in terms of labour, thus participation of women in the labour market was, and still is, higher.

The maternity benefits in Germany today started off as a ban in 1878, and some argued that this has set the tone of the maternity protection in Germany as being paternalistic and takes away the autonomy of women, leading to problematic approaches towards achieving overall gender equality in the country. (Anecdotally, a friend in German academia had been frustrated that she had been forbidden by her employer to travel overseas to conferences simply because she was pregnant – she was only in her second trimester and it was an uncomplicated pregnancy.)

The anticlimatic realisation

More than 100 years ago (!), 12 paid weeks was already an ILO recommendation. In 1952, the ILO has recommended 12 weeks as a minimum and 14 weeks as the ideal. The latest ILO (2000) guideline has recommended 14 weeks as minimum and 18 weeks as the ideal.

As of 1998, 62 ILO member countries are already providing at least 14 weeks. Even my home country Malaysia has mandated 14 weeks (98 days) of fully-paid maternity leave since 2023 (but it still has a super unjust law where children to women who give birth overseas without a Malaysian husband are not entitled to citizenship, only fathers – this is another topic).

This meant in comparison globally, maternity benefits in Germany is not bad but also not a particularly exceptional example, which was rather anticlimatic.

And I thought it was, only because I was viewing this from the perspective of the anglophone, Global North countries – the UK, USA, Australia and New Zealand all have worse statutory maternity benefits.

Outtro

I thought this investigation of “why maternity benefits is so great in Germany” was going to be more difficult because of language barrier, but it became a rather short-lived one, as soon as I found out about Germany’s adaptation of the ILO’s Washington Convention and that many other countries do the same, and even better.

Nevertheless, it doubled up as an opportunity for me to read more complex texts in German, which I appreciated. Sociology is a key lens of mine and I have always thought of understanding Germany from this perspective is important for me to mentally integrate.

There are of course many other discourses around maternity leave, and parental leave in general, way beyond “how much fully-paid maternity leave would I get if I were in country X as a full-time employee”. But here would be where this blog post ends.

Key sources

  1. Die Geschichte des Mutterschutzes in Deutschland by MDR (“Central German Broadcasting”, one of Germany’s public broadcaster), 2021
  2. More than 120 Nations Provide Paid Maternity Leave by ILO, 1998
  3. Care at work: the ILO’s strategy to overcome the care crisis by EPSU (European Public Service Union), 2022
  4. The Baby Year Parental Leave Reform in the GDR and Its Impact on Children’s Long-Term Life Satisfaction, a paper by SOEP — The German Socio-Economic Panel at DIW Berlin, 2019
  5. Katja Nebe: “Da spielte Selbstbestimmung quasi keine Rolle” by MDR, 2021