Trends in Patterns of Employment and the Wellbeing of Parents in Eastern and Western Germany

With the fall of the Berlin wall at the end of the 1980s two fundamentally different family policies those of the FRG and the GDR met. While in East Germany full-time employment of mothers - even with small children - was commonplace and strongly supported by the government, in West Germany labor force participation of mothers was less esteemed. After German reunification in 1990 the policies prevalent in western Germany were transferred to eastern Germany. However the well developed facilities of publicly financed childcare were largely maintained in eastern Germany. Hence, our paper focuses on how the employment behavior in both parts of Germany has changed since reunification and its impact on mothers and fathers well being. According to our findings - based on Mikrozensusdata - there is an increase in semi-traditional working arrangements and a decrease in egalitarian employment patterns in both parts of Germany. But still those parents living in eastern Germany are more likely to have egalitarian working arrangements and the age of the youngest child is less important in determining their pattern of employment than in western Germany. Using data of the study "AID:A" we see that there is neither a systematic correlation between employment patterns and wellbeing nor between employment patterns and personal strain. There is no evidence for a "double burden" for parents practicing an egalitarian working pattern.