Socio-Economic Change, Party Competition and Intra-Party Conflict: The Family Policy of the Grand Coalition

Abstract

The German welfare state has historically been characterised as a prototype of the ‘strong male breadwinner model’. Although there have been incremental innovations and expansions of various family policies since the mid-1980s, which accelerated during the Red–Green government of the late 1990s and early 2000s, it is argued that paradigmatic change towards an employment-oriented family policy only came about during the Grand Coalition. This article systematically analyses family policy change and the factors that have determined it.