The ambivalent trajectory of the German gender regime: Are female breadwinner families an indicator of a shift towards a public gender regime?

Abstract

There seems to be some evidence that Germany is turning from being a ‘domestic’ to a ‘public’ gender regime. The extension of public childcare, increasing female labour market participation rates and the introduction of gender quotas, among other changes, point to this development. However, a detailed analysis reveals an ambivalent and even contradictory trajectory. This development can only be understood by applying an intersectional perspective and looking at families with different socioeconomic backgrounds, class, and gender. By focusing on family households in which women are the main earners, this paper illustrates changes and stability in different domains and contributes to the understanding of the German gender regime's trajectory. On the basis of a qualitative study conducted in West and East Germany, the article shows that many women who are the main breadwinners in their families are in this position not because of modernised gender relations and by their own choice, but ‘involuntarily’, because of their partners' weak labour market position and increasing pressure within the German welfare state to earn their own living and contribute to covering the needs of the household through gainful employment. Many female-breadwinner families do not live reversed, modernised gender roles, but face an above-average risk for poverty and have little room for manoeuvre. Political and economic factors, as well as norms (in the domains of polity, economy and civil society), help to explain these findings. We see mainly neoliberal, activation policies directed at households with low resources, whereas the institutional framework for households with higher incomes has remained relatively stable. The results of the study show that dual-earner households are not necessarily progressive and dual earning is a poor indicator of a gender regime change.