Every fifth child in Germany is raised in a single-parent family
Among mothers raising toddlers under 3 years old, only 23% work. And this means that the majority of single parents are forced to live on the so-called "Hartz IV": in March of this year, there were 636,000 such families.
"Single-parent families, unfortunately, live in poverty much more often than all others," says acting leader of the SPD Manuela Schwesig. "And in order to eliminate this situation, the government must finally think about a minimum wage, expanding the network of high-quality preschool institutions and child benefits that would be paid differentially."
The number of single-parent families varies in different German cities. The most single parents are in federal states such as Berlin and Bremen (32 and 29 percent), and the lowest rate is in conservative Baden-Württemberg – 15 percent.
In the territory of the former GDR, overall, the number of single parents (27%) is significantly higher than in the western states (17%). In the east of the country, more than half of single parents have never been married, while in the west, two-thirds are either divorced or living separately from each other. The reason for this is clear: children in the new states are very often born out of wedlock, and moreover, the "eastern" mothers themselves are significantly younger.
Also, the majority of single mothers and fathers prefer to live in large cities; apparently, in the provinces, morals are less democratic. In total, there are more than 500,000 such families, with 26% living in the west of the country and as many as 31% of single parents in the east.
And overall, as emphasized by the head of the Federal Statistical Office, Roderich Egeler, "in recent decades, the concept of family has changed greatly. Parents who raise children alone are today a normal phenomenon of our society."
If in 1996 in Germany there were 14 percent of minors living only with mom or dad, now the number of single parents has increased by 20 percent. The total number of marriages in the country has significantly decreased. Apparently, in another twenty years, in most families, mothers will be left completely alone, without fathers.