독일 가족정책에 대한 여성주의적 비판:‘육아와 직업의 조화’에서 ‘육아의 직업화’로

Abstract

German family policy is focused on providing material and institutional support for women in order to facilitate their ability to simultaneously pursue their careers while raising a family In addition, German family policy has also been focused on achieving gender equality both at home and in the workplace. However, child care has increasingly become a specialized field which requires the investment of significant time and resources. This has given rise to a trend in which women and young couples increasingly opt not to have children. Viewed from the standpoint of the state, the current low birthrate threatens to pose a serious societal problem in the future. Therefore, moving beyond the traditional notion of the harmonization of child care and career, German family policy has increasingly been geared towards uncovering innovative child care policies which could be used to increase the birthrate. To this end, a political measure known as "Erziehungseinkommen (child care allowance)" has now been introduced. As a result of this measure, child rearing has glowingly come to be perceived as a career as families with children begin to receive monthly salaries from the government, pay taxes on this income, and secure pension and insurance benefits similar to those received by regular workers. This has in effect led to the emergence of child care as a career. This measure may be criticized by some as an anti-feminist policy in that while women receive salaries they do not venture outside of their homes. However, as this measure officially recognizes child care, which had in the past been looked down upon, as a legitimate form of social labor and places an economic value on women's child care activities, it can be regarded as contributing to the advent of gender equality and to changing society's perception of child care as a legitimate form of labor.