The Limits of Change: German Family Policy and the Dynamics of Policy Transfer 2009–2017

Abstract

German family policy has undergone path shifting reforms departing from the traditional male breadwinner model during the 2000s. These reforms were partially the result of policy transfers from European soft law and the Nordic family model. This contribution analyses which role ‘learning from abroad’ played for the path of German family policy in the years following these reforms and which factors help to explain these dynamics. We find that the relevance and role of policy transfer significantly changed compared to the 2000s: First, policy transfer from both the EU and the Nordic countries lost in importance as a political strategy for German family policy reforms. Second, in the one case of policy transfer from the Nordic states, it was instrumentalised by one of the governing parties to facilitate a shift reversing reform consolidating the old conservative family model. We argue that this change in the dynamics of policy transfer can be traced back to three interdependent explanatory factors: changing actor constellations and motivations of German government coalitions, declining problem pressures due to increasing female labour participation and a higher fertility rate, and a decrease in the transferability of policies from the EU and the Nordic countries. By highlighting the different dynamics and effects of policy transfer for German family policy the paper contributes to the wider theoretical debate about the hybridisation of family policy regimes.

DISCLOSURE STATEMENT

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 Blum (2014, 372) claims that the focus on policy transfer as a dependent variable in the context of German (and Austrian) family policy ‘would be an interesting question to follow up […]’.

2 We understand family policy as ‘those public policies that directly affect families with children’ (Nieuwenhuis and van Lancker 2017). Family policies can generally be distinguished into three broad categories: time/leave policies, care policies, especially childcare, and tax and cash benefits. As reforms in the area of the child benefit and child tax allowances followed an incremental and steady reform path over the last two decades, this area of German family policy is only of minor importance for our analysis.

3 According to Dolowitz and Marsh (2000, 8) ‘policy transfer can be treated as either a dependent or an independent variable’..

4 The authors define policy transfer as ‘the process by which knowledge about policies, administrative arrangements, institutions and ideas in one political system (past or present) is used in the development of policies, administrative arrangements, institutions and ideas in another political system’ (Dolowitz and Marsh 2000, 5).

5 The so-called Barcelona targets, agreed upon at the European Council in Barcelona 2002, included an expansion of daycare places to 33% for children under three and 90% of children aged three to six (European Council 2002).

6 The policy transfer framework is conceptually blurred regarding the relation between policy transfer and policy learning: While policy transfer requires some kind of learning process, learning in general and even ‘learning from abroad’ can also take place without any form of policy transfer (e. g. negative lessons) (Stone 2012, 488).

7 This category is inspired by Ebbinghaus (2009, 199 ff.) taxonomy on path dependency and institutional change, which is used to analyse the different dynamics of welfare reforms, especially in the area of pension policy.

8 According to Ellingsæter (2014, 567 ff.) the amount of the cash-for-care benefits varied between 327 Euro/per month (Finland) and 930 Euro/per month (Denmark). In Sweden, the cash-for-care benefit is optional for municipalities, while in Denmark the allowance is only paid to parents outside the labour market who have already applied for a place in childcare.

9 For instance, Bavarian family minister Christine Haderthauer (CSU) defended the cash-for-care benefit against criticism of the European Commission in an interview in 2012 referring to Sweden, the Scandinavian countries and France, ‘the most advanced countries’ in family policy, which would ‘successfully practice’ such a policy (Deutschlandfunk Kultur 2012).

10 This proposal was already discussed during the expert hearing of the Family Committee, where some of the experts cited such an approach as desirable but pointed out that in the current hybrid German family policy model the Swedish approach could not be easily copied.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Jana Windwehr

Dr. Jana Windwehr is a senior researcher at the Chair of International Relations and European Politics at the Martin-Luther-University Halle-Wittenberg.

Torben Fischer

Torben Fischer (M.A.) is a research assistant at the Chair of System Analysis and Comparative Politics at the Martin-Luther-University Halle-Wittenberg.