Mothers and pension: how we protect women with children from poverty in old age

Being a mother is a bone job. But being a mother without technical aids such as washing machines and dishwasher, without disposable diapers and daycare centers? We can only say who did this: respect. But these women, who received and raised a child before the 1990s, cannot buy any respect. Instead, they slide into the poverty trap because, despite lifelong work and sacrificing, they get a pitiful pension. 20.8 percent of women over 65 are considered at risk of poverty. That is more than a fifth.

And we don't talk about faceless women here, mere numbers in statistics. These women are our mothers, mothers -in -law, aunts, neighbors. Women who got a child before 1992 and therefore get a lower mother's pension. Our future government now wants to change that. As part of the exploratory talks between the CDU/CSU and SPD, you heard a term again and again: "Mothers' pension. Money for mothers - sounds good at first. But what is that anyway and how well are mothers generally secured in old age?

For parents, a baby not only means very luck, but also a big bunch of work. A*r has to do this care work and screw it back in the job-mostly it is the mother. The problem is, however,: During this time, mothers do not pay into the pension fund and they lack this money in old age. The mother's pension is intended to compensate for these educational times via pension points.

So far, mothers, whose children were born before 1992, have received only 2.5 pension points, all three points with younger children. With the new coalition agreement, the child's year of birth should no longer play a role in the future. All mothers should get three pension points. The new government also wants to set an example: the same appreciation and recognition for all mothers. Experts like the proposal, says the President of the VdK Social Association, Verena Bentele, in the newspapers of the Funke Media Group: "The planned expansion of the mother's pension has long been overdue recognition of the decades of unpaid without worries of several generations of mother."

But not everyone is a fan. As always when it comes to women, there are discussions. Many criticize that the reform will cost the state a lot - an estimated seven billion euros. This is a lot of money. But social costs would be much higher if these women had decided not to get a child for financial reasons. Then we would now lack the workers and taxpayers.

Of course, the mother's pension is about money. But it's about much more: a better recognition of educational work. Because what we should not forget: poverty in old age is above all female. According to the Federal Statistical Office, the gender pension gap, i.e. the difference between the pension of men and women, was recently 27.1 percent. This means that the age income of women is average a quarter lower than that of men. The reasons for this have long been known: women are paid worse if the same work is done. They also take a larger part of the unpaid care work, work part -time more often and in poorly paid jobs.

In the discussion about the mother's pension, we are currently looking into the past, but many mothers of our generation also face poverty in old age. Because one thing has to be clear to us: the mother's pension only gives women pension points for three years of education. If you work permanently afterwards, you will face a pretty big problem in old age. According to projections, up to 75 percent of the 35- to 50-year-old women today will be the legal pension below the current Hartz IV level. It is therefore important that mothers quickly return to full-time or full-time employment after this time. Here, too, the state must of course help, for example through affordable daycare places.