Interview in Brigitte with Gabriele Winker

W E C O M M U N I C A T E A N Y T H I N G . W H O C O M M U N I C A T E S O U R S ?

Women used to be responsible for the family and household. Nothing has changed in that respect. It's just that

Today, we are also expected to earn money so that we can keep our heads above water on our own if necessary. The consequence: either

Endless work - or the threat of poverty. It can't go on like this! At least that's the opinion of

social scientist Gabriele Winker

Interview: Julia Karnick

Source: BRIGITTE WOMAN 4/2017

BRIGITTE WOMAN: Many women in particular have the feeling that they constantly don't have enough time to fulfil all their family and professional

and professional demands. You claim that this is not an individual problem, but a system error.

GABRIELE WINKER: The fault lies in the fact that gainful employment is becoming more and more demanding, while family work is not decreasing.

work is not decreasing. Anyone who works and has to care for others has endless work. This mainly affects women who, even when they are working, still do most of the unpaid care work.

What exactly does this involve?

Care work refers to all activities in which we look after others or ourselves.

Is it work to look after yourself?

If self-care serves to maintain our earning capacity and competitiveness, yes. Rehabilitation and health cures are being paid for less and less, and you can't rest on your disability pension either: we are expected to stay fit and continue our education throughout our lives. That alone is quite a lot of demands. Most of us also have to provide for others. Exactly, and if we also have a family household
children, support relatives in need of care or assist friends, it's easy to neglect self-care.
self-care can easily be neglected. There is almost no time left for leisure - for activities that are purely an end in themselves, not determined by any performance requirements. We wonder why so many people are overworked and why mental illnesses are constantly on the rise, even though statistics show that they are: In Germany, adults perform 1.4 times as much unpaid care work compared to gainful employment. Despite this, we talk almost exclusively about the stresses and strains of gainful employment.

Why is it that care work has fallen so out of society's focus?

I would say that it has never been in the spotlight. Because care work is traditionally seen as a woman's job, as a can-do job.
but any work. It used to be the case that women were largely responsible for family and housework alone and were much less likely to be employed than men. The second women's movement from the late 1960s wanted to change this. Women should earn money like men,
become more independent and be able to use their skills at work. Now we have to recognise this: We have succeeded in reducing the differences in career access for women and men, and that is a good thing. But we are now exposed to new constraints.

What are these pressures?

For example, the pressure to do two jobs at once, that of a professional and that of a carer:
Our neoliberal economic system wants women and men to be able to support themselves alone,
In other words, both should be in full-time employment at all times. They should do the unpaid care work on the side. This is the political intention and has been gradually implemented over the past few decades.

In what way?

Until the 1970s, the dominant model, especially in the FRG and other German-speaking countries in the West, was the breadwinner model.
model, i.e. the idea that there is one breadwinner in a family, usually the man, and the woman stays at home. Then came the end of communism, the GDR and the Cold War. Globalisation intensified and with it worldwide economic competition. This led to the family breadwinner model becoming too expensive. It was based on the fact that salaries were paid right down to the lower middle class that were enough to support a family of several people - the so-called family wage. We feminists had denounced the idea that women doing all the work at home without pay was primarily in the interests of companies because it was the cheapest solution for them. But we were wrong.

In what way?

The much cheaper and more profitable system is when everyone who is able to work is also employed - and does the care work on top. Because then you can pay individuals lower wages. This led to a gradual reduction in real wages, especially in the decade from 2000 to 2009. Today, salaries that allow one person to support two or even four others are only paid to the highest earners.
It was not the will for social progress, but neoliberalism that ensured that the working woman became the ideal,
that the working woman became the ideal? Yes, suddenly "freedom" and "self-determination" were also made very palatable to us women by politicians. The women's movement welcomed the improved career opportunities, especially as a very well-educated generation of young women was waiting in the wings.
Into the world of work and show what we can do - that's what we want!

The women's movement has become an instrument of neoliberal economic policy?

Some see it that way, such as Nancy Fraser, a well-known US sociologist. But you have to take that into account: Every social movement that, like the women's movement, is not a majority movement but is nevertheless successful, probably owes this to the fact that its goals also benefit completely different groups. However, we have certainly realised too late that care work also belongs back in the feminist discussion: being cared for and caring for others is a basic human need. But who is supposed to do this if everyone
have to earn money all the time? So back to the housewife marriage? No. But constantly running in a hamster wheel is also
not freedom either. And that's what most women have to do, unless they have assets - or a very high-earning husband. Since the reform of maintenance law in 2008, even a high-earning husband is no longer a guarantee of lifelong security. This law is the result of neoliberal family policy. Under Gerhard Schröder, this was still regarded as a "fiddle". Then it suddenly became important in the sense that it became a means of implementing neoliberal economic policy, which with the new maintenance law
was implemented in a resounding and massively noticeable way for women. Only that hardly anyone noticed. And when we did notice, it was too late. Since then, the neoliberal principle of total personal responsibility has also applied to the family. The state makes it clear: marriage is not a safety net, you must be able to look after yourselves alone at all times. That is the claim. The reality is different: most marriages with children are semi-custodial marriages that still benefit from spousal splitting. The husband earns a reasonable income in a full-time job, the wife works part-time. This is because there is hardly any other way to take care of the family. This works well until the marriage breaks down, at which point many women slip down the social ladder. Single parents are among those who suffer the most. Although over 40 per cent of single parents receive Hartz IV, only a third of them are not employed. Another third work part-time, the last third even full-time - but because many only receive the minimum wage, the money is still not enough. They are therefore dependent on state support. So the system doesn't work at all, even though the majority of single parents do exactly what is expected of them: they try to provide for their livelihood on their own. And they raise children - which is also in the interests of the economy, which needs new workers and consumers.
workers and consumers. After all, daycare centre capacities have been expanded for children under the age of three and parental allowance has been introduced. Family support always takes place where the economy has an interest in it, and the economy has an interest in keeping skilled workers in the labour market. That is why
is why well-educated dual-earner couples in particular benefit from these measures. Parental allowance in its current form is one of the most antisocial things I have come across in recent years.
I have come across in recent years.

Why?

Because it means that children are worth different amounts at birth, namely more the better the parents earn.
earn. Parental allowance is sold as a wage replacement benefit. It is financed from taxes, not from the social security system, into which contributions are wage-dependent, i.e. paid differently. The message: you well-qualified women, have children for whom you can stay at home for the first year, but then put them in daycare and continue working. The state will support you - but only the qualified ones. But even they realise at some point: full commitment at work and a family on the side is only possible with a huge effort, even with a daycare centre. That's why those who can afford it are economising care work. They pay others to do some of the work for them: Babysitters, cleaners, tutors, carers for the elderly. The fact that the vast majority of these employment relationships are irregular, poorly paid and unpaid, without holiday entitlement or sick pay, without paying social security contributions, is of little interest to anyone: a scandal,
which I am convinced is deliberately tolerated because otherwise the whole system would not work.

Because it would otherwise be too expensive for most families?

Yes. On the other hand, they need this help if both parents are working and the grandmother doesn't live round the corner or is no longer fit. Many people who employ someone like this have a guilty conscience - but they simply play the game. This shows that those who suffer the least in this system are those who are very successful professionally - but at the expense of others. What's more, we bring many of these care workers from regions with lower wage levels than ours, such as Eastern Europe.
Their children then have to be looked after by relatives: We import care labour from abroad, which is then lacking locally. Then there are the many people who cannot afford help with care work. This becomes an extreme double burden if both parents have to do a lot of paid work because they are among those low earners who are struggling to get by without state support. This includes those who try to earn a family income with two or three jobs. These parents have hardly any time left for care work, not for themselves, but often far too little for their children - with corresponding consequences for their development and educational careers.

Are housewives the real rebels these days?

You can't get anywhere with buzzwords like these - they only lead to women being played off against each other.
against each other. Instead, I would like to emphasise something else: People are not autonomous beings who work for themselves, accumulate money and become happy. I am convinced that we all need care.
need care. Not only children, the elderly and the sick, but also every healthy adult. And we have a need to look after others. Being cared for and caring for one another is a fundamental human right that should be at the centre of political action. The question is: how can we manage to reduce paid work so that there is enough time for unpaid care work?

What do you propose?

Conversion of the spousal splitting into family splitting. Reduction of normal working hours to 30 hours. Introduction of a poverty-resistant minimum wage. I am also in favour of the introduction of an unconditional
basic income. It won't solve all the problems, but it would be a humane form of basic security.

Who would pay for all that?

I haven't even finished yet! After unpaid care work comes the next issue - the poor working conditions in paid care work.
poor working conditions in paid care work, in hospitals, daycare centres, nursing homes, schools and social work. Take a look at carers for the elderly! They do the most valuable and important work, but receive an average of 500 euros a month less than the underpaid nurses, i.e. a pittance. And they are constantly under stress because staff are far too
is far too short: In no other profession is the number of mental illnesses higher. We need the children, we still invest in them, but the elderly seem completely useless in a profit-orientated society, so that's where the most money is saved.
so that's where the most money is saved. The care rates from long-term care insurance have just been increased.
At least. But that doesn't change the fact that long-term care insurance - unlike health insurance - was
was introduced in 1995 as a partially comprehensive insurance, the neoliberal principle was already gaining ground: politicians expected from the outset that funds would run out and families would have to step in.

Why should the economy have an interest in this?

People who have to care for their parents or worry about whether they will be well looked after in a care home may find their professional performance suffers as a result. Well, on average, the need for care arises later and later in life, often not until the age of 80 or even 90. This is why the daughters and sons who are carers are partners - a third are now men
- are often already over 60: care provided by someone who receives a pension is cost-neutral care. In this respect, the calculation often works out.

Back to the question: who should pay for this?

We are one of the richest countries in the world! -Of course, good care work does not come for free. So that
In order for care workers to earn more and improve their working conditions, we would have to put real money into it - for example through higher taxes on high earners and wealth. Of course we can say: we'll leave everything as it is, even if we work ourselves sick in the process. Then care work, which doesn't generate any direct profit but incurs costs, can remain as cheap as possible. But is that quality of life? I am convinced that it will lead us into a real crisis if we carry on like this.

What does that look like?

Many people in very different life situations already have the feeling that something fundamental is wrong - we can see this at the meetings of our "Care Revolution" network, which campaigns for better conditions in care work.
conditions in care work. Catholic and Protestant Christians sit together with trade unionists
Catholic and Protestant Christians sit together with trade unionists and young, left-wing revolutionaries and agree: we must fight to ensure that mutual care for one another is no longer subjected to cost minimisation. Masses of dissatisfied people
are currently following the right-wing demagogues. We urgently need to counter right-wing populism with something - namely a humane proposal on how everyone can really be put in a position to look after themselves and others, i.e. to lead a good life.

Published in Brigitte Woman 04/2017, p. 52-58