women

• The changing status and the role of women:

  • The 1949 Constitution guaranteed equality of opportunity and pay - Almost 30 years before the UK.
  • Women often received what they name “double-burden” – a full-time job plus full responsibility for childcare and domestic arrangements.
  • ulbricht- genuinely progressive effort to move women out of the home and into work in the 1950s and 1960s.
  • honecker the reversal to more traditional domestic and childcare roles in the 1970s and 1980s in addition to work.
  • no single cohesive policy beyond ensuring women help build a socialist society
• Women and family:

  • 1966 Family Code- the family was at the heart of life in the GDR.
  • The GDR supported traditional values based on marriage
  • sexual relations were only socially acceptable between husband and wife.
  • 1970s : support for the family was extensive.
  • birth allowance of 1000 Ostmarks per child and a marriage loan of 5000 Ostmarks.
  • This was reduced as children were born and after three would be wiped out altogether.
  • In 1976, mothers having given birth to their second child were given a year’s leave with 65-90% of their salary paid.
• kindergarten

  • Kindergarten provision was extensive.
  • Between 1970 and 1982 the provision of places per 1000 children rose from 645 to 900 and places in creches from 291 to 612.
  • Birth rate remained comparatively low, at 10.5 per 1000 inhabitants in 1975.
  • Partly due to pressure on women.
• divorce

  • In the mid-1980s - 30% of marriages ended in divorce after 9 years (average).
  • Reasons offered included the greater economic independence and greater assertiveness of women.
  • Higher expectations of marriage than men and were less likely to accept disappointment.
  • Wives initiated more divorces – 69% by 1989.
  • Similarly many did not need men to share lives; in 1989 33% of births were to single parents.
  • The 1981 Census reported that 358,000 single women were raising children of under 17 years of age.
  • More possible to do so in the GDR because of the good childcare arrangements.
• women and employment

  • Women made up half of the labour force.
  • In 1984, 80% of women had jobs.
  • They expected to have paid employment.
  • State provided facilities for women to improve their professional and technical skills.
  • It could also send them to college with 80% of their pay.
• women and unemployment

  • They comprised 82% of teachers but never more than 4% of departmental heads in the Ministry of Education, even though it had a female boss, Margot Honecker.
  • Less than a ⅓ of secondary schools had female head teachers.
  • healthcare - 86% of employees were female and 50% of doctors, but only 12% of top positions were filled by women.
  • The authorities denied any glass ceiling.
• women at home

  • In 1970, 24% of wives and 43% of husbands in the GDR thought they shared domestic chores equally.
  • It was also estimated that 47.1 hours per week on average spent on housework.