Abstract
In their everyday lives, their own family is a kind of “safe haven” for children. Normally, it meets their everyday needs while providing quality relationships, emotional security, and privacy (Schneewind 2008). The family is characterized by its specific social capital: the strong ties forged by the close and emotionally based relationships between its members (Coleman 1988). Accordingly, the family is where children and adults interact with a strong emotional commitment. However, as the two earlier Child Studies have shown, the forms the family takes can vary greatly. First, it can contain either just one or several children. Second, parents can be married to each other or live together in a domestic partnership; they can be separated but both rearing their children together or be single parents; and, finally, they can be biological parents, adoptive parents, or a combination of the two.
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Notes
- 1.
In this context, the nuclear family means the “two-generation family ” living together in one household with (biological) parents . Children living in residential homes are generally not considered here, because they still make up less than 0.5% of children in this age range despite a slight absolute increase over the last few years.
- 2.
Here, we are referring to the results of the parent survey in which we gathered some important sociodemographic background information on the children’s family situation.
- 3.
Here, we are referring specifically to those siblings (of all age groups) who are living in the same household. However, also including those siblings who have left the parental home and are (already) living in their own households does not alter the trend reported here.
- 4.
Strictly speaking, the children’s mothers in our survey are not a representative random selection. We recruited a representative sample of children and then gathered some background information from one of the parents . In 83% of cases, this was the mother ; in the remaining 17%, in contrast, our information came from the father . In these latter cases, we have no self-reports on personal preferences from the mothers. There are many signs that the father more frequently gave information when the mother had no time because, for example, she was gainfully employed. However, because we analyzed the desired working hours separately for employed and nonemployed mothers, potential distortions should tend to be negligible.
- 5.
A recent study based on the German Socio-Economic Panel (SOEP) reveals that women working full-time more frequently desire fewer working hours per week, whereas women working part-time desire more working hours (Holst and Seifert 2012). However, these results are drawn on the population of all women in gainful employment and not just those with children (aged 6–11 years).
- 6.
Because of the differences in the questions given to employed and not employed persons, preferences do not discriminate completely between the two groups. For example, as soon as a mother reported that she worked part-time but would prefer to work less, we assumed that she wished to be marginally employed. The same applied in the other direction for full-time employed and also for marginally employed persons.
- 7.
These retrospective reports cannot be compared directly with official statistics. We asked whether the children had at any time attended a day nursery or a Kindergarten. If, instead, as in the official statistics, we had asked how many children per age cohort were attending a Kindergarten at that particular point in time, we would have gained lower proportions—above all in the West. Part of the detailed differences between East and West are due to terminological variations as well as to the different forms of care. For the sake of simplicity, we limited our retrospective survey to institutional forms of care (day nursery, Kindergarten, daycare center) without explicitly mentioning family day carers or other forms of privately organized care. The available official data on institutional childcare nonetheless confirm the main trend and in particular the East–West differences in the daycare of children under the age of 3 years (Bertelsmann Ländermonitor Frühkindliche Bildungssysteme, Kinderbetreuung).
- 8.
On the current state of implementation, see the most recent interim report on the evaluation of the Childcare Funding Act (Kinderförderungsgesetz - Kifög) for 2012 (BMFSFJ, 2013a)
- 9.
In general, these are children born in Germany of non-German parents who are obliged by German law (29 StAG) to declare which nationality they have decided to take before the end of their 23rd year of life.
- 10.
One methodological comment at this point: Only 2.4% of the children in our actual sample were not German citizens and, taken together, 25.4% had a migration background . Hence, in this regard, the current sample is “better” than that in previous years. However, according to the official microcensus, 32.7% of children had a migration background of whom 5.5% were foreigners without German citizenship in the reference year 2011. Because of the significance that is now assigned to a migration background , we decided to adjust our sample here by weighting it to make it more representative. We took exactly the same approach as in the past two Child Studies and adjusted the proportion of non-German children; however, we did not explicitly adjust the proportion of children with a migration background .
- 11.
These findings also match the nationalities of origin reported in the microcensus. However, because of the low case numbers, we cannot differentiate further here.
- 12.
In this case, we always consider only the children with parents providing information on their partner. These reports are missing for single parents . Because the proportion of single parents in Germany is much lower among migrants from Muslim cultures (less than 10%), slightly more fathers than mothers are reported as being Muslim.
- 13.
This was weighted according to need under the assumption that the economy of size in larger households decreases the need per household member. According to the new OECD scale, the main bread earner in a household is weighted with the factor 1.0. All other household members over the age of 14 are weighed at 0.4 and children under 14 at 0.3. Hence, in a four-person household with two adult parents and two children under the age of 14, the net income of the household is divided by the need factor 2.0 (1.0 + 0.4 + 0.3 + 0.3) and allocated to the individuals.
- 14.
In both the Second Child Study and the pretest for 2013, it proved inexpedient to present our poverty indicators to all children. The two introductory questions served to screen for the group of children who have probably experienced deprivation in their everyday lives.
- 15.
This statement was presented to all children. However, in this context, we include only the answers from those for whom the introductory questions had indicated financial constraints.
- 16.
Currently, in 2013, 69% report no financial constraints compared to 65% in 2010. Currently, 7% give no reply to both statements compared to 9% in 2010.
- 17.
This is subject to further methodological limitations such as the larger proportions of children who gave no answer to the introductory questions in 2010. Therefore, we did not compare the results on the single poverty indicators that had already been assessed in the last Child Study.
- 18.
In the latest reports on the social situation in Europe, material deprivation (MD) is measured through indicators based on data from the EU Statistics on Income and Living Conditions (EU-SILC). According to the EU concept of MD, a person is considered materially deprived if three of the nine following items are missing from the household for financial reasons: (a) coping with unexpected expenses; (b) one week annual holiday away from home; (c) avoiding arrears (in mortgage or rent, utility bills- or hire purchase instalments); (d) a meal with meat, chicken, fish, or vegetarian equivalent every second day; (e) keeping the home adequately warm; (f) a washing machine; (g) a color television; (h) a telephone; and (i) a personal car. The more items are missing in a person’s life, the more the person is considered materially deprived. According to the EU concept of MD, we speak of serious MD if four out of the nine items are missing (Sikorski and Kuchla 2011, p. 485). Current results of EU-SILC data analyses (2011) show that 5.9% of 6- to 11-year-old children in Germany experience serious MD.
- 19.
These reports also refer to parents rearing 6- to 11-year-old children (in 2007: 8- to 11-year-olds). For single parents , in contrast, we have no information on the other parent. This means that our reports on fathers are also incomplete here and refer only to fathers and stepfathers living in the same household.
- 20.
Adding the children who report a lack of time with one parent to the children with a care deficit results in a comparable trend.
- 21.
Questions on the family and on the parental background were reported by one information source on behalf of the other—83% by the mother and 17% by the father .
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Schneekloth, U., Pupeter, M. (2017). Family Backgrounds: Great Variety But Also Marked Differences In Life Conditions. In: Andresen, S., Fegter, S., Hurrelmann, K., Schneekloth, U. (eds) Well-being, Poverty and Justice from a Child’s Perspective. Children’s Well-Being: Indicators and Research, vol 17. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-57574-2_3
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