Debate forum with Dr. Christine Bergmann, former Minister of Women, Germany

 

 

 

On the past November 18, the KWWA invited Dr. Christine Bergmann, former Minister of Women of Germany and held a debate forum with her on the theme of Neo-liberalism and women’s policies, focusing on measures on women irregular workers between Korea and Germany. The forum was begun with the keynote presentation by Dr. Christine Bergmann who visited Korea to share German experiences and to grasp situations of Korean women workers. She started her address saying “I am surprised that many young women join this meeting together.” Dr. Bergmann from the former East Germany was a former Minister of Family, Elderly, Women and Youth when a progressive government under Prime Minister Schroeder came into power in Germany, and currently has been working as a director of The Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung.

 

Dr. Bergmann said “Germany and Korea did not reach the state of ‘paradise’ in relation to women’s work.” She described as ‘paradise,’ an ideal state in which women and men both can work and live happily. It is women who make up most irregular workers in Korea and take ‘insecure jobs’ in Germany, both. In the case of Germany, women had a hard time due to their low wages and long working hours like us in Korea. In the former East Germany, women’s employment rate reached up to 90% before the unification, which shows women’s active role as major income earners.

 

After the unification with West Germany in which males are considered as major bread winners, there has been no change in the male employment rate, but there have been a lot of differences in women’s cases: That was due to the job distribution between women not the job distribution between men and women.

 

Dispatched jobs, involuntary part-time jobs and mini jobs are classified into insecure jobs in Germany, and amongst them, German women largely concentrate on mini jobs. Mini jobs are mostly provided in the service sector, and workers engaged in mini jobs cannot be covered by social insurance. In addition, they are very low paying jobs whose wages cannot account for two thirds of the average wages in Germany. Dr. Bergmann underlined realistic wages to help to maintain the livelihood of low-wage workers rather than the government’s subsidiaries.

 

Dr. Bergmann told us that Germany is one of the countries that do not enact the minimum wage system. However, according to a German research one out of 5 women workers is able to demand her or his wage increase if 7.50 Euro is decided as the German minimum wage. In case of the U.K. after the introduction of the legal minimum wage system, she pointed out the decreases by between 16.1% and 10.8%, in relation to wage gaps between men and women who were full-time workers from 1997 to 2006.

l     “The nation is responsible for childcare and the provision of education facilities.”

In the case of the former East Germany, high employment rates of men and women, both were due to social atmospheres, and further because of state’ supports for childcare, running work-site childcare centers across the nation.

 

Since women in West Germany were not seen as major householders, and moreover there is a great shortage of social supports for women’s economic activities and social recognition, it was very difficult for West German women to balance women’s jobs and family work, which was shown by an idiom, ‘the crow mom’. After the unification, Germany is presently struggling with a low birth rate of 1.4%, even though it is higher than that in Korea. Dr. Bergmann emphasized the need for stabilizing women’s jobs in order to increase birth rates.

 

Why German women have to take low-paying part-time work including mini jobs is in the shortage of general childcare facilities. In Germany, due to women’s stoppage of working careers caused by childbirth and childcare, women have to re-enter to low paying jobs. She stressed that the entire social system should be provided to raise children.

 

l     Suggestions to construct the ‘paradise’ where women can work securely:

After Dr. Bergmann gave a speech about general conditions of women’s employment in the former East Germany and in Germany after the unification, she made suggestions to stabilize women’s jobs as follows: ▲ the social recognition of women’s jobs should be enhanced: values of traditional care work should be re-appreciated and proper wage lines should be set; ▲ involuntary part-time work should be decreased; ▲ childcare facilities should be increased; and ▲ additional social protection should be prepared in the sectors in which social insurances are not covered. 

After the keynote presentation, Dr. Eun Soomi, a penal, working for the Korea Labor Institute made a presentation on the women’s labor market in Korea, as follows: ▲ Korean women experience their stoppage in their working careers at their ages of 30 ~ 34, and re-enter to the labor market offering poor jobs; ▲ gender occupational segregation; ▲ the increases in the number of poor jobs such as irregular jobs; ▲ women’s low employment rate of just around 50%; and ▲ increasing gaps in terms of wage, job welfare, and social insurances. These issues have been worsening for the past 10 years.  Dr. Eun suggested the changes in the government’s policy stances for women, expansion of social security nets, reinforcement of public childcare and education systems, and pro-active activities of women’s circles. 

Jo-Lee Yeo-ul of ilda, a womenist journal approached women’s economic difficulties from the perspectives of housing and education as well as labor issues. She pointed out “people tend to see labor and prostitution separately. Teenagers who run away from their homes are likely engaged to sex industries because they had difficulties in achieving economic independence and housing.  She also criticized the current Korean state in which parents usually have to carry the burden of high private education expenses for their children due the overheated private education, regardless of their income levels.

 

The last penal, Dr. Hong Mihee (head of Women’s Policy Center belonging to Incheon Development Institute) pointed out no relationship between educational levels  and women’s participation rate in economic activities in Korea, while the higher educational levels, the higher participation rate in economic activities in Germany. She concluded that Korean women with high educational levels evaded from the labor market after their marriage, and it is difficult for them to re-enter the labor market because of the shortage of the number of jobs available in social service sectors even though they want to. 

 

Dr. Bergmann’s remark, “equality between gender is an important yardstick for measuring the democracy level in a country not just an issue of social justice.” helped us to end up the forum.