Strukturelle Benachteiligung von Familien als Herausforderung im Umbau des Sozialstaats / Structural Handicaps of Families as a Challenge to the Formation of the Welfare-state

As to the position of the family in the formation of the welfare-state (“Sozialstaat”), the following dilemma exists: In the field of the social-economic support of parents in their (long-term) responsibility for children, decisive steps still have to be taken. On the other hand, limits to the burden that is generated by the social security system get more and more visible. Reshuffling the existing volume of social benefits requires a political power of family interests which hardly exists under the conditions of the actual representative democracy. Nevertheless, handicaps of families due to the structures of both economy and society have to be noted especially in the fields of the distribution of income, the family orientated conditions on labour markets and the educational system. Tendencies towards a separation of the society between a „non-family sector“ and a “family sector” have to be overcome by a rational and successful family policy.