Women in the part-time trap: joint taxation for married couples and mental load

While companies are desperately searching for staff, 175,000 full-time positions remain unfilled in Germany – solely because overtime is not financially viable for many women. According to a recent study by the DIW and the Bertelsmann Foundation, it is often the joint taxation of married couples that keeps married women in part-time work: after taxes, so little of the additional gross wage remains that increasing the number of hours makes little financial difference.

Experts are proposing a solution known as ‘real splitting’ to make taking up full-time employment more attractive. This is not just a question of tax fairness, but also of how the labour market can fully exploit its potential in 2026.

The situation is exacerbated by the mental load, the invisible organisational work behind everyday family life. This is often cited as the main reason why a full-time job seems organisationally unfeasible despite high qualifications. The fact that initiatives surrounding International Women's Day are now increasingly calling for action and strikes around 8 March highlights the demand to make this unpaid work visible and to fundamentally reassess the framework conditions for equal participation in the labour market.

We were also interested in the following:

• East-West wage gap: Even 35 years after reunification, income often remains a question of region. Current data shows that the wage gap between eastern and western Germany continues to be a statistical reality, especially in management positions.

• Skilled trades vs. lecture halls: Statistically speaking, a university degree is not the only path to a high income. A comparison of lifetime earnings shows that master craftsmen and technicians in the skilled trades often earn as much as academics over the course of their entire working lives.

• Huge skills shortage in Berlin: By 2035, around 560,000 jobs will need to be filled in the capital, which is about a quarter of the total workforce. The Senate cites demographic change and digitalisation as the main reasons for this.

This text first appeared as an editorial in the weekly politjobs newsletter. If you would like to receive this newsletter with the latest jobs in politics directly by email every Wednesday, you can subscribe to it here.