In Affluent Germany, Women Still Confront Traditional Bias

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Women Claim Workplace Discrimination in Germany

In Germany, women are often paid less than men and say discrimination is still common in the workplace. Some feel new mothers should stay home with their children instead of returning to work.

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Barbara Steinhagen, 36, said age-old prejudices die hard. A former international marketing manager for a music company in Berlin, Steinhagen said she was promised a promotion that was abruptly given to a man when she announced she was pregnant. Her discrimination complaint, still pending, is the first of its kind to reach the German supreme court.

"A boss shouldn't be allowed to judge if you can handle a child and a job," Steinhagen said. In her view, when a male boss sees a pregnant employee he thinks: "Her child will be up at night and she will be tired, or she won't be able to travel as much, or she won't have her full attention on work."

Steinhagen also said that laws aimed at protecting women can wind up hurting them. German employers are legally obligated to rehire women who go on maternity leave, even if they stay at home for as long as three years. But to get around the law, firms avoid hiring women or promoting them to high positions, she said.

"The laws are really backfiring," she said.

In dozens of interviews with German men and women, nearly all agreed that many employers were openly reluctant to hire and promote women of childbearing age.

Ralf Braun, 40, an Internet marketer, said it is only natural for a boss to think that a woman "at some point will get pregnant and stop working," causing problems for the workplace. He predicted that there would never be complete gender equality at work: "It just can't be 50-50. Even in 50 years, I don't think it will be equal for women at work."

Many men said they believed children and families benefited when women stayed at home instead of working.

Hans Meyer, 72, a retired engineer who used to run a Hamburg toolmaking company with 1,500 employees, said the "silent majority of women want to stay home and have families."

"The public view today is only concerned with the well-being of women, not of children," Meyer said. "I believe that in the first three years, a mother should first and foremost be available for her child."

Stefan Linz, 32, said it makes "no sense" to fight for equality on the job because men and women are not the same. As he balanced a five-gallon plastic jug on his left shoulder, making his rounds to deliver water to Hamburg offices, he said a woman wouldn't be strong enough to do what he does.

"We should cherish the differences," Linz said. "Women are the ones who get pregnant. Families are falling apart because women don't stay home. Isn't it time we just face the facts?"

Merkel's government has made a priority of trying to improve conditions for working mothers, including a multibillion-dollar plan to expand child care and a new effort to encourage fathers to take paternity leave.