The pleasure of a surplus income: part-time work, gender politics, and social change in West Germany, 1955-1969 9781845451790

Table of contents :
Frontmatter
List of Abbreviations (page vi)
Preface (page x)
Introduction (page 1)
1. Paid Employment for Married Women? Contradictory Viewpoints in the 1950s (page 15)
2. Changing Public Opinion, 1959-1969 (page 43)
3. New Rights for Married Women: The Legal Institutionalization of Part-Time Work (page 71)
4. Part-Time Employment Becomes Normal (page 82)
5. The Introduction of Part-Time Employment: Phases and Patterns of Expansion in Industry (page 103)
6. Part-Time Work in the Office (page 161)
7. Housewives on the Move: Life Models and Assertion Strategies (page 179)
8. Part-Time Employment in the Two Germanys: Common Ground, Separate Paths (page 199)
Bibliography (page 215)
Index (page 234)

Citation preview

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The Pleasure of a Surplus Income

Studies in German History Published in Association with the German Historical Institute, Washington, DC

General Editor: Christof Mauch, Director of the German Historical Institute, Washington, DC, and Professor of North American History at the University of Munich Volume 1

Nature in German History Edited by Christof Mauch Volume 2 Coping with the Nazi Past: West German Debates on Nazism and Generational Conflict, 1955-1975 Edited by Philipp Gassert and Alan E. Steinweis Volume 3

, Adolf Cluss, Architect: From Germany to America Edited by Alan Lessoff and Christof Mauch Volume 4 Two Lives in Uncertain Times: Facing the Challenges of the 20th Century as Scholars and Citizens Wilma Iggers and Georg Iggers Volume 5 Driving Germany: The Landscape of the German Autobahn, 1930-1970 Thomas Zeller Volume 6 The Pleasure of a Surplus Income: Part-Time Work, Gender Politics, and Social Change in West Germany, 1955-1969 Christine von Oertzen

THE PLEASURE OF A SURPLUS INCOME Part-Time Work, Gender Politics, and Social Change in West Germany, 1955-1969

CIO Christine von Oertzen Translated from the German by Pamela Selwyn

b, Berghahn Books NEW YORK « OXFORD

Published in 2007 by Berghahn Books www.berghahnbooks.com

© 2007 Christine von Oertzen All rights reserved. Except for the quotation of short passages for the purposes of criticism and review, no part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system now known or to be invented, without written permission of the publisher.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Oertzen, Christine von. [Teilzeitarbeit und die Lust am Zuverdienen. English] The pleasure of a surplus income : part-time work, gender politics, and social change in West Germany, 1955-1969 / Christine von Oertzen. p. cm. — (Studies in German history ; 6) Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 1-84545-179-1 (hardback : alk. paper) 1. Women—Employment—Germany (West). 2. Part-time employment— Germany (West). 3. Women employees—Germany. I. Title.

HD6149.038513 2006 331.4°25727094309045—dc22 2006019291

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

Printed in the United States on acid-free paper

CONTENTS

Preface x Introduction I List of Abbreviations vi

in the 1950s 15

1. Paid Employment for Married Women? Contradictory Viewpoints

2. Changing Public Opinion, 1959-1969 43

Part-Time Work 71

3. New Rights for Married Women: The Legal Institutionalization of

4. Part-Time Employment Becomes Normal 82 5. The Introduction of Part-Time Employment: Phases and Patterns

of Expansion in Industry 103

6. Part-Time Work in the Office 161 7. Housewives on the Move: Life Models and Assertion Strategies 179

Separate Paths 199

8. Part-Time Employment in the Two Germanys: Common Ground,

Index 236

Bibliography 215 _y-

ABBREVIATIONS

AA/ AA Arbeitsamt/amter (Public Employment Offce[s])

ABA Arbeit, Beruf und Arbeitslosenhilfe

Acc. Accession (archival) ACDP Archiv ftir Christlich-Demokratische Politik (Archive for Christian Democratic Politics)

ADL Archiv des Deutschen Liberalismus (Archive of German Liberalism)

AdW Arbeitsgemeinschaft der Wahlerinnen (Working Group of Women Voters)

ADW Archiv des Diakonischen Werks (Archive of the EKD Social Service Agency)

AfS Archiv fiir Sozialgeschichte AHR American Historical Review Alfu Arbeitslosenftirsorge (unemployment relief) Alu Arbeitslosenunterstititzung (unemployment compensation) ArbA Das Arbeitsamt. Fachzeitschrift fiir Theorie und Praxis der Arbeitsverwaltung ArbBIBritZ Arbeitsblatt fir die Britische Zone

ASD Archiv der Sozialen Demokratie (Archive of Social Democracy) AVAVG Arbeitsvermittlungs- und Arbeitslosenversicherungsgesetz (Employment Placement and Unemployment Compensation Act)

BA Bundesanstalt ftir Arbeit (Federal Labor Agency) Ba-Wii Baden-Wiurttemberg BAG Bundesarbeitsgericht (Federal Labor Court) BAK Bundesarchiv Koblenz (Federal Archive in Koblenz) BArbBI. Bundesarbeitsblatt BAVAV Bundesanstalt fir Arbeitsvermittlung und Arbeitslosenversicherung (Federal Office for Employment Placement and Unemployment Insurance)

BBG Bundesbeamtengesetz (Federal Civil Service Act) _vi-

Abbreviations | vii

BOZ British Occupation Zone BDA Bundesvereinigung der Deutschen Arbeitgeberverbande (National Union of Employers’ Associations)

BDI Bundesverband der Deutschen Industrie (National Association of German Industry)

BFA Bundesfrauenausschuf$ (Federal Women’s Commission, or DGB) BFK Bundesfrauenkonferenz (National Women’s Conference, or SPD) BGBI. Bundesgesetzblatt (Federal Law Gazette)

BHE Block der Heimatvertriebenen und Entrechteten (Bloc of [Germans] Expelled from Their Homelands [in formerly German Central and Eastern Europe] and Deprived of Their Rights)

BMA Bundesarbeitsministerium (Federal Ministry of Labor) BMFin Bundesfinanzministerium (Federal Ministry of Finance)

BR Bayerischer Rundfunk (Bavarian Broadcasting) BSG Bundessozialgericht (Supreme Social Insurance Tribunal)

BT Bundestag (Lower House of the German Parliament)

Bi. bundle (archival)

BverfG Bundesverfassungsgericht (Federal Constitutional Court) BverfGE Entscheidungen des Bundesverfassungsgerichts (Decisions of the Federal Constitutional Court)

CEH Central European History

CSSH Comparative Studies in Society and History | DAG Deutsche Angestellten-Gewerkschaft (German Union of Salaried Employees)

DDP Deutsche Demokratische Partei (German Democratic Party, Weimar Republic)

DGB Deutscher Gewerkschaftsbund (German Trade Union Federation)

Drs. Drucksache (document) DStR Deutsches Steuerrecht (German Tax Law) DZI Deutsches Zentralinstitut ftir Soziale Fragen (German Central

Germany) | Institute for Social Questions)

EKD Evangelische Kirche Deutschlands (Evangelical Church in

EntschBSG | Entscheidungen des Bundessozialgerichts (Decisions of the Supreme

Social Insurance Tribunal) ,

EstG Einkommenssteuergesetz (Income Tax Act) FAZ Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung

FDGB Freier Deutscher Gewerkschaftsbund (Free German Trade Union Federation, GDR)

FES Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung (Archive)

FR Frankfurter Rundschau GEW Gewerkschaft ftir Erziehung und Wissenschaft (Union of Employees in Education and Science)

GG Geschichte und Gesellschaft

viii | Abbreviations

GH German History GWU Geschichte in Wissenschaft und Unterricht HBV Gewerkschaft Handel, Banken, Versicherungen (Union of Commercial, Banking, and Insurance Employees)

hess. Hessian

HGSt Hauptgeschaftsstelle (main office) HR Hessischer Rundfunk (Hessian Broadcasting) HstAH Hauptstaatsarchiv Hessen, Wiesbaden (Hessian Main State Archive in Wiesbaden) HStANW — Hauptstaatsarchiv Nordrhein-Westfalen, Diisseldorf (Main State Archive of North Rhine-Westphalia in Diisseldorf)

IG-Merall Industrie-Gewerkschaft Metall (Metal Workers’ Union) IGM-ZA Industrie-Gewerkschaft Metall—Zentralarchiv Frankfurt/M. (Metal Workers’ Union—Central Archive in Frankfurt am Main)

ILO International Labour Office

InnMin Innenminister (Minister of the Interior)

Int. Interview

IRSH International Review of Social History JASA Journal of the American Statistical Association

JSH Journal of Social History KAPOVAZ Kapazitatsorientierte Arbeitszeit (capacity-oriented working hours)

KultMin Kultusminister (Minister of Education and Cultural Affairs) LAA/LAA Landesarbeitsamt/amter (Regional Employment Office[s]) LAG Landesarbeitsgericht (Regional Employment Appeals Tribunal)

LBG Landesbeamtengesetz (Regional Civil Service Act) LDP Liberaldemokratische Partei (Liberal Democratic Party, GDR) LSG Landessozialgericht (Regional Social Insurance Appeals Tribunal) LStDV Lohnsteuerdurchftthrungsverordnung (Wage-Tax Implementing Ordinance)

LVA Landesversicherungsanstalt (Regional Social Insurance Board) MdB Mitglied des Bundestages (Member of the [Lower House of the] German Parliament)

MinFin Finanzministerium (Ministry of Finance) MinJustiz Justizministerium (Ministry of Justice) MinKult Kultusministerium (Ministry of Education and Culture) MinRat Ministerialrat/Ministerialratin (Ministerial Counselor) MRVO Militarregierungsverordnung (Military Government Ordinance)

MS unpublished manuscript

nds. Niedersachsisch (Lower Saxon) Nds. Niedersachsen (Lower Saxony) NdsHStA Niedersachsisches Hauptstaatsarchiv, Hanover (Lower Saxon Main State Archive in Hanover)

NGG Gewerkschaft Nahrungs-, GenufSmittel und Gaststatten (Union of Workers in the Food Processing, Beverage, and Catering Industry)

Abbreviations | ix

NGVBI. Niedersachsisches Gesetz- und Verordnungsblatt

NW North Rhine-Westphalia OTV Gewerkschaft Offentliche Dienste, Transport und Verkehr (Union of Public Service and Transportation Workers)

OVA Oberversicherungsamt (Regional Social Insurance Board) PArch Parlamentsarchiv (Parliamentary Archive)

Pras. Prasident (president) RABI. Reichsarbeitsblatt RBA Robert Bosch Archive, Stuttgart RegPras Regierungsprdsident (president of the regional administration)

RKW Rationalisierungskuratorium der Deutschen Wirtschaft (Rationalization Board of German Industry)

RVAndG Rentenversicherungsanderungsgesetz (Pension Insurance

Amending Act) :

RVO Rentenversicherungsordnung (Pension Insurance Regulations)

SG Sozialgericht (Social Security Tribunal)

SOZ Soviet Occupation Zone SozSich Soziale Sicherheit (Social Security) StADa Staatsarchiv Darmstadt (State Archive in Darmstadt) StALu Staatsarchiv Ludwigsburg (State Archive in Ludwigsburg) SVD Sozialversicherungsdirektive (Social Insurance Directive)

TOP Tagesordnungspunkt (point on the agenda) , TZ Teilzeitarbeit (part-time work)

UZA Unternehmensverband Zeit-Arbeit (Federation of Temporary Employment Agencies)

Verh. Verhandlungen (proceedings) Verh. BT Verhandlungen des Deutschen Bundestages (Proceedings of the [Lower House of the] German Parliament)

VifZ Vierteljahreshefte fiir Zeitgeschichte VSWG Vierteljahrschrift fur Sozial- und Wirtschaftsgeschichte

WAZ Westdeutsche Allgemeine Zeitung WDR Westdeutscher Rundfunk (West German Broadcasting)

WG Werkstatt Geschichte | WS Wirtschaft und Statistik

Wi-Ba Wiurttemberg-Baden | ZASS Zeitungsausschnittsammlung (newspaper clipping collection) Z£A Zentralamt ftir Arbeit in der Britischen Zone (Central Labor Office in the British Zone) ZtG Leitschrift fiir Geschichtswissenschaft

PREFACE

The idea for this book I owe to Karin Hausen, Professor of History and former Director of the Center for the Interdisciplinary Study of Women and Gender at the Technical University of Berlin. Professor Hausen not only provided the initial impetus for my research, but also supported the study throughout with enthusiasm, encouragement, and assistance, reading and commenting upon sections. This book would not have become what it is without her generous support. Thanks are also due to Jiirgen Kocka, Professor of History at the Free University of Berlin, who gave me an institutional home at his Center for Comparative Social History. This book started as a comparison of the two Germanys, as an experiment to

share the work of a comparative study between two equal partners. I benefited from an amicable collaboration with Almut Rietzschel, who worked on the “sister study” on East Germany. | also profited from my Berlin colleagues and the working group, Women after 1945. Gunilla Budde, Insa Eschebach, Susanne zur Nieden, Rita Pawlowski, Irene Stoehr, Dorothee Wierling, Karin Zachmann, Marianne Zepp, and the late Susanne Rouette were a knowledgeable audience who read and discussed with me individual sections of the book. Siegfried Heimann encouraged me during the writing. [ received valuable advice particularly from the German Federal Archive in Koblenz, the Central State Archives of North Rhine-Westphalia and Lower Saxony in Diisseldorf (Kalkum) and Hanover (Pattensen), and the Bahlsen Archive in Hanover. My parents, my sister Madeleine, and friends took me in, making my archive trips pleasant. My aunt sponsored a laptop computer, and my sister Isabell helped me when my funding dried up. The German Research Foundation financed the project for two years. The Axel Springer Foundation and the Geschwister Boehringer Ingelheim Foundation for the Humanities subsidized printing of the German edition. The English edition of this book would not have been possible without the generous support of the German Historical Institute in Washington, DC. Robert

a

Preface | xi

Moeller, Professor of History at the University of California at Irvine offered suggestions on how to revise the book for an English-speaking readership. I would

also like to thank Pamela Selwyn for her translation. Mirjam Thulin helped to create the index. Shawn Kendrick, my editor at Berghahn, provided a long string of unerring improvements. Finally, for his careful reading and criticism, | am especially indebted to Keith R. Allen.

February 2007 Christine von Oertzen

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INTRODUCTION

CFO

“This Is How Industry Lures Housewives,” ran a headline in the West German

tabloid Bildzeitung in September 1961.' The photographs and captions that accompany this article could easily give the reader pause. Is this a critique of the policies of West German capitalist industry or East German socialist industry? Ihe Springer press’s infamously sensationalist right-wing daily must have intended the confusion, for the article’s layout seems calculated to awaken associations with the East German drive to draw housewives into waged labor.’

The article highlights such innovations as the “company laundry room” and the promise of “child supervision” and includes a photomontage that shows a young woman stirring a pot in the evening and working as a welder by day. Yet iconographic references to the communist German Democratic Republic soon give way to the language and images of capitalist consumerism and the private

idyll. Captions emphasize a “four-hour day” and the opportunity to “work at home,’ while a photomontage taken from an industry brochure shows a whitecollar employee happily at work and then returning from a Christmas shopping spree laden with consumer delights. The brochure’s appeal—“Housewives! You can do this too! Be a part of it!”—is unambiguous: the luring of housewives into part-time employment that the article so critically describes was occurring not in East but West Germany. Ironically, the article carries within it an upbeat message | that undercuts its overtly negative one: its words and pictures convey a sense of optimism and positive reorientation, not of gloom and cultural decline. This book is about the unsettling effects on public discourse and gender relations of the rise of part-time work among married women in West Germany. |

seek to explain the reasons behind the emergence of this form of work for mar- | ried women and mothers, and to show how it took root, in both norm and law, in , factories, government agencies, and offices as well as within families and the lives

of individual women. The analysis begins with the debates of the early 1950s, Notes for this section begin on page 8.

2 | The Pleasure of a Surplus Income

conducted in the heady atmosphere of the early postwar economic upswing. It ends in 1969, with the legislative institutionalization of this form of paid labor. The introduction of part-time work in West Germany was part of a thorough rethinking of employment for married women and mothers. By the mid-1960s, it was common for married women to pursue part-time employment alongside household tasks. Such work was no longer a taboo, but rather largely accepted as an expression of a “female desire to earn.” The idea that earning a supplementary income could be a pleasure—now publicly condoned—marks a profound break in assessments of married women’s employment outside the home, which since the late nineteenth century had been regarded exclusively as a burden, legitimate only when economic circumstances rendered it all but unavoidable.° Taken together, the expansion of and the changing attitudes toward women's work amount to a social and cultural transformation in the Federal Republic of Germany. Once viewed as a regrettable concession to economic necessity, parttime work came to be celebrated as a modern way for women to achieve a higher standard of living and to expand their horizons without forgetting hearth and home, which would always rank first. For several reasons, the story of women’s part-time work in West Germany has so far largely gone untold. Until recently, the social history of postwar Germany was relatively neglected by historians. The social history of gender relations was even less developed, with the exception of the immediate postwar period.* The few studies of the 1950s focused on family policy and examined labor market and employment policies toward women from this perspective, and only in passing. Even this literature rarely ventured beyond the reform of family law in 1957.? Because they generally traced the story only up to the mid-1950s, historians tended to draw a dire portrait of West German gender policy.® Wives were seen as permanently ousted from the labor market and were all too often reduced to a domestic caricature. This perspective has concealed contradictions and significant changes within public policy and discourse as well as women’s daily lives. As I show in the German edition of this book, published in 1999, discriminatory policies toward married women who worked outside the home never went unchallenged. Moreover, the West German economic boom provoked business and soon society to rethink negative attitudes toward the employment of married women. The late 1950s represent an important turning point in this development. In contrast to past scholarship, which portrayed the 1950s and 1960s as static, my book documented much evidence of complex upheaval in gender and other social relations.’ Since 1999, other studies have confirmed my interpretation and added color and depth to the story of social change in the Federal Republic. The discourse on unmarried mothers and the legal history of illegitimacy in West Germany was part of this dynamic of change. After 1960, commentators and grass roots organizations called for the abolition of social discrimination against unmarried mothers and their children. The new discussion of legitimacy in law in the early 1960s was a prelude to inner reform, which in 1970 codified the equality of unmarried mothers and their children in family law. * New concepts of parenthood emerged in the early

Introduction | 3

1960s, in which not just mothers, but fathers as well gradually assumed responsibility for child rearing.? Advice columns in Germany’s most successful radio and television guide, Hor Zu! (Listen!), confirm that in the late 1950s West Germans departed from tradition in many areas, most particularly those relating to femininity, marriage, and careers.'° At the same time, the “normalization” of women’s paid employment worsened their position within the trade unions. Women lost

the special status they had once enjoyed; trade union support for women was increasingly subsumed, or buried, under the “general” politics pursued by men."! This two-edged dynamic was certainly connected to the ethnic shift in the female labor market during the 1960s. Encouraged by aggressive state recruitment, young women from southern and southeastern Europe joined the West German workforce.'* Traditional avenues for married women’s participation in the workforce, however, such as the running of family farms, were of rapidly diminishing importance.'> Finally, the devaluation of housework during the 1960s corresponded to the far-reaching social and political changes of this era.'* What is true of the gender history of the postwar period in West Germany is generally true of its cultural and social history. In the late 1990s, historiographic interest shifted from research on the German Democratic Republic to the much larger and arguably more complex West. Several major conferences on the 1950s and 1960s produced thick volumes that chronicled new research trends.'? Scholars are now abandoning the “long 1950s”'® to concentrate instead on the “long

1960s”—i.e., the period from 1959 to 1973—as the formative epoch of West German postwar history.'’ Experts now typically refer to the era as one characterized by “rapid change, reform, and social dynamism.”’®

This book has drawn inspiration from studies of American gender relations in the 1950s and 1960s. A number of U.S. historians have expressed doubts about the alleged all-pervasive dominance of the ideology of “domesticity” and its tendency to paralyze women. Clearly, the domestic ideology attacked by Betty Friedan in her 1963 book The Feminine Mystique shaped the lives of many white middle-class women. "” This interpretation of the era should not be turned into a blanket generalization, however, for it does justice neither to the everyday expe-

riences of women of other social strata, cultures, and ethnic groups nor to the inconsistencies in normative discourses about women. On closer inspection, the gendered world and language of the 1950s turns out to have been more contradictory and complex than it appears in the memory of those who witnessed it or as refracted through the lens of Friedan’s bestseller.*°

The same set of considerations applies in the case of West Germany, in part because there too Friedan’s electrifying interpretation shaped popular and scholarly perceptions of the gendered world she aimed to change. It is perhaps significant that although the German translation of The Feminine Mystique appeared in 1966, the book became a bestseller only in 1970.*! It was in the 1970s that West German women began calling for gender equality and challenging the legitimacy of the “breadwinner/housewife or supplementary income earner” model. Innovative sociological studies of part-time work began to appear.’? This research, however,

4 | The Pleasure of a Surplus Income

was less concerned with the historical development of part-time work than with

its continuing disadvantages for women and with the call for a new politics aimed at creating more jobs for all and overcoming the gender-specific division of labor. In justly critiquing the present, commentators not only neglected the societal dynamics of the postwar period, but also obscured them. Historians soon adopted sociologists’ assumption that gender relations and policy began to shift only in the 1970s, not earlier?’ Thus, until quite recently scholars assumed that there were no women’s movements in West Germany between 1949 and 1970. This assumption has proven untenable.** Perceptions of the extent and meaning of West German womens paid employment were shaped not only by the rise of feminism but also by the rise of women’s paid labor in the GDR. The high proportion of women in the GDR workforce was and is often cited as a fundamental difference between East and West Germany. It is commonly noted that 91 percent of women in the GDR were in paid

employment in 1989, while in the Federal Republic the proportion was only around 55 percent.*? Impressed by this wide gap at the end of the history of the two Germanys, scholars have too often concluded that all along the two German states followed diametrically opposite paths in regard to womens employment. Yet the labor force participation of women in West and East Germany in the 1950s and early 1960s was much less skewed than later.*° The number of women in paid employment rose significantly between 1950 and 1965 in West Germany. And particularly in the late 1950s, the proportion of married women working outside the home skyrocketed. Indeed, in 1962 the Federal Republic had the highest proportion of female wage earners in the labor force in Western Europe.*’ The surprisingly similar trends expanding the female workforce in East and West during the 1950s reveal a basic phenomenon within the gendered division of labor. In Western (and, to a certain extent, Eastern) industrialized societies in general, the “modernity” associated with industrialization and urbanization relied upon a social construction of gender that assigned men the work of wage earning and women that of care giving, linking the first with employment and the second with social reproduction or domestic labor. In this book I assume, first, that the gendered division of labor produces and maintains the structural inequality between the sexes, and, second, that the inscription and establishment of structural inequality in the labor market was closely associated with the rise of industrial capitalism.** The form of gender hierarchy that emerged was that of the breadwinner over the housewife (or supplementary income earner). This model affords men a privileged position in the labor market and assigns women a lower position because of their familial duties. Once established, the male breadwinner model stubbornly reproduced itself even when it stood in the way of what Karin Hausen has called “the logic and trends of structural developments in the economy and society.””’ In Germany as elsewhere, the constant debate over married women’s employment provided the discursive support for this reproduction.*° Married women’s and mothers “need for protection” determined what was regarded as “normal employment’ and who was seen as a “normal worker.” As the regulation of the labor

Introduction | 5

market developed under the influence of the state, employers, and labor unions, womens labor was constructed as a special case. A plethora of protective and special legislation treated women, especially married women and mothers, as destined for reproductive tasks, unsuited to the conditions of a “regular labor market,” and thus in need of protection from the rigors of paid employment.?!

This book carries the story of the “special case” of women’s labor into the 1950s and 1960s in order to uncover the mechanisms that recast the “breadwinner/housewife or supplementary income earner’ model in postwar West Ger-

many. My aim is to identify factors and actors responsible for the durability and adaptability of the model as well as its disintegration. Using the history of part-time work, | hope to reconstruct an “intentionally produced construction of reality” and its everyday relevance in West Germany.°* To do so, I explore the establishment of part-time work in West Germany on different levels and between several sets of social actors. | assume, certainly, that economic conditions

and the labor market set the tempo for all participants. Yet while recognizing that economic and technological developments were the motors of change, I do not treat them as the sole explanation. Similarly, women part-time workers were not, I argue, the mere objects of state policy or victims of normative rhetoric or structural constraints. My research reveals these women as agents who shaped, in Hausen's words, “the continuum of their employment and family circumstances self-confidently and optimized them in their own interest.”*? Following the 1953 United Nations definition, part-time work is understood here as permanent and contractually regulated employment in which the working hours have voluntarily been reduced to 24-35 hours a week.*4 Contemporary understandings of what exactly part-time work was, however, varied dramatically. In the immediate postwar period, the term referred mainly to half-time work subject to social insurance, while in the mid-1960s most participants in discussions of part-time work meant housewives work” that failed to qualify for social insurance payments. Since legal safeguards and conflicts over the definition and interpretation of part-time work and changes in the structure of the labor market are a central focus of the study, socalled marginal employment (geringfiigige Tatigkeiten, exempt from social insurance payments) will also be included, along with seasonal and hourly work.”? One of the key questions of this book is how the institutionalization of parttime work after World War II differed from earlier working hour arrangements

for married women. With the expansion of factory work in the second half of the nineteenth century, women's wage labor outside the home gradually took the place of paid work within the family structure.*° What initially applied to the manufacturing sector expanded in the 1920s to include office work and the service sector. Until World War IJ, young, single women were the primary women hired for full-time wage work.?” Married women and mothers could be found mainly in craft production, agriculture, small family-owned businesses, industrial home work, and “sidelines,” such as delivering newspapers and milk.°°

As Kathleen Canning has shown for the textile industry in imperial Germany, however, companies that did engage married women in regular employment

6 | The Pleasure of a Surplus Income

tacitly allowed them to negotiate working hours and additional days off so that they might combine wage and family work.*” This was true in the Baden tobacco industry, clock making in the Black Forest, industrial laundries in Westphalia, and many agricultural and processing enterprises, such as the northern German peat, sugar refining, and canning industries, which into the postwar period offered flexible working hours or were organized along seasonal lines.*° With the transition from manual to more centralized mechanized and assembly line work, however, it became difficult to make such arrangements. In addition, the number of small family-owned agricultural and craft industries declined dramatically beginning in the 1920s. By the 1950s, the number of women who were able to organize their wage work within family businesses dropped precipitously. The rapid growth of the tertiary sector also contributed to the steady expansion in the number of women in paid employment outside the home, and women were increasingly subject to schedules not of their own choosing.*! Postwar West Germany went far beyond the individually negotiated working hours that had existed before 1939 and the state-sanctioned half-day work schedules that were observed during World War II.4? Nothing about this remarkable change was inevitable. In a work world subject to the law in ways unimaginable only a generation earlier, part-time work was a momentous innovation. Its institutionalization was the result of a fundamental agreement, negotiated throughout society, on the character of gender and the nature of labor. For the first time, the legal establishment of part-time work accorded women the right to regular paid employment with reduced working hours. It had an impetus and an effect not unlike the protective laws for women workers enacted in the late nineteenth century, which had established women’s “need for protection” in the labor market and legally codified the gendered division of labor between paid employment and family work during a time of similarly dynamic social change.*? In the following eight chapters I analyze the history of part-time work in West Germany on intersecting levels. The first two chapters examine the evolution of public communication about married women’s and mothers’ employment. Focused on debates among government ofhcials, trade unions, womens organizations, and representatives of political parties and the churches in the 1950s, chapter | contends that the prevalent antiemployment rhetoric of the early 1950s was clearly related to anticommunism and the rejection of East German women's policy. After 1955, however, discussions about married women’s work shifted to consider Western employment models. Scattered but important voices championed part-time work and discovered indications that a “revolution in the awareness of life” had begun among West German women. As shown in chapter 2, this “revolution” seemed to spread in the late 1950s. Many married women sought employment not because of economic need, but because they wanted to work and to earn their own money. Accordingly, by the early 1960s all participants in the debate on women's employment were convinced that they had to accept “women’s desire to work” as a social and cultural development beyond their influence. The epochal reinterpretation of married women’s paid employment manifested itself in

Introduction | 7

the media in the early 1960s. The growing consensus that married women had a right to work outside the home indicates that the economic and social transformations of the late 1950s created a liberal cultural and political climate. Dominated by the consequences of war for more than a decade, West Germany now quickly assumed the more open characteristics of a “modern” society. Chapter 3 investigates the legal discourse on part-time work.** Using examples from social security, tax, and civil service law, I explain why reduced working hours for women caused so many misgivings in postwar West Germany. One sign of the expanding acceptance of married women’s employment was the inclusion of part-time work in the legal framework of the “standard working day.” As heated protests from wage-earning husbands show, part-time work could only gain ground in West German society if men’s legal status as sole breadwinner was upheld at the same time. Chapter 4 explores the quantitative expansion of part-time work in order to set out for the reader which women took up part-time employment, and where and how many hours they worked. Particularly in white-collar occupations, but also for wage workers, part-time work developed as a regular employment relationship with social insurance coverage that growing numbers of married women

entered in order to stay in or reenter the work force. However, in light of the many positions that did not offer social insurance, we need to ask whether parttime employment as an institution did not help to perpetuate married women's and mothers’ “premodern” status within market-mediated structures.

Chapter 5 examines the introduction of women’s part-time paid labor in manufacturing, which involved complex negotiations between entrepreneurs, women, and the state. This chapter analyzes why entrepreneurs succeeded only rarely in integrating part-time shifts into production schemes, while the expansion of part-time employment proceeded smoothly in the clerical professions. Using the example of temporary services for office work, chapter 6 demonstrates the extent to which part-time clerical work could epitomize a new role model for married women and their desire for a supplementary income.*°

In chapter 7, I turn to the negotiation of part-time work within families. Interview transcripts allow me to explore women’s diverse motives for deciding

to work part-time or not, and how they represented their choice to husbands, parents, and other family members. In this chapter I cast new light on a set of questions that are still very much with Germans today: why, how much, and when do married women work outside the home?*° The final chapter considers how my findings lead us to think differently about part-time work on both sides of the former Iron Curtain, by placing the history of the two Germanys in a series of overlapping social contexts. In West and East Germany alike it was women who faced the problem of reconciling paid employment with family duties, because in both states the gendered division of labor, which assigned unpaid domestic and family work to women, remained essentially untouched after World War II.4” Thus, in both East and West, part-time work was discussed, institutionalized, and introduced as the solution to this problem.

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Notes 1. “Damit lockt die Industrie die Hausfrauen,” Bildzeitung, 16 September 1961. 2. On this see Ina Merkel, “Leitbilder und Lebensweisen von Frauen in der DDR,” in Sozialgeschichte der DDR, ed. Hartmut Kaelble et al. (Stuttgart, 1994), 359-82; Jutta Gysi and Dagmar Meyer, “Leitbild: Berufstatige Mutter. DDR-Frauen in Familie, Partnerschaft und Ehe,” in Frauen in Deutschland 1945-1992, ed. Gisela Helwig und Hildegard Maria Nickel (Berlin, 1993), 139-65. For a comparative perspective, see Gunilla-Friederike Budde, ““Tiichtige Traktoristinnen’ und ‘schicke Stenotypistinnen’. Frauenbilder in den deutschen Nachkriegsgesellschaften—Tendenzen der ‘Sowjetisierung’ und der ‘Amerikanisierung’?” in Amerikanisierung und Sowjetisierung in Detschland 1945-1970, ed. Konrad Jarausch and Hannes Siegrist (Frankfurt/M., 1997), 243-73. 3. Note the title of Ruth Orthmann’s exemplary study, Out of Necessity: Women Working in Berlin at the Height of Industrialization, 1874-1913 (New York, 1991). 4. On women’s postwar “survival work,” see in particular Sibylle Meyer and Eva Schulze, Wie wir das alles geschafft haben. Alleinstehende Frauen berichten tiber ihr Leben nach 1945 (Munich, 1984) and Von Liebe sprach damals keiner. Familienalltag in der Nachkriegszeit (Munich, 1985); Doris Schubert, Frauen in der deutschen Nachkriegszeit, vol. 1: Frauenarbeit 1945-1949 (Diisseldorf, 1984); Annette Kuhn, “Power and Powerlessness: "Women after 1945, or the Continuity of the Ideology of Femininity,” GH 7, no. 4 (1991): 35-46); Donna Harsch, “Public Continuity and Private Change? Women’s Consciousness and Activity in Frankfurt/M., 1945— 1955,” JSH 27 (1993-94): 29-58; Elizabeth Heineman, “Complete Families, Half Families,

No Families at All: Female-Headed Households and the Reconstruction of the Family in the Early Federal Republic,” CEH 29, no. 1 (1996): 19-60, and “The Hour of the Woman: Memories of Germany’s ‘Crisis Years’ and West German National Identity,” AHR 101, no. 2 (1996): 354-95; Renate Genth et al., Frauenpolitik und politisches Wirken von Frauen im Berlin der Nachkriegszeit, 1945-1949 (Berlin, 1996). 5. See, in particular, Robert Moeller’s and Elizabeth Heineman’s pathbreaking books: Robert G. Moeller, Protecting Motherhood: Women and the Family in the Politics of Postwar West Germany (Berkeley, 1993); Elizabeth Heineman, What Difference Does a Husband Make? Women and Marital Status in Nazi and Postwar Germany (Berkeley 1999); see also Merith Niehuss, “Kon-

tinuitdt und Wandel der Familie in den 50er Jahren,” in Modernisierung im Wiederaufbau. Die westdeutsche Gesellschaft der 50er Jahre, ed. Axel Schildt and Arnold Sywottek (Bonn, 1993), 316-34; Ingrid Joosten, Die Frau, das segenspendende Herz der Familie. Familienpolitik als Frauenpolitik in der Ara Adenauer (Pfaffenweiler, 1990). The only exception on women's employment is Klaus-Jorg Ruhl, Verordnete Unterordnung. Berufstatige Frauen zwischen Wirtschaftswachstum und konservativer Ideologie in der Nachkriegszeit, 1945-1963 (Munich, 1994). Despite its title, Ruhl’s study ends with the 1950s. 6G. Moeller speaks in this context of a new German Sonderweg in gender relations. Protecting Motherhood, 319. 7. The view that the late 1950s marked a turning point had been documented mainly from the standpoint of the history of consumption and social politics. For the history of consumption, see Axel Schildt, “Nachkriegszeit. Méglichkeiten und Probleme einer Periodisierung der westdeutschen Geschichte nach dem Zweiten Weltkrieg und ihrer Einordnung in die deutsche Geschichte des 20. Jahrhunderts,” GWU 44 (1993): 567-85; and Michael Wildt, Am Beginn der Konsumgesellschaft. Mangelerfahrung, Lebenshaltung, Wohlstandshoffnung in Westdeutschland in den SOer Jahren (Hamburg, 1994). For the history of social politics, see above all Hans-Giinter Hockerts, Sozialpolitische Entscheidungen im Nachkriegsdeutschland. Alliierte und deutsche Sozialversicherungspolitik 1945-1957 (Stuttgart, 1980), and “Metamorphosen des Wohlfahrtsstaats,” in Zdsuren nach 1945. Essays zur Periodisierung der deutschen Nachkriegsgeschichte (Munich, 1990), ed. Martin Broszat et al., 35-45. See also: Hans-Peter Schwarz, “Modernisierung oder Restauration? Einige Vorfragen zu kiinftigen Sozialgeschichtsforschung

Introduction | 9 liber die Ara Adenauer,” in Rheinland-Westfalen im Industriezeitalter, ed. Kurt Diiwell and Wolfgang Kéllmann (Wuppertal, 1984), 278-93; Anselm Déring-Manteuffel, “Deutsche Zeitgeschichte nach 1945. Entwicklung und Problemlagen der historischen Forschung zur Nachkriegszeit,” V/fZ 41, no. 1 (1993): 1-27.

8. Sybille Buske, Fraulein Mutter und ihr Bastard. Eine Geschichte der Unehelichkeit in Deutschland, 1900-1970 (Gottingen, 2004). See also her “Die Verdffentlichung des Privaten. Die mediale Konstruktion der ledigen Mutter in den 1960er und 1970er Jahren,” in Die Politik der Offentlichkeit—die Offentlichkeit der Politik. Politische Medialisierung in der Geschichte der Bundesrepublik, ed. Bernd Weisbrod (Gottingen, 2003), 177-94; for a concise summary of her argument, see her article “Fraulein Mutter vor dem Richterstuhl. Der Wandel der 6ffenclichen Wahrnehmung und rechtlichen Stellung lediger Miitter in der Bundesrepublik 1948-1970,” WG 9, no. 27 (2000): 48-68. 9. Wiebke Kolbe, Elternschaft im Wohlfahrtsstaat. Schweden und die Bundesrepublik im Vergleich, 1945-2000 (Frankfurt/M. 2002). For an English summary of her theses, see her essays “Turning Mothers into Parents: Welfare State Politics in Sweden and West Germany since the 1960s,” in Kjonn, makt, sammfunn i Norden i et historisk perspectiv. Konferanserapport fra det 5. nordiske kvinnehistorikermotet, Kloekken 8.—11.8.1996, ed. Berit Gullikstad and Kari Heitmann (Trondheim, 1997), vol. 2, 61-86, and “Gender and Parenthood in West German Family Politics from the 1960s to the 1980s,” in State Policy and Gender System in the Two German States and Sweden 1945-1989, ed. Rolf Torstendahl (Uppsala, 1999), 133-67. On fatherhood in the 1950s, see Till van Rahden, “Demokratie und viaterliche Autoritit. Das Karsruher ‘Stichentscheid-Urteil’ in der politischen Kultur der frithen Bundesrepublik,” in Zeithistorische Forschungen 2 (2005): 160-79.

10. Lu Seegers, Hor zu! Eduard Rhein und die Rundfunkprogrammeeitschriften 1931-1965 (Potsdam, 2001). In her structural history of the family in West Germany, Merith Niehuss notes not only the reduction of family size around 1960, but also a “change in married women’s attitudes towards their role more generally.” Merith Niehuss, Familie, Frau und Gesellschaft. Studien zur Strukturgeschichte der Familie in Westdeutschland, 1945-1960 (Gottingen, 2001), 382. 11. Brigitte Kassel, ... letztlich geht es doch voran! Zur Frauenpolitik der Gewerkschaft OTV 1949-1989, ed. ver.di—Vereinte Dienstleistungsgewerkschaft e.V. and Hans-Béckler-Stiftung (Stuttgart, 2001); Susanne Kreutzer, “Liebestatigkeit” als moderner Frauenberuf. Das weibliche Krankenpflegepersonal und der Bund freier Schwestern der Gewerkschaft OTV (Frankfurt/M.., 2005), and “Eine ‘rote’ Schwesternschaft in der Gewerkschaft Offentliche Dienste, Transport und Verkehr (OTV),” WG 12, no. 34 (2003): 6-28.

12. Monika Mattes, “Zum Verhaltnis von Migration und Geschlecht. Anwerbung und Beschaftigung von ‘Gastarbeiterinnen’ in der Bundesrepublik 1960-1973,” in 50 Jahre Bundesrepublik, 50 Jahre Einwanderung. Nachkriegsgeschichte als Einwanderungsgeschichte, ed. Jan Motte,

Rainer Ohliger and Anne von Oswald (Frankfurt/M., 1999), 285-309. See also Mattes’s recently published dissertation, ‘Gastarbeiterinnen’ in der Bundesrepublik: Anwerbepolitik,

Migration und Geschlecht in den 50er bis 70er Jahren (Frankfurt/M., 2005). ,

1960 (Paderborn, 2001).

13. Helene Albers, Zwischen Hof, Haushalt und Familie. Bauerinnen in Westfalen-Lippe, 1920-

14. Carola Sachse, Der Hausarbeitstag. Gerechtigkeit und Gleichberechtigung in Ost und West 1939-1994 (Gottingen, 2002). 15. On the 1950s, see above all Hanna Schissler, ed., The Miracle Years: A Cultural History of West Germany, 1949-1968 (Princeton, 2001); Axel Schildt and Arnold Sywottek, eds., Modernisierung im Wiederaufbau. Die westdeutsche Gesellschaft der 1950er Jahre (Bonn, 1993); on the 1960s, see Axel Schildt et al., eds., Dynamische Zeiten. Die GOer Jahre in beiden deutschen Gesell-

schaften (Hamburg, 2000); Matthias Frese, Julia Paulus, and Karl Teppe, eds., Demokratisierung und gesellschaftlicher Aufbruch. Die 1960er Jahre als Wendezeit der Bundesrepublik (Bonn, 2003); Jorg Callies, ed., Die Reformzeit des Erfolesmodells BRD. Die Nachgeborenen erforschen die Jahre, die ihre Eltern und Lehrer gepragt haben, Loccumer Protokolle, 19 (Rehburg-Loccum,

10 | The Pleasure of a Surplus Income

2004). For an overview of the literature, see also Detlef Siegfried, “Weite Raume, schneller Wandel. Neuere Literatur zur Sozial- und Kulturgeschichte der 60er Jahre in Westdeutschland,” http://hsozkult.geschichte.hu-berlin.de/rezensionen/id=2327; Alexander Niitzenadel, “Abschied vom ‘Sonderweg.’ Neuere Forschungen zur Wirtschafts- und Sozialgeschichte,” . Nene politische Literatur 47 (2002): 277-99. 16. The term comes from Werner Abelshauser, Die Langen Fiinfziger Jahre. Wirtschaft und Gesellschaft der Bundesrepublik Deutschland, 1949-1966 (Disseldorf, 1987). 17. Cf. Siegfried, “Weite Raume,” 1. See also Christina von Hodenberg and Detlef Siegfried, eds., Wo ‘1968’ liegt. Reform und Revolte in der Geschichte der Bundesrepublik (Gottingen, 2006).

18. The Austrian contemporary history journal Zeitgeschichte has recently even published a special issue entitled “Golden Age? Aspekte des Zeitraums 1950~—1980,” which examines the time period in question from an East and West German as well as Austrian perspective. Zeitgeschichte 31, no. | (2004). A fresh appraisal of the year 1968 and the student movement it spawned is also finally underway, and once again, the leaders of scholarly innovation have chosen women as their subject. On the rapidly growing literature about 1968, see Siegfried, “Weite Raume.” On the women’s movement, see Christina Schulz’s well-done comparative study, Der lange Atem der Provokation. Die Frauenbewegung in der Bundesrepublik und in Frankreich, 1968-1976 (Frankfurt/M., 2002). 19. Betty Friedan, The Feminine Mystique (New York, 1963). 20. For an overview of the various results of research in this field, see Not June Cleaver: Women and Gender in Postwar America, 1945-1960 (Philadelphia, 1994), ed. Joanne Meyerowitz, especially the editor's essay “Beyond the Feminine Mystique: A Reassessment of Postwar Mass Culture, 1946-1958,” 229-62. From the viewpoint of child care, see especially Sonya Michel, Childrens Interests, Mothers Rights: The Shaping of Americas Child Care Policy (New Haven, 1999); Elizabeth Rose, A Mothers Job: The History of Day Care 1890-1960 (New York, 1999); Emilie Stoltzfus, Citizen, Mother, Worker: Debating Public Responsibility for Child Care after the Second World War (Chapel Hill, 2003). 21. Betty Friedan, Der Weiblichkeitswwahn oder die Selbstbefreiung der Frau. Ein Emanzipationskonzept (Hamburg, 1966). The first German paperback edition appeared in 1970 with a print run of 20,000. The book was reprinted four times that year. By November 1971, 130,000 copies had been sold. The eighth, expanded edition appeared in 1975. The first German answer to Friedan’s findings was Helge Pross, Die Wirklichkeit der Hausfrau. Die erste reprasentative Untersuchung tiber nichterwerbstatige Ehefrauen. Wie leben sie? Was denken sie? Wie sehen sie sich selbst?

(Reinbek, 1975). According to this study, one out of two housewives would have preferred to go out to work. Pross, 249. 22. Foremost among these are the works of Christel Eckart, who has also written an essay on the introduction of part-time work in the 1960s. Her analysis concentrates on socio-structural developments in the expansion of part-time employment and addresses women's interests, but only uses statistical material and published literature. Eckart, “Halbtags durch das Wirtschaftswunder. Die Entwicklung der Teilzeitarbeit in den sechziger Jahren,” in Helgard Kramer et al., Grenzen der Frauenlohnarbeit. Frauenstrategien in Lohn- und Hausarbeit seit der Jahrhundertwende (Frankfurt/M., 1986), 183-249. Her other work concentrates on the 1980s: “Die Teilzeitarbeit von Frauen. Eine prekare Strategie gegen Einseitigkeit und Doppelbelastung,” in Talos Emmrich and Georg Vobruba, Perspektiven der Arbeitszeitpolitik (Vienna, 1983), 83-101, and Der Preis der Zeit. Eine Untersuchung der Interessen von Frauen an Teilzeitarbeit (Frankfurt/M., 1990). See also Eva Jenskens, “Teilzeitarbeit—Eine Sackgasse,” in Vom Nutzen weiblicher Lohnarbeit, ed. Gerlinde Seidenspinner (Opladen, 1984), 199-231; Evelyn Stoll, “Die Qualitat von Teilzeitarbeit,” in Frauenerwerbsarbeit. Forschungen zu Geschichte und Gegenwart, ed. Karin Hausen and Gertraude Krell (Munich, 1993), 85-107; Sabine Kroker, “Teilzeitarbeir fiir Alle—Utopie oder gesellschaftliche Notwendigkeit?” Ph.D. diss., Berlin, 1981. The prospects for the future are addressed in Burkhardt Striimpel and Harald Bielinski, Eingeschrinkte Erwerbsarbeit von Mannern und Frauen. Fakten—Whinsche—Realisierungschancen (Berlin, 1988); Ingrid Kurz-Scherf,

Introduction | 1) “Teilzeitarbeit: Individuelle Notlésung oder Vorbotin einer neuen Zeitordnung?” in U. Miller and H. Schmidt-Waldherr, Frauensozialkunde: Wandel und Differenzierung von Lebensformen und Bewu/fstsein (Bielefeld, 1989), 42-57; Karl H. Horning et al., Zeitpioniere. Flexible Arbeitszeiten— neuer Lebensstil (Frankfurt/M., 1990). For an overview of the current state of the literature, see the regularly updated bibliography in Ulrike Wagner, Teilzeitarbeit, Leiharbeit, Zeitarbeit. Bibliographie des Instituts fir Arbeitsmarkt- und Berufsforschung (Nuremberg, 1984—present).

23. Waltraud Cornelissen provides an example of the usual periodization of the postwar period by gender historians. She sees the stasis of the 1950s and 1960s as beginning with the appointment of the conservative Catholic family minister Josef Wirmeling in 1952, and calls the 1957 act granting equal rights to women ineffectual “because it did not contribute to a breakdown in the traditional division of labor.” A new phase of dynamism began only in the 1970s, when “many women who were already ‘provided for’ had no interest in being tied to the house and kitchen.” Cornelissen, “Traditionelle Rollenmuster—Frauen- und Mannerbilder in den westdeutschen Medien,” in Helwig and Nickel, 53-54. One finds similar arguments in the work of Ute Frevert, who divides the postwar period into three phases. She assumes that the second phase, from 1950 to 1970, was marked by a deemphasis on equality. The evidence contradicts this thesis as well. Frevert, “Frauen auf dem Weg zur Gleichberechtigung—Hindernisse, Umleitungen, Einbahnstrafsen,” in Broszat, Zasuren nach 1945, 114; see also Frevert, “Umbruch der Geschlechterverhaltnisse? Die GOer Jahre als Experimentierraum,” in Schildt, Dynamische Zeiten, 642-660. Hanna Schissler suggested that the changes of the 1960s must have occurred, as it were, behind contemporaries backs. “Mannerstudien in den USA,” GG 18 (1992), 213. 24. Contrary to frequent claims that women withdrew from politics in the late 1940s, Irene Stoehr

notes that an altered understanding of politics developed among women during the Cold War. Both thematically and formally, women’s organizations adopted something more closely approximating the traditional “male” concept of politics, which later feminists interpreted as the “disappearance of political action.” Stoehr, “Der Mitterkongref$ fand nicht statt. Frauen-

bewegungen, Staatsmanner und Kalter Krieg 1950,” WG, 1997, no. 17, 66-82. | 25. Maier, “Zwischen Arbeitsmarkt und Familie,” 257; for the GDR, see Winkler, Frauenreport, 63. Almut Rietzschel notes that the high figures for the GDR should be treated with caution. Virginia Penrose calculated a female employment rate of 80 percent for 1987, for example. See Christine von Oertzen and Almut Rietzschel, “Das “Kuckucksei’ Teilzeitarbeit. Die Politik der Gewerkschaften im deutsch-deutschen Vergleich,” in Frauen arbeiten. Weibliche Erwerbstatigkeit in Ost- und Westdeutschland nach 1945, ed. Gunilla-Friederike Budde (Gottingen, 1997), 212n1.

26. According to the calculations of the Deutsches Institut ftir Wirtschaftsforschung (German Institute for Economic Research, DIW) the female employment rate in the GDR rose 10 percent between 1955 and 1961, from 60 percent to 70.4 percent, while during the same period in West Germany the rate increased from 48 percent to 49.7 percent. In 1962, 72.2 percent of all women deemed able to work were officially employed in the GDR, as against 49.7 percent of West German women. For figures for 1955, 1961, and 1962, see “Frauenarbeit, Teilzeitbeschaftigung und Rentnerarbeit in Mitteldeutschland,” Wochenbericht des DIW, no. 11 (1964), 50. Penrose notes, however, that because of the age structure of the GDR, the absolute increase of 60,800

employed women between 1955 and 1960 caused a rise in the employment rate from 55 percent to 62 percent. Her figures are cited in von Oertzen and Rietzschel, “Comparing the Postwar Germanies,” 183. 27. “The Working Woman in a Changing World,” report IV (1) of the International Labour Organization on point 6 of the agenda of the 48th international conference in Geneva; Anton Sabel, president of the BAVAV, at the DGB’s 4th National Women’s Conference, held in Nuremberg 26-28 April 1962, in DGB-Frauenarbeit, minutes of the 4. Bundesfrauenkonferenz des DGB, 33. For 1961, Angelika Willms gives the female employment rate, that is, the proportion of women employed for wages in the female population of working age, as 33.4 percent. Willms, “Grundziige der Entwicklung der Frauenarbeit zwischen 1880-1980,” in Walter Miller et al., Strukturwandel der Frauenarbeit 1880-1980 (Frankfurt/M., 1983), table 1, 35.

12 | The Pleasure of a Surplus Income

28. For overviews of international comparative research, see Colin Craighton, “The Rise of the Male Breadwinner Family: A Reappraisal,” CSSH 38 (1996): 310-37; and Angélique Janssens, “The Rise and Decline of the Male Breadwinner Family? An Overview of the Debate,” /RSH, supplement 1997, 1-24. For Germany, see Karin Hausen, “Wirtschaften mit der Geschlechterordnung. Ein Essay,” in idem, ed., Geschlechterhierarchie und Arbeitsteilung. Zur Geschichte ungleicher Erwerbschancen von Mannern und Frauen (Gottingen, 1993), 40-67, and “Frauenerwerbstatigkeit und erwerbstatige Frauen. Anmerkungen zur historischen Forschung,” in Budde, Frauen arbeiten, 19-45. 29. Hausen, “Frauenerwerbsarbeit und erwerbstatige Frauen,” 21. 30. On this, see Kathleen Canning, Languages of Labor and Gender: Female Factory Work in Germany, 1840-1914 (Ithaca, N.Y., 1996); for European comparisons, see Maternity and Gender Politics: Women and the Rise of the European Welfare State, 1880s to 1950s, ed. Gisela Bock and

Pat Thane (London, 1991); for Sweden and the United States, see Lena Sommestad, “Welfare State Attitudes to the Male Breadwinning System: The United States and Sweden in Comparative Perspective,” /RSH, supplement 5, 1997, 153-74. 31. Sabine Schmitt, Der Arbeiterinnenschutz im Deutschen Kaiserreich. Zur Konstruktion der schutzbediirftigen Arbeiterin (Stuttgart, 1995); Regina Wecker, ““Weiber sollen unter keinen Umstanden zur Nachtarbeit verwendet werden.’ Zur Konstituierung von Weiblichkeit im Arbeitsprozef$,” in Was sind Frauen, was sind Manner? Geschlechterkonstruktionen im historischen

Wandel, ed. Christiane Eifert et al. (Frankfurt/M., 1996), 196-215. 32. Hausen, “Frauenerwerbstatigkeit und erwerbstatige Frauen,” 19. 33. Hausen, “Frauenerwerbstatigkeit und erwerbstatige Frauen, 19. This was expressed as a potential scholarly interest for the first time in the late 1980s. See Christel Eckart, Der Preis der Zeit. Eine Untersuchung der Interessen von Frauen an Teilzeitarbeit (Frankfurt/M., 1990); and Der unentdeckte Wandel. Annaherung an das Verhaltnis von Struktur und Norm im weiblichen Lebensverlauf, ed. Claudia Born et al. (Berlin, 1996). 34. United Nations Economic and Social Council, Commission on the Status of Women, 7th Session, Part-Time Employment. Preliminary Report, prepared by the International Labour Office, 12 February 1953, ILO E/CN.6/222. This UN definition is cited frequently in contemporary works on part-time employment, albeit without naming the source. 35. Men's part-time work and hourly work will be set aside. Since it was performed by retirees and students, it played no part in the naturalization of the specifically female work form. 36. Jiirgen Kocka, Arbeitsverhialtnisse und Arbeiterexistenzen. Grundlagen der Klassenbildung im 19.

Jahrhundert (Bonn, 1990), esp. 448-86. 37. Louise Tilly and Joan Scott, Women, Work and Family (New York, 1978); Eckart, “Halbtags durch das Wirtschaftswunder,’ 183. 38. Rosmarie Beier, Frauenarbeit und Frauenalltag im deutschen Kaiserreich. Heimarbeiterinnen in der Berliner Bekleidungsindustrie, 1880-1914 (Frankfurt/M., 1983); Ulla Knapp, Hausarbeit und geschlechtsspezifischer Arbeitsmarkt im deutschen IndustrialisierungsprozefS. Frauenpolitik und

proletarischer Frauenalltag zwischen 1800 und 1933 (Munich, 1984); for a global perspective, see Homeworkers in Global Perspective: Invisible No More, ed. Eileen Boris and Elisabeth Prug! (New York, 1996). 39. Kathleen Canning, “Gender and the Politics of Class Formation,” AHR 97 (1992): 736-68, and Languages of Labor and Gender, 253. Apparently, this was not possible in every region, however. For examples from Bremen, see Marlene Ellerkamp, /ndustriearbeit, Krankheit und Geschlecht. Zu den sozialen Kosten der Industrialisierung: Bremer Textilarbeiterinnen 1870-1914 (Gottingen, 1991).

40. For Imperial Germany, see Irmtraud Gensewich, Die Tabakarbeiterin in Baden 1870-1914 (Mannheim, 1986), esp. 92-101. For references to varying working hours, see also Helma Meier-Kaienberg, Frauenarbeit auf dem Land. Zur Situation abhangig beschdftigter Frauen im Raum Hannover 1919-1939 (Bielefeld, 1992). For the postwar period, see also the 17 September 1957 report of Darmstadt Employment Office, StADa Abt. J 32, AA Darmstadt, Az. 5131, unpag.

Introduction | 13 41. Miiller, Strukturwandel; Josef Mooser, “Arbeiter, Angestellte und Frauen in der ‘nivellierten Mittelstandsgesellschaft.’ Thesen,” in Schildt and Sywottek, 377-91. 42. The latter rested on a system of labor service designed to mobilize married German and “Aryan” women for wartime industry. Cf. Carola Sachse, “Hausarbeit im Betrieb. Betriebliche Sozialarbeit unter dem Nationalsozialismus,” in C. Sachse et al., Angst, Belohnung, Zucht und Ordnung. Herrschaftsmechanismen im Nationalsozialismus (Opladen, 1982), esp. 262 ff.

43. Sabine Schmitt, Arbeiterinnenschutz; see also Wecker, “Weiber.” On the labor administration in the Weimar period, see Susanne Rouette, Sozialpolitik als Geschlechterpolitik. Die Regulierung der Frauenarbeit nach dem Ersten Weltkrieg (Frankfurt/M., 1993).

44. The discussion is an abbreviated version of the account offered in the German edition of this book.

45. The introduction of part-time employment for highly qualifed women in the public sector and its incorporation into civil service law could not be included for reasons of space. On female higher civil servants, see von Oertzen, “Women, Work, and the State: Lobbying for Part-Time Work and ‘Practical Equality’ in the West German Civil Service,” in Rolf Torstendahl, ed., State Policy and Gender System, 79-104; on nurses and other members of the caring professions, see “Fraulein auf Lebenszeit? Gesellschaft, Berufung und Weiblichkeit im 20. Jahrhundert,” WG 9, no. 27 (2000): 5—28. 46. Thus, a European comparison shows that the different rates of female employment in the individual countries cannot be derived in a linear manner from structural factors. Cf. Carola Sachse, “Roll-Back oder nicht? Zur Neubewertung der Frauengeschichte der Nachkriegszeit. Bericht tiber einen Internationalen Workshop zur Frauen- und Geschlechtergeschichte der Nachkriegszeit in Westeuropa 1945-1970 in Berlin,” WG, 1996, no. 13, 107-10. 47. Gysi and Meyer, “Leitbild: berufstatige Mutter”; Ute Gerhard, “Die staatlich institutionalisierte Loésung’ der Frauenfrage. Zur Geschichte der Geschlechterverhaltnisse in der DDR,” in Sozialgeschichte der DDR, ed. Hartmut Kaeble et al. (Stuttgart, 1994), 396; Gunnar Winkler, ed., Frauenreport 90 (Berlin, 1990), 8; Christine von Oertzen and Almut Rietzschel, “Comparing the Postwar Germanies: Breadwinner Ideology and Women’s Employment in the Divided Nation, 1945-1970,” /RSH, supplement 1997, 175-96. A comprehensive history on women in the GDR is now available; see Donna Harsch, The Revenge of the Domestic: Women, the Family, and Communism in the German Democratic Republic (Princeton, 2006).

Chapter I

PaiD EMPLOYMENT FOR MARRIED WOMENS? Contradictory Viewpoints in the 1950s

CO

The debates over part-time work document a profound process of rethinking __ wives and mothers’ paid employment. They express a new social understanding about whether, and to what extent, women with “family responsibilities” should go out to work. From the end of World War II into the late 1960s, West Germany society considered this question constantly and intensively. ‘The initial unanimous rejection of any paid work outside the home for women who did not need the money began to break down by the mid-1950s, culminating in a widespread acceptance of part-time work for wives and mothers by the early 1960s. ‘The debates on part-time work illustrate in exemplary fashion the phases, dynamism, structural factors, and individual actors involved in the cultural, political, and social transformation of West Germany, which is also evident in other realms of society. The course and structures of the discussions will be analyzed here based on the following questions: What inspired the debate on part-time work in specific instances? Who supported and who rejected this working-hour model for women with “family responsibilities,” and which arguments did they use to bolster different positions? When did opinions change within individual groups, and how and why did the constellations alter? A few words on the period immediately preceding may be in order here. During the Third Reich, wartime industry had already experimented with reduced working hours for wives and mothers.’ In Germany, as in the Allied nations—particularly England and the United States—part-time shifts were used from 1943 on as a last

resort for mobilizing women who could not, or did not wish to, work full-time because of their family responsibilities.? We can only estimate how many women worked half days in German enterprises during World War II.° In May 1945, most Notes for this chapter begin on page 35.

16 | The Pleasure of a Surplus Income

companies in vanquished Germany dismissed their female employees and cut back their workforces to a small core of mainly male employees. Within the first few weeks after the war, half-day employment for women with “family responsibilities’ vanished altogether from the western zones as a result of this personnel policy.’ As early as 1946, however, an acute labor shortage re-emerged in all zones of occupation. This may be attributed largely to the fact that Germany had become a country of women, since many men of working age were either dead or in prisoner-of-war camps. Money had lost much of its value, and anyone who could do so ensured her own survival and that of her family by black market trading and time-consuming foraging expeditions to the countryside.’ The question of how to mobilize workers, and whether and under what circumstances widows with children and other mothers could be expected to accept paid employment, developed into a tense conflict between the occupying forces and the German labor administration. In the western zones, Allied intentions to make women looking after families go out to work were branded part of “the politics of the victor” and were successfully boycotted.° As far as the German authorities were concerned, widowed, married, and single women with “family responsibilities” should work half days, at most, and only in the absence of a male “breadwinner.”” They owed this not least to the fallen soldiers.®

When the currency reform of summer 1948 increased the value of money, leading to a sharp rise in the interest of women in part-time work, the German authorities changed their line of argument. The very war widows whom the labor administration had sought to protect from the clutches of the occupying forces now became a bothersome and expensive clientele who were difficult to place in

employment. In order to get rid of them, the employment offices began to put a wholly different interpretation on the term “family responsibilities”: they were no longer regarded as a special burden upon women brought about by the war. Suddenly, they had become instead a hindrance to smooth integration into the labor market for which women bore personal responsibility. With this reinterpretation of the term “family responsibilities,” the West German employment offices evaded the difficult task of finding suitable positions for women who could not work 8-10 hours a day, or 48 hours a week, because they had to care for children

or other dependents.’ In so doing, the labor administration took up more general societal aspirations toward normalization that had begun to prevail in West Germany.'® In this atmosphere, concepts of half-time employment were soon forgotten, all the more so because rising unemployment after 1948 resulted in increasing numbers of men without jobs. Following their “natural destiny,’ married women, widows, and unmarried mothers should not go out to work if at all possible, it was again argued everywhere after 1949. They should rely instead on the support of male breadwinners or state pensions. It is this very gender-political mood of the early 1950s that has been so thoroughly studied and splendidly described in the recent historical literature.!' In what follows, I would like to draw attention to the reasons why and the ways in which this conviction, which was represented most vehemently by the first West German family minister Josef Wiirmeling, broke down in the course of the 1950s.

Paid Employment for Married Women? | 17

Part-Time Work for the “Silent Reserve” During the confidential sessions held at the labor ministry in 1953, it became clear that the planned mustering of recruits for the new German armed forces would heighten a labor shortage that was already on the horizon.'? State labor market planners and high-level economic officials agreed to sound out ways of mobilizing additional workers as a precaution, and conducted their discussions out of the public eye. Referring explicitly to the experiences of the wartime economy, they considered introducing half-day shifts for women in industry. The participants in these meetings were well aware that married women with “family responsibilities” could not be won over to paid employment under normal labor market conditions.'”

In the summer of 1953, the federal labor ministry commissioned a report intended to explore the “potentials and suitability of instituting part-time work for women in various occupations’ based on a broad empirical survey in plants, government authorities, and offices.'* Gerhard Weisser, professor of social policy, director of the Institute of Social and Administrative Studies at the University of Cologne, member of the scientific advisory board to the ministry of economic affairs and later co-initiator of the SPD’s Godesberg Program, was commissioned to prepare the report.'? It is highly probable that the government deliberately chose a man who was unlikely to have any fundamental objections to married women’s employment. If this is the case, it follows that the consensus on restrictive gender policy in the Federal Republic had begun to break down quite early on, even within the government. In light of the situation on the labor market, the ministries of labor and economic affairs became firm opponents of those policies hostile to wives’

and mothers’ employment that were very publicly promoted by family minister Wiirmeling and enthusiastically supported by the finance ministry.!°

The studies conducted by Weisser's research institute went unnoticed until women from the German Trade Union Federation (DGB) accidentally got wind of them. The institute's questionnaires had aroused the suspicions of women union members in a shoe factory in Upper Bavaria.'’ Since Gerhard Weisser was considered a safeguard against any “tendentious distortion” of the survey, however, the DGB saw no reason to go public with the information.'® Thus, the inspiration for the renewed public discussion of half-day or part-time employment came not from the unions but from the news magazine Der Spiegel. In April 1954, the weekly published excerpts from a confidential report by the National

Association of German Industry (BDI) on plans for labor force mobilization.” The article referred not to part-time work, but to the impending shortage of young workers. However, it marked the beginning of a public debate on the anticipated labor shortage.*° From now on until 1966, the slogans of full employment and labor force mobilization would be permanent fixtures in the media. As

early as autumn 1955, “so terribly much was being written of the boom in the development of the labor market” that a virtual “shortage psychosis’ broke out in many enterprises. In some areas, wild poaching wars ensued between individual companies, including those that mainly employed women.*!

18 | The Pleasure of a Surplus Income

In late 1954 the German Industrial Institute (Deutsches Industrie-Institut) added more fuel to the shortage debate in several press releases and drew public attention

to the subject of part-time work. The institute announced that the proportion of women in the workforce in the Federal Republic had risen between 1950 and 1954 from 30.7 percent to 32.4 percent, and would have to increase still further to satisfy demand. In order to alleviate staff shortages, it would be necessary to provide incentives for married women’s employment, to locate plants in structurally weak regions,

and to set up half-day shifts in appropriate branches of industry.?* Presumably, the institute's announcements were already a response to the initial findings of the Weisser report, which was completed at the end of 1954. The press release corresponded almost verbatim to the findings of Weisser’s study. The analysis, eighty-five manuscript pages long, was based largely on interviews with entrepreneurs, heads of personnel departments, officials of employers’ associations, job placement officers, and some 100 female employees.’ The institute had come to the conclusion that at the extremely small proportion of only about | percent (in industry) to 4 percent (in commerce and services) of the female workforce, “womens part-time employment

was far less common ... in the current German economy than would be tenable from a business viewpoint.”** Numerous possibilities for deploying part-time workers in almost all branches of the economy, which would bring with it a rationalization of the workplace and a more flexible adaptation of personnel to work processes,

often went unused, although “the relevant heads of companies and departments could not actually offer any convincing justification for this.” At the same time, the study concluded that “taken together, women willing to accept part-time employ-

ment alongside their household work ... [form] a significant reservoir of labor.” Presumably, the female jobseekers on the books of the employment offices made up only a fraction of the women interested in reduced working hours. An analysis of employment advertisements in the daily papers had shown that about 19 percent of the women seeking jobs wanted to work half days. If the employment offices were to offer part-time work and to address not just women registered as unemployed but also those who “sought to improve their living standard through supplemental earnings, demand for such jobs could probably be significantly increased.

If the labor ministry in Bonn and the Federal Office for Employment Placement and Unemployment Insurance (BAVAV) undertook strenuous efforts in 1955 to gain more reliable figures on the potential “labor reserve” available for part-time work, it was doubtless also a result of the positive general economic assessment reached by the Weisser report. The report emphasized the “social utility’ of widespread part-time work with surprising candor. It promoted it not as a firmly institutionalized form of employment, but rather as a pillar of a “socially responsible” concept of the market economy. The economic significance of part-

time work lay in its ability to help avoid “distortions in the overall economic system,” in periods of labor shortages and full employment and economic slumps

alike. In times of economic decline, part-time workers would be laid off first. This was a good thing, too, since on the one hand the incomes of women working part time were generally supplementary in nature, and thus not essential to

Paid Employment for Married Women? | 19

their families. On the other hand, this also increased the job security of full-time workers. All in all, everyone profited “from the favorable influences of a solid economic system, because they participated in the “performance of the socially

pacified full-time labor force.” In the current phase of the economic upturn, the aggressive introduction of part-time work led to heightened productivity, which contributed to “the creation of property of all kinds” in the service of an all-encompassing social pacification, and would “have the most favorable effect on the lives of citizens more generally.” This highly controversial gender-political attempt to integrate married female part-time workers into the system of a social market economy geared toward full-time male working lives was never made public. Only government offices could request a copy of the manuscript.”? In January 1955, the labor force planners at the labor ministry had already included the desk officer for women’s affairs, Tritz, in their meetings, in order to obtain more precise information about the proportion of the female “labor reserve” that was presumably still available for full-time employment. In her opinion, one could expect 70,000 to 80,000 women annually from the “silent reserve” to be “fully employable,” in addition to about 30,000 jobless women who might be placed in full-time work.*® According to an extensive survey conducted by the labor administration in 1952, however, most unemployed women—around 82 percent—must be considered only “partially employable” because of health or time constraints.*” The study on which Tritz based her prognoses regarding a potential part-time clientele had been intended primarily to reinforce suspicions that women with “family responsibilities” were wrongfully receiving unemployment benefits. Under altered circumstances, the same survey could now be used to assess the chances of a possible campaign to mobilize women for part-time employment. Given the growing need for labor and the increasing public and social policy interest in part-time work, it appeared advisable to base the public debate on the question “part-time employment for whom, and where?” on more reliable official data.** In the run-up to the large conference of Bavarian women’s organizations scheduled for October 1955,*? the BAVAV thus tried to estimate the existing potential of women who “cannot take on a position working 48 hours a week because of family responsibilities or other reasons.” In August 1955, a corresponding directive was sent to all regional employment offices (Landesarbeitsimter), asking them to report on their experiences with part-time employment in the regional labor markets.°° The employment offices should test the attitudes of local entrepreneurs and document any practical experience with part-time work at local companies. A second directive sought to explore the interest of jobless

and jobseeking women in regular work at reduced hours.?! The results of this official stock-taking confirmed the companies’ reservations

regarding part-time work, but came to completely different conclusions than the Weisser report about women’s motivations. To be sure, the official survey must be interpreted with a good deal of caution in this regard.** It does, however, reveal opinions expressed by women that correspond to other findings and thus apparently reflect some typical tendencies in the assessment of part-time

20 | The Pleasure of a Surplus Income

work. In North Rhine-Westphalia, between 84 percent und 93 percent of women questioned by the employment offices favored full-time employment.*’ Younger women in particular generally preferred temporary full-time work, which they might later give up altogether. The clientele interested in part-time employment appears to have consisted mainly of older women between thirty-five and fifty, who could not work full time for health or family reasons. Women on pensions

also preferred jobs where the earnings were low enough that they would not relinquish any of their benefits. Only very occasionally did the employment offices encounter the clientele who featured most prominently in the Weisser report. Women whose husbands had sufhcient incomes rarely registered for parttime work.*4 The accounts of the employment offices stressed that many women spontaneously reacted positively to the suggestion that they might work shorter hours. As soon as they found out that they would also earn less money, though, their enthusiasm waned. On the whole, most women preferred to work between

thirty and forty hours a week, which seemed to confirm an important trade union argument against part-time work, namely, that the demand for a general reduction of the working week to forty hours and five days would meet the needs of women already in the workforce. It was the impression of the labor administration that nearly all of the women needed the full income, and particularly the older ones among them were not clear about the consequences of reduced earnings. Even these results had only limited applicability in practice, some employment offices suggested, because at the time of the survey many women were not fully aware of what exactly a reduction in their earnings would mean, and thus whether part-time work would be worth their while given that their expenses for transportation to and from work remained the same.°? Women’s theoretical openness to part-time work did not mean that they would actually be available for it, especially since part-time work was “highly diverse.”*° This assessment, which diverged so significantly from the prognoses of the Weisser Report particularly in regard to the motives and potential for mobilization among women, played a key role in shaping the attitudes and placement policy of the labor administration in the mid-1950s. Apparently, the clientele to which the state placement monopoly had access was not sufficiently interested in part-time employment. In late 1955, the labor administration deemed a general recruitment among the “silent reserve’—in other words, married housewives in particular—to be inopportune for other reasons as well. On the one hand, there were not enough part-time jobs, and on the other, such a campaign could not be promoted in public given the politically charged debates on the “social political” consequences of married women’s employment.°’ And even if a segment of women desired part-time work in principle, the actual demand for such positions appeared to increase only with general wage levels and the total income available to families. Thus, the employment office of a small town near Diisseldorf concluded that “the desire for reduced working hours would be expressed by all women if financial circumstances and their personal needs did not force them to work or contribute to the family income.”*®

Paid Employment for Married Women? | 2)

Even if the employment offices in large cities such as Cologne, Munich, Stuttgart, Hamburg, or Heilbronn were confronted with “daily” queries by married women interested in working half days or three days a week,*? the labor administrations general assessment was that most women simply could not afford to work shorter hours in 1955. According to the survey, reasons other than financial necessity for seeking regular work were the exception. In the labor administra-

tions judgment, “how far efforts to promote part-time work must be oriented toward its social, business or labor market policy moments” depended on the resolution of this contradiction, that is, on the extent to which the trade-off of “more time and less money” was able to satisfy families’ “economic needs for additional and essential income.”“° When in April 1956 the federal ministers of economic affairs and labor presented the Bundestag with a “Memorandum on Securing Industry's Manpower Needs” that had been requested by all parties, there was little indication of doubts

concerning the feasibility of the mobilization concept of part-time employment.*! The “most powerful family ministers”*? of the Federal Republic appeared

determined to combat the labor shortage by aggressively expanding part-time work. ‘The core of their planned labor market strategies consisted of making jobs for married women, widows, and retirees available, attractive, and lucrative. The relocation of plants to structurally weak regions and employer concessions regarding working hours and conditions represented the programss labor market

policy components. In addition, the department heads called for government initiatives to “increase enthusiasm for paid employment” among married women and widows: the construction of preschool and after school facilities would provide (half-day) relief from maternal responsibilities. Fiscally, the state could send signals by reforming taxation for married couples and changing pension law to remove any disincentives to women working part-time.*?

Relief for Working Mothers and Wives A further impetus to thinking about half-day or part-time work for married mothers in the early 1950s came from the United Nations. Based on reports from the International Labour Office (ILO) in Geneva, the subject of part-time work was treated extensively and thoroughly at the 7th Session of the UN Commission on the Status of Women held in New York from 16 March to 4 April 1953.4 This forum discussed part-time work mainly from the perspective of women’s policy, with regard to its suitability as a model for enabling women in industrial society to reconcile employment with family life. The debates were followed with great interest in West Germany, although—or perhaps because—the Federal Republic was not yet a UN member. ‘The liberal women’s organizations in particular picked

up on the debates. Views on part-time work were quite controversial at the UN meeting, and French participants in particular expressed strong reservations about a state promotion of its expansion. The session and the generally positive

22 | The Pleasure of a Surplus Income

echo, however, were dominated by the “interested and positive” stance of the American women’s organizations.” In the United States, as in Britain, part-time work had been very widespread in wartime industry, and had been retained in many sectors after the victory over Germany because of the continuing strength of the economy in the wake of the Korean War. At the beginning of the 1950s, some 20 percent of all working women in the United States were employed parttime. Most worked in the service sector, while in England it was mainly female factory workers who were employed part-time.*° In both countries, part-time work was recognized by married women and businesses alike as a “need for both

sides.’ In its concluding remarks, the [LO’s report largely adopted the AngloAmerican assessment of part-time work as an instrument of labor force mobilization worth promoting, and a possibility for women to combine family and paid employment. The report also stressed that women’s “psychological,” that is, noneconomic, motives were nowhere the decisive factor in taking up employment. Married women in particular, however, expressly wanted to work part-time in order to keep in touch with the working world, even if it was not strictly necessary for economic reasons. West German women’s organizations took a particularly critical view of this point. Paid employment for married women, and even more for single women, was conceivable only as a “social political problem” in the context of the eco-

nomic hardship of families. Thus, the standpoint of American women’s organizations was criticized especially in regard to “women’s affairs.” In a detailed account of the New York conference written in 1954 for the women’s magazine Welt der Frau, Edith Hinze, a desk officer for many years at the labor administration in Berlin, denounced “apolitical” American pragmatism. In terms of social politics, the expansion of part-time employment in the United States had been “hardly revolutionary,” and unfortunately American women’s organizations had

not even called for improvements to the situation. They had no intention of “upsetting the rigid laws of the world of industrial labor.” A complete concurrence with the views of employers was so greatly valued by US women’s organizations because they hoped to help women reconcile employment and family “without offensive women’s demands” and even to the benefit of the economy.*” In West Germany, in contrast, a fundamental social political arrangement that would also demand “concessions” from business was essential. Unlike the victorious Allied Powers, the Federal Republic had experienced severe economic upheavals and could not afford the “luxury” of part-time work as a pastime for housewives. The problem of reduced working hours thus appeared in a completely different light in Germany, as Hinze emphasized: “Do the victor nations have no overtaxed housewives and mothers who urgently need the earnings from a full-time job, and whose work leaves them with neither the time nor the energy to shield their families from severe harm? What can be done to lighten the burdens of these women’s lives?”“®

The call for relief for mothers working full-time was a decidedly German response on the part of women’s associations to the international “Western”

Paid Employment for Married Women? | 23

debate on part-time work. The counterposition, which Hinze formulated particularly sharply, doubtless also took account of the special situation in West Berlin, where the numbers of single working women and unemployed mothers were significantly higher, the consequences of the war far more directly tangible, and the general standard of living a good deal lower than in West Germany.*” Hinze referred to the West Berlin women’s movement which, influenced by contact with the GDR and the state Democratic Women’s Association of Germany (DFD),”° developed a markedly anti-Communist stance.”! This is evident indirectly in the concept of half-day work as a relief option for women. The appeal to employers and the state took a stand against GDR policy on women’s employ-

ment, emphasizing a long-term integration of single, divorced, and widowed women in particular, but also married women, into full-time work. In West Berlin, in contrast, the “solution to the problem of working mothers” should entail workplace concessions in the organization of working hours on the one hand and payments of state family assistance as compensation for wages on the other. The political tendency of this concept found a particularly effective rhetorical device in the image of latchkey children, who, according to Hinze, “should be brought to the attention of the public more than has previously been the case.””” Not least because of the gender-political aspirations of the women’s associa-

tions, public interest in the Federal Republic and West Berlin focused on the possibilities for expanding part-time work in industry. Unlike in commerce, transportation, or the post office, half-day work in factories was scarce. It was, however, manufacturing industry in particular that placed the concept of relief for working mothers under scrutiny. The factory was and is considered the prototype of a rigid, normative working world essentially unsuitable for women. It represented the proper addressee for the demand “that business meet the family halfway, after the family has been compelled for generations to adapt to business. °? Economic sectors such as commerce, (transportation, and services, in which part-time work fit into workplace effectivity concepts, were of no interest to this political demand—quite the contrary. If companies could draw benefits from reducing working hours, then the introduction of part-time work was for that very reason suspect to those women promoting the Berlin model for the relief of working mothers. West Berlin womens associations did more than just issue appeals. As early

as 1953, the demand to limit paid employment for mothers had encouraged the two largest among these women’s organizations, the Berliner Frauenbund 1945 and the Deutsche Staatsbiirgerinnenverband, to seek possibilities for putting their relief concept into practice. The women held several meetings with representatives from various employers’ associations and plant managers from typical womens branches, such as the food processing, electrical, textile, and paper industries. They discussed the advantages and disadvantages of half-day shifts using concrete examples. In Hinze’s view, the results of this first testing of the waters were clear: many plant managers, to be sure, invoked misgivings about half-day employment from the wartime economy, and the organizational

24 | The Pleasure of a Surplus Income

difficulties of introducing half-time shifts varied according to sector. [he womens associations did not doubt, however, that a large number of half-day positions could be created given good will on the part of management, since the latter had

described the task as “inconvenient” rather than “impossible.” Were the hesitant willingness of companies to be encouraged by government incentives and “limits to the free play of forces”—such as quotas—then on the business side at least, nothing stood in the way of the “partial regaining of working mothers for the family.” Companies could be expected to accept “certain restrictions to the demand for the most efficient possible work processes.” *4

Hinze bolstered her concept of relief by conducting an extensive survey of women in West Berlin. The product of her survey of 1955-56 was a largely descriptive study, which explicitly illuminated the problem “not from the perspective of the needs of business,” but rather from that of women’s preferred working hours. In this study, paid employment appears throughout as a “hard destiny for women.” Hinze’s report, which appeared with some delay in 1960, was directly addressed to the family minister: because of their financial circumstances, most women could not afford to work part-time and lose wages. At least partial state compensation for earnings lost by mothers, whose full-time employment was after all especially undesirable, could certainly provide the incentive for them to give up full-time work.” The Berlin women’s associations were the first to take up the subject of half-day employment. West German organizations followed at the end of 1954, when the impending labor shortage was already a topic of public discussion. The Bavarian Working Group of Women Voters, a nonpartisan women’s association founded in 1950 on the model of the American League of Women Voters, distinguished

itself as one of the most important actors in instigating a public discussion of part-time work in a broad social policy context.” It arranged an initial discussion in November 1954, and the Munich branch of the Women Voters gained broad attention from the press and public at its large and well-organized conference in late September 1955.°” The most important social groups attended, although political parties were excluded because of the group’s stance of impartiality. The more than eighty-five participants, both men and women, included the desk officer for women’s affairs from the interior ministry, Dorothea Karsten, several head placement officers from the labor administration, and representatives of welfare, women’s, and employers’ associations, trade unions, churches, and several research institutes.

The conference’s keynote lecture, delivered by the journalist Olga Amann, chairwoman of the Women Voters’ Munich branch, addressed the “Problems of Half-Day Employment” from the organization's perspective. In this West German version, the concept of relief through part-time work displays far more moderate traits than in Berlin, and was clearly oriented toward the “new’ era, that is, not to overcoming the effects of war but to the future of the countrys economic upswing. The Bavarian association understood its own role in this process, which according to Amann would have profound consequences for the gender order, as

Paid Employment for Married Women? | 25

that of an important mediator. Political work on behalf of women must seek “in concert with business, to find ways to cope with the development that is [becoming evident] in the wake of the new phase of women’s paid employment.”?® At the beginning of this epoch, women’s associations should intervene actively in the discussion, “so that matters do not simply take their course.”?? Amann criticized the governments mobilization strategies for considering married women a mere “female reserve army.” Rather, half-day work should be regarded as part of a social policy solution for making women’s work an “organic and stable factor in our economic life.” Those who attended the conference agreed that women could not be incorporated into economic life “as a factor that was 100 percent standardizable and calculable.” It was also not simply a matter of balancing interests between differing temporal needs. The conference members unanimously insisted on the societal justification for and necessity of an essential gender difference, which had to be integrated into the economic process. “Woman must not forget to be woman [that is, wife and mother, but also ‘woman in essence’).” Part-time work could act as an effective bulwark against the potentially gender neutralizing influence of paid employment on women.” The relief concept sketched by Amann was addressed to quite another clientele than had been the case in Berlin. In the future, those married women already registered with big city employment offices as seeking part-time employment should

also have a right to a job. She clearly emphasized that most of these women wanted half-day positions out of economic necessity, generally because their husbands incomes were insufhcient. These women did not wish to work full-time, however, because of their children.®! It was from this demand for half-day work that Amann derived a relief model that released the state from its social political

responsibility as a “co-breadwinner.” While Hinze had still rejected part-time work with wage losses and without government assistance as untenable, Amann believed married women should be willing to accept wage losses if it was at all economically feasible. In this way, Amann saw half-day employment as representing a ‘genuine compromise solution” for industry, the family, and the state: if business, and particularly industry, had the “good will” to introduce half-day shifts, then “more women than previously” could be employed, and “each individual woman would receive relief with regard to working hours.”°? The balance of interests between the women who worked too much and those who worked too little because of a shortage of part-time jobs should be achieved if possible without state intervention. Amann sketched a particularly vivid example of the practical application of her relief concept in an otherwise very sophisticated half-hour report broadcast six months after the conference on Bavarian Radio’s Women’s Program.°? The story of an exhausted, unskilled worker in a paper goods factory was intended to make the loss of half their wages more palatable for wives, mothers, and perhaps husbands as well. As the title of the show indicated, Frau Huber served two masters.

Her own day began at 5:15 am, and that of her two small children a half-hour later, so that she could deliver them to preschool at 6:30. Frau Huber’s working

26 | The Pleasure of a Surplus Income

day at the factory lasted from 7:00 aM to 5:00 pm. Picking up the children, cooking, and cleaning then kept her on her feet until 10:00 pm. The radio audience

was informed of the costs of full-time work for women, families, households, and ultimately society. Constant hurrying, heart attacks, the strain on marriages, the neglect and delinquency of children who went to school every day with the house keys around their necks, and the added expense of running a household were among the disadvantages. The question, “Is part-time work even worth it?” must be reversed and rephrased to “Is full-time work worth it?” In the trade-off of money for time, the household could be fed more rationally and cheaply without expensive prepared foods and canned goods, which would lead to tangible savings. In light of the enormous emotional costs of full-time employment, at the end of her report Amann patronizingly provided women with the solution to the problem: “Shouldn't every mother consider very seriously whether full-time employment is truly worthwhile in her case?”® With their conference, the Women Voters stimulated political debate. Impor-

tant national newspapers immediately took up the topic of half-day employment.® The Hessian Women’s Association was inspired by the conference to demand that the Bundestag committees on social policy and labor introduce protective measures for part-time work. In justifying their petition, the association adopted the relief concept introduced in Munich in its unadulterated form: part-time jobs were the right approach “to achieving a solution to this sociologically and politically important issue of employment possibilities for married women on the one hand, and the protection of female workers from exhaustion on the other. It would create a possibility of preserving the endangered family home and setting limits to the care of children in homes for babies, preschools, after school centers, and other group facilities.”°’ The women’s associations had succeeded in formulating a social compromise on married women’s and mothers employment that corresponded to majority public opinion in West Germany in the mid-1950s.°8 Just how well-suited this concept was to acting as a public buffer for political tensions within the government becomes apparent when we note that even the Catholic family minister Wiirmeling made newspaper headlines in November 1955 when he responded to the mobilization efforts of his cabinet colleagues by calling for the promotion of half-day work. Nevertheless, massive substantive and political reservations remained. The Munich conference had already revealed the absence of consensus on part-time work. Women in skilled occupations in particular feared a de-skilling and devaluing of women’s work more generally, since women in part-time positions had no opportunities for advancement. Female university graduates and civil servants shared the fears of women trade unionists in the DAG (German salaried employees’ union) and DGB that part-time work might be regarded as a mere pastime and that its expansion might lead to a loss of status for women’s employment as a whole, but women in government also expressed serious misgivings.’° Amann had assigned the labor administration the role of “finding a compromise between the requirements of business and the needs of the family.””' The desk officer for women’s affairs from

Paid Employment for Married Women? | 27

the regional employment office for Northern Bavaria firmly rejected this suggestion. Social policy considerations such as those suggested by the conference organizers,

which aimed to reduce the working hours of women employed full-time, played no part in the labor administration’s placement policy, which proceeded from the standpoint of labor market policy and sought to “expand women’s employment.”” The BAVAY, in contrast, was clearly influenced by the approach of the relief model in its own assessment of part-time employment.

Women trade unionists had trouble distancing themselves from the women’s associations.’? From their perspective, a programmatic demand to reduce the working hours of women already employed was also out of the question. Such a demand imperiled the struggle for the five-day, forty-hour week, and they believed that a general reduction in working hours would be a more effective

form of relief for women. On the other hand, they did not regard the additional mobilization of housewives as desirable. The report of the Munich conference underlines how unpopular the subject of half-day work was among union women. Ihe head of women’s affairs at the DAG in Hamburg, Meyer-Rieckenberg, remarked skeptically, “whether it is advisable to promote half-day work too much ... one should not make the problem larger than it is.””* A leading female representative of the DGB did not even bother to attend the conference. ‘The woman who served as the DGB’s district secretary for Munich felt compelled to counter the “relief thesis” and the general tendency of the conference with the statement that full-time employment by no means had purely negative consequences for married women.” As in their dealings with the government, women trade unionists preferred not to discuss part-time work with the women’s associations. When they did so, it was mainly because as opinion leaders they wanted to assert the interests of full-time women employees.’° From the beginning, they viewed the activities of the womens associations with suspicion, and believed that it was not the business of these organizations to operate on the terrain of trade union politics.’” This provocation led Thea Harmuth from the DGB department of women’s affairs to conclude that “all rrade union institutions need to intervene in the discussion.””® “In preserving the interests of working women and the entire union movement,» she wrote in November 1954 to the regional executive committees, “we doubtless _ face tasks that demand more attention than previously.’’? The premises for the discussion within the DGB were clear: in the interest of all members, clarification was necessary, so that the workplace atmosphere is not disrupted and union work not endangered.”°° Particularly in confronting the concept of relief for working mothers, union women developed an extremely ambivalent attitude toward part-time work and its potential clientele. ‘They, too, could not wholly escape the broad public consensus of the 1950s according to which the rising proportion of women in the workforce represented a threat. Jo be sure, they energetically opposed the Catholic interest groups and their calls to prohibit mothers from working outside the home, and sought to win over the family ministry and its Catholic head, Wiirmeling.®!

28 | The Pleasure of a Surplus Income

With the Cold War, however, the entire West German Left had abandoned the tradition that regarded employment for married women as an essential precondition for women’s emancipation and equality.** Thus, even the SPD, while still emphasizing support for “political, economic, legal, and social equality” between men and women in its official women’s program of 1957, made it unmistakably clear in the same document that “being a housewife and mother” was women’s natural and foremost calling.®’ It was thus necessary to create an economic order “in which no mother of preschool age children is forced by economic hardship to take paid employment.”® In the long term, the goal of SPD gender politics was to remove the compulsion for wives and mothers to work by realizing the model of the “sole male breadwinner.”®? Under these conditions, women trade unionists called on the one hand for better working conditions and pay for wives, because they absolutely needed to work for economic reasons. On the other hand, studies related to the increase in early retirement by women because of illness and disability led them to conclude that married women’s employment should be reduced. Despite their skepticism, women in the unions reached conclusions regarding part-time work that were quite similar to those of women’s associations. In contrast to labor market strategists, the trade unions saw part-time work as acceptable when it was subject to collective bargaining and social insurance regulations, and when it served to relieve the burden of certain groups of already employed (and unionized) women, that is, those who had particularly onerous family responsibilities or were in poor health.®°

This was the official position adopted in 1956 with a first resolution of the federal women’s committee on part-time work at the DGB’s Fourth National Congress.*” It was only reached, however, after the federal women’s committee exerted a moderating influence on the individual unions and regional branches of the DGB. There the majority vote had been negative. It was, however, as Maria Weber emphasized to the NGG union, politically neither possible nor advisable to reject part-time work for women out of hand, “since we cannot simply ignore the fact that it is increasingly being called for and has already been introduced.”*® Many representatives of the individual unions were convinced, however, that there was no union clientele waiting for relief, and that the concept of relief through part-time employment would not work for the unions.*? Single mothers always needed a full income, and relief for wives working full-time was also not advisable, since the small savings of time would not

balance out their low earnings. Married women who worked half days not out of economic need but because they “had a profession or ... wanted to give their lives new meaning” were irrelevant from a trade union perspective.’” The real reservations about part-time work, however, were based on workplace issues. Experiences on the shop floor had “not been good.” Women who worked halfdays put full-time workers under pressure: they were not looking for permanent employment, arrived at the plant “fresh and rested,” did not stick to the agreed

breaks, and did not care about the level of piecework rates. Other women, instead of being overly eager, were especially undisciplined, and the full-time

Paid Employment for Married Women? | 29

women had to “take up the slack.” Part-time women were difficult to organize, harmed women who had to pace themselves to save their strength, and often enough (potentially) served to depress wage rates.”!

The decidedly negative stance of women within the DGB culminated in a contradictory politics; in public, they repeatedly emphasized a basic agreement with the concept of relief through part-time work and demanded its subjection to social insurance regulations. At bottom, however, women trade unionists sought to stem the expansion of part-time work. They sent their own clientele the message that part-time work was not worth the effort.?? Using the same argument, the DGB’s department of women’s affairs sought to make common cause with management: part-time employees were unreliable, and caused high personnel costs for companies. Not least, part-time workers practically ensured a “disruption in the peaceful workplace atmosphere because of their over- or underproductivity.””° How deftly the DGB women succeeded, together with the SPD, in nipping in the bud any political realization of the relief concept is evident in a discussion held in the Bavarian Landtag in 1957. The GB/BHE, the Bavarian party representing expellees from the former German territories in Eastern Europe, had introduced a proposal on the relief of mothers to the Landtag’s social policy committee. It called upon the Bavarian state government to “initiate special measures to encourage companies to create opportunities for housewives to work half days.”°4 None of the interest groups and associations invited to the hearing (the Women Voters were also present) considered this path to be the ideal solution, above all because they did not approve of state pressure. The DGB and SPD in particular expressed objections that ultimately reduced the proposal to a mere rhetorical set phrase. Part-time work was not worthwhile for women who needed a full income. By no means, emphasized the SPD Landtag deputy Gerda Laufer, should “a form of employment be promoted ... that encourages those women who have no actual need of it to enter an occupation.” All political parties adopted the proposal that “increasing the economic security of families” by raising “breadwinner wages, and state child subsidies would be the most sensible solution for the relief of mothers. Accordingly, the proposal was ultimately reformulated as an ineffectual postulate.”? Edith Hinze’s above-cited assessment that the treatment of employment for wives and mothers in West Germany “had been treading water for decades” was not wholly off the mark.?° Despite their differences, the relief concepts discussed between 1953 and 1956-57 were oriented toward models from prewar society, and revived conflicts that had in some cases already emerged at the turn of the century.’ To be sure, people were conscious that they were living on the threshold of a new era. The concepts of relief through half-day employment, however, represented both traditionalist and unrealistic coping strategies.”® They assigned women a societal place defined as German, one conceptualized in West Berlin and directed at the communist East, but from 1954 on, in light of full employment in West Germany, increasingly in conflict with developments in the West.”?

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Part-Time Work and “Woman’s New Awareness of Life” To be sure, public debates in West Germany in the 1950s were dominated by the relief concept, which deemed women’s employment to be exclusively an economic necessity, an encumbrance from the past or a future burden. Nevertheless,

some scattered but prominent figures expressed less skepticism about the socalled American or Western position than the representatives of women’s organizations or trade unions. One prominent exception, the abovementioned Cologne professor of social policy, Gerhard Weisser, supported such a position, with which he had prefaced his 1954 report on part-time work for the labor ministry.

In the preface to this study, the respected SPD policy theorist provided the material for a new social model in which married women’s employment was conceptualized independent of labor market policy constraints and the necessity of earning a supplementary income. Weisser believed that an “unmistakable transformation in woman's awareness of life” was becoming evident. This “new awareness of life’'°° was a product of greater female self-confidence, and led to women feeling the need for more independence from their husbands and a “closer connection with social life outside the family.” Having less work to do in the household made many women feel empty, which “also pointed the way outside.” This resulted in married women’s personal need for work outside the home, which was already being expressed in a rising employment rate. This new attitude was structurally closely intertwined with the development of the highly advanced Western economies, with their strong division of labor. The report firmly rejected the idea that in contrast to its Western European neighbors and America, paid employment in Germany should become “detrimental to women’s mental attitude” as soon as they had a household to run. Most married women with their own households welcomed additional income.!®!

These reflections on the employment of married women and mothers were strikingly compatible with the government's mobilization intentions. It would be shortsighted, however, to reduce them to mere instrumentalization in the service of labor market policy. In his attempts to explain the dynamic growth of female employment rates, Weisser oriented himself toward well-known middle-class models of the prewar period. He also criticized the West German “penchant for materialism and individualism” and lamented that women did not more often seek to satisfy their need for contact and social recognition outside the home by doing volunteer work. In his opinion, however, one of the reasons for the increase

in paid employment among women was that “nations with highly advanced economies characterized by a division of labor” had become accustomed to the notion that a “creative expression of the personality” was possible only within gainful employment (a profession). Whether this trend would ultimately become

the norm in the Federal Republic would only be clear once households had caught up materially. Since, however, differences in the distribution of wealth remained despite the economic upswing, and particularly in West Germany altered consumer behavior determined the tendency “to adapt to the consumer

Paid Employment for Married Women? | 31

habits of the upper class,”'°? among women, too, “the search for new sources of income” would persist for the time being.'” With his point of view, Weisser departed from the coordinates laid out by the womens movement, unions, parties, and churches, in which paid employment and part-time work for women were acceptable and conceivable only in cases of economic necessity. By orienting himself toward Western models of married women's employment, he could apparently take up the lines of tradition from socialist theories of emancipation, which connoted women’s paid employment positively. To be sure, what he formulated here was a sort of liberal socialist version of a model for working wives compatible with the values of West German middle-class society.!°4 In deriving women’s need to work from their “new awareness of life,” he also picked up on specifically West German societal postwar needs for reconstruction, which rendered superfluous the comparative and distancing gaze at gender politics in the unpopular East German twin state. The Weisser Report was completed in 1954-55 and was made available to a few desk officers in the federal labor ministry and the labor administration in

1955. At the end of that year the findings of the study were presented in the Bundesarbeitsblatt.’ Although the study was never published in its entirety, the thesis of women’s “new awareness of life” introduced important new impulses into the debate. The report was also known to some participants in the Munich conference organized by the Women Voters.'°° The thesis was incorporated into the relief concepts only hesitantly, and to the extent that it did not endanger the principle of relief. Nevertheless, a number of women were already arguing that “both material necessity and today’s womans desire to work outside the home” were facts to be reckoned with.'°” The emphasis on womens desire for work extricated explanations for the increase

in female employment from the web of diverse necessities. It was in this altered view of married women’s and mothers’ employment motivations that the actual revolution and dynamism of the West German debate on part-time work lay. The assumption that women could go out to work for reasons other than sheer hardship transformed the exhausted victims of an overpowering development awaiting a social policy solution into agents in their own right. By actively deciding to follow the call of an expanding economy, women became a sort of unpredictable unknown variable for the continuation of the established gender order. In an era of economic. expansion, women’s desire to work could become a key motor of profound social changes, which demanded wholly new political coping strategies. In this context, the question of why exactly married women and mothers were increasingly going out to work assumed central significance for society as a whole. Concern about the possible effects of women’s “new awareness of life” on the gender order in West Germany is reflected on the most various levels of the public debate over married women’s employment and/or part-time work. As the former demographer Elisabeth Pfeil remarked in retrospect in her extensive 1961 study of mothers employment, the subject was simply “in the air” at the end of 1955.'°8 Even before the new year began she was commissioned by the German

32 | The Pleasure of a Surplus Income

Research Council to investigate employed mothers’ motives for going to work. Typically enough, the focus of interest here, in contrast to all previous studies, was not on a ‘social policy” analysis of a problem group of women who “needed to work.” With explicit reference to the secular trend highlighted by Weisser, Pfeil made one of the “basic groups in society,” married working women with children, the subject of her research. Using a model of the formation and alteration of women’s employment motives, she wanted to analyze “the changes in the normal family that accompany the increased occupational activity of mothers.”'” Pfeil’s extremely interesting study is only the best known among a number of similarly motivated research projects undertaken at the time.'" The first doctoral theses devoted exclusively to part-time work appeared in the late 1950s.''' Particularly instructive in this context are the “psychological” observations in Manfred Riewe’s dissertation in business administration, which was completed in the autumn of 1958. Riewe owed his information to an extensive correspondence, numerous interviews in government offices and workplaces, and a careful analysis of the newspapers, and he expressed male fears of the consequences of women’s “new awareness of life” with surprising candor. He regarded

the “streaming of women into the occupational world of men” as “one of the great transformations’ of the century. To what extent this destabilized the gender order would depend solely on women. For the time being, all evidence seemed to indicate that “woman is emerging from the specifically female sphere of influence. How far she will go in this it is impossible to say at present.”!'? The fear that women might become defeminized in the process influenced the ideas of many women and men in both German states. Riewe also felt certain that the increasing employment of women would demystify the world for men in several respects: first, the author feared a demythologization of a masculine working world, which would now be deprived of its aura once and for all and be revealed in all its grinding routine.''* In addition, men saw themselves threatened in their traditional position as head of household, which had been defined by their powerful function as breadwinners and protectors. It was men’s right to complain that “relativizing sexual differences” would make life “colder and less comfortable.” “If life loses its charm in this respect,” Riewe claimed, “this applies

largely to men, who fear for their own happiness.” If, however—and here he invokes Simone de Beauvoir—the “miracle” of a gender order that guarantees the working man a woman untouched by the world can be gained only at the expense of her “unhappiness,” this was a sacrifice that had to be made.'!4 We should not overestimate the importance of Riewe’s dissertation. Nevertheless, there is ample evidence from other texts of the period that the discovery of married women as actors with personal needs and scopes of action aroused complex fears and a consciousness of the relativity and fundamental mutability of the gender order. The research of the anthropologist Margaret Mead, for example, sold extremely well in paperback. She had spent several years with various tribes

in the South Seas studying the division of social roles in household tasks and childcare.''? Her findings that the gender-specific division of labor represented a

Paid Employment for Married Women? | 33

social construct fascinated and exercised the minds of the West German reading public to a high degree. In 1956, “everybody” was talking about her book.!!° The war had biologically shaken up the gender order, and now far more profound “sociological” changes loomed. Much of this new epoch was still a long way off in West Germany until the end of the 1950s. Nevertheless, one already finds hints of an impending change in the assessment of paid employment and housework for women in the press between 1953 and 1956. Two articles in the women’s magazine Constanze, the classic periodical for white-collar workers in the Federal Republic, make this clear.'!” The writer Walther von Hollander was a regular columnist in the magazine. He was considered a great friend of women and an educator, gave advice on life and marriage in the magazine, and was known to a broad public for his radio broadcasts and books.'!® A “real Hollander,” teased Constanze, provoked people and regularly earned the magazine hundreds of letters from readers. The celebrated and controversial author was a committed proponent of the idea of companionate marriage and associated this ideal with the working couple.'”” If women wanted to be and remain equal partners to their husbands, they must not

seek their sole fulfillment in the household, but should continue to work half days. It was not good for women to become obsessed with children and cooking to the neglect of other interests. The treadmill of domestic existence would dry them up, so that in the end (not without some justification) their husbands would leave them. Boredom was the true reason for the collapse of many marriages. “Endless numbers of new half-day jobs” would offer an escape from this dilemma. As controversial as this view was in 1953, in its positive assessment of paid employment it fit well with the model of women’s “new awareness of life.” As readers reactions show, Hollander’s remarks “deeply insulted the honor” of the housewives of 1953.!7° “No Love for the Half-Day Woman” was the title of the letters page in the next issue of Constanze.'*'! It had apparently taken two

full working days to look through the letters from outraged women readers. The rejection of an ideal woman who voluntarily combined employment and family was unanimous. “Do you really believe,” a secretary asked, “that office dust doesn't dry out a woman at least as much as household routine? | am convinced: if you asked the majority of housewives who are forced to go out to work, they would tell you they would rather scrub vegetables in their own homes for themselves than pick up the morning milk from the grocer’s for office manager Mutzelmann!”'*? At the end of 1956, the magazine devoted its first long leading article to part-time work.'*? This was accompanied by an exchange of views between Hollander and his colleague Martha Gehrke about women’s contributions to the family income under the rubric “A Conversation between a Man and a Woman.” Hollander’s positions were as radical as they had been in 1953. No woman could attain independence in marriage if the man earned all the money. Work did not only strain and exhaust women, it also stimulated them. After all, work was “not simply a burden, but in many cases also a pleasure, it could be fun

and stimulating, and at times a bit more pleasant than scrubbing pots ... and

34 | The Pleasure of a Surplus Income

forever darning those children’s socks which it would be better to buy new from the woman's earnings.” !*4

This time, this “modern” employment model of part-time work, with its orientation toward companionate marriage and consumerism, elicited no vehement protest. Instead, Hollanderss adversary Gehrke noted that young women in particular had “undergone a substantial inner transformation.” “Whether we find it regrettable or welcome, harmful or useful,” she continued, “the woman of today no longer finds 100 percent fulfillment in her family and its attendant joys.” Paid employment had become an integral part of her purpose in life, and working half days made it possible to maintain her ties to occupational life.!7° The reader survey instigated by the magazine was never published. Some women must have replied, but a more pressing topic displaced the issue of parttime work. Ironically, the following issues of Constanze were devoted exclusively to self-assured and aggressive criticism of family minister Wiirmeling, who had asserted that in eight out of ten cases, it was married women’s employment that was responsible for the failure of their marriages.'?° Having their own money, as well as the independence and consumer orientation of working women, was also the first step toward affairs, infidelity, and separation, a lawyer friend of the minister had explained during a night out with the boys. Constanze was not the only forum for outraged rejections of these assertions.'?” The magazine revealed with particular clarity, however, that women were self-confidently insisting on the economic necessity of their work, and on the right to seek fulfillment in their occupations and to live a more comfortable life based on their supplementary income. National newspapers and magazines also took up the subject of part-time

work from this perspective.'** To be sure, there was not yet much to report from West Germany. The situation in Sweden, England, and the United States, however, provided ample occasion to keep alive in West Germany a model for wives that Gerhard Weisser had dubbed “woman’s new awareness of life,” even if it could not yet be tested for lack of part-time jobs. A report from the Rhineland newspaper WAZ provides a particularly vivid example of this type of anticipation. In England, the newspapers correspondent there reported in 1956 that married womens supplementary earnings were used to purchase the little things that make life more pleasant. This extra income also had a fundamentally different meaning for women: “Money is not the only and in many cases not the decisive reason why women are trading their traditional workplaces in the kitchen for ones in a factory or office. What we see here is, rather, a revolt against the monotony of housework and isolation in ones own four walls. Radio and television, which bring “the outside world” into womens homes, are no longer enough: they want to go out into the world themselves, develop new interests, meet new people, and take an active part in life.”!”?

In 1957, the exchange of words unleashed four years before by labor force planners and industry came to an initial conclusion. The arguments and positions largely remained within traditional coordinates, whose points of reference and key terms are familiar from the first half of the twentieth century. The liberal

Paid Employment for Married Women? | 35

womens organizations were successful in convincing the public that the question “Part-time work, for whom and where?” must be about creating a social policy concept to relieve the burdens of married women rather than creating a new labor force. Women trade unionists were reluctant participants here, but they overcame substantial reservations in order to protect their clientele of full-time workers from anticipated disadvantages. According to labor administration surveys, the introduction of part-time work also appeared unrealistic because few women could afford to work shorter hours. Nonetheless, the debates began to gather steam as early as 1954-55. Henceforth, discussions about married women’s work occurred less in the context of anti-Communist and anti-employment rhetoric, and shifted to the subject of Western employment models. Scattered but important personalities championed part-time work and discovered indications that the “revolution in the awareness of life” had already begun among West German women. ‘The new pleasure of a supplementary income was increasingly being echoed in the press.

Notes

13 (1944): 132-35. |

1. Gabriele Witting, “Die Halbtagsbeschaftigung der Frauen,” Monatshefte ftir NS-Sozialpolitik 10, no. 7/8 (1943): 90-91; Zellmer, “Halbragsbeschaftigung von Frauen,” RABL 5, no.

2. On this, see Christine von Oertzen, “What Difference Does the War Make? Part-Time Employment and Social Change in Germany, Great Britain, and the United States,” in Cycles

of Change: Reconstruction, Gender, and Public Life in Western Europe after the Two World Wars,

ed. Margaret Higonnet and Laura L. Frader (Cambridge, MA, forthcoming). On England, see also Penny Summerfield, Reconstructing Womens Wartime Lives: Discourse and Subjectivity in Oral Histories of the Second World War (Manchester, 1998).

3. Precise figures are available only for certain companies or cities. Bosch as well as Bahlsen in Hanover created half-day or part-time positions when full-time forced laborers were transferred to industries deemed more central to the war effort. See, for example, Bahlsen’s company report for 1943, Bahlsen-Archiv, Akte Vorstands- und Jahresberichte 1948-1968. In Hamburg

in 1943, one-half of the women mobilized through the wartime labor service system worked half days. Birte Kundrus and Astrid Schulte-Zweckel, “Versorgungslage und Frauenarbeitseinsatz in Hamburg, 1939-1943,” 19996, no. 4 (1991): 60. 4. See, e.g., the personnel and social service report of Robert Bosch GmbH for 1945-46, S. 1, RBA, UB-Ablage. At the end of the war Siemens, in Munich, too, dismissed 538 “half-day women, among others. Cf. the annual report of the Siemens company for 1945-46, SiemensArchiv, SAA 15/Li 81.

5. Elizabeth Heineman, “Complete Families, Half Families, No Families at All: FemaleHeaded Households and the Reconstruction of the Family in the Early Federal Republic,” CEH 29, no. 1 (1996): 19-60, and “The Hour of the Woman: Memories of Germany’s ‘Crisis

Years’ and West German National Identity,” AHR 101, no. 2 (1996): 354-95; Robert G. Moeller, Protecting Motherhood: Women and the Family in the Politics of Postwar West Germany

(Berkeley, 1993); see also Sibylle Meyer and Eva Schulze, Wie wir das alles geschafft haben. Alleinstehende Frauen berichten tiber ihr Leben nach 1945 (Munich, 1984), and Von Liebe sprach damals keiner. Familienalltag in der Nachkriegszeit (Munich, 1985).

36 | The Pleasure of a Surplus Income

6. For examples, see Klaus-J6rg Ruhl, “Frauenerwerbsarbeit und Gewerbeaufsicht in NordrheinWestfalen, 1945-1950,” VSWG 79 (1992): 483-505; Moeller, Protecting Motherhood, 23-25; Christine von Oertzen and Almut Rietzschel, “Alrer Wein in neuen Schlauchen. Geschlechterpolitik und Frauenerwerbsarbeit im beserzten Deutschland zwischen Kriegsende und Wahrungsreform,” Ariadne. Almanach des Archivs der Deutschen Frauenbewegung 27 (May 1995): 28-35.

7. Maria Tritz expressed this view in her programmatic essay “Zeitbedingte Aufgaben des Fraueneinsatzes,” ArOBIBritZ 1, no. 3 (1947): 90-92.

8. On the victim discourse in West Germany, see Heineman, “Hour of the Woman”; Frank Biess, “Survivors of Totalitarianism: Returning POWs and the Reconstruction of Masculine Citizenship in West Germany, 1945-1955,” in The Miracle Years: A Cultural History of West Germany,

1949-1968, ed. Hanna Schissler (Princeton, 2000), 57-82; Robert G. Moeller, “Remembering a War in a Nation of Victims: West German Pasts in the 1950s,” in Miracle Years, 83-109.

9. For a detailed analysis of this process, see the German version of this book, Veilzeitarbeit und die Lust am Zuverdienen: Geschlechterpolitik und gesellschaftlicher Wandel in Westdeutschland

1948-1969 (Gottingen, 1999), 31-54. 10. See also Hanna Schissler, “Normalization as Project: Some Thoughts on Gender Relations in West Germany During the 1950s,” in her Miracle Years, 359-75. 11. See above all the work of Heineman and Moeller; see also, more recently, Sybille Buske, “Fraulein Mutter vor dem Richterstuhl. Der Wandel der 6ffentlichen Wahrnehmung und rechtlichen Srellung lediger Miitter in der Bundesrepublik 1948 bis 1970,” WerkstattGeschichte 9 (2001); Carola Sachse, Der Hausarbeitstag. Gerechtigkeit und Gleichberechtigung in Ost- und

West, 1939-1993 (Gottingen, 2002).

12. On rearmament in the Federal Republic, see Wiederbewaffnung. Die Entscheidung fiir einen westdeutschen Verteidigungsbeitrag. Adenauer und die Westmdachte, 1950 (Erlangen and Bonn, 1989); and Andrew James Birtle, Rearming the Phoenix: E.S. Military Assistance to the Federal Republic of Germany, 1950-1960 (New York, 1991). See also Michael Geyer, “Cold War Angst: The Case of West German Opposition to Rearmament and Nuclear Weapons,” in Schissler, ed., Miracle Years, 376-408.

13. “Bevélkerungssubstanz, Arbeitsmarkt- und Arbeitskraftebedarf in der Bundesrepublik.” Confidential circular of 10 August 1953 from the BMA to the federal ministries, trade unions, and trade associations, and “Ermittlung des Bedarfs und der Verftigbarkeit an Arbeitskraften,” confidential reply of 19 November 1953 from the BDI, both in BAK, B 149/657.

14. Anneliese Fuest et al., “Mdglichkeit und Zweckmafigkeit der Einrichtung von Teilzeitarbeit flir Frauen in verschiedenen Berufen. Gutachten des Forschungsinstituts ftir Sozial- und Verwaltungswissenschaften der Universtitat Kéln,” with a foreword by Gerhard Weisser. MS Cologne, 1954 (1956). A mimeographed manuscript version was produced in 1956-57. 15. For biographical information on Weisser, see Sozialwissenschaft und Gesellschaftsgestaltung. Festschrift fir Gerhard Weisser, ed. Friedrich Kallenberg and Hans Albert (Berlin, 1963); and Kiirschners Deutscher Gelehrtenkalender (Berlin, 1966), 2653f.

16. In 1955, disputes broke out over the various government departments’ contradictory “courtship’of women on the issue of married couples’ taxation. On this, see Oertzen, Teilzeitarbeit und die Lust am Zuverdienen, chap. 2.3.1.

17. Forschungsinstitut ftir Sozial- und Verwaltungswissenschaften, University of Cologne, questionnaire for employees, undated (1953), DGB-Archiv, 24.11, Abt. Frauen, 24/4204. 18. Excerpt from the minutes of the meeting of the DGB’s National Women’s Committee (Bundesfrauenausschuss) held on 8 and 9 October 1953 in Munich, in ibid. The first official trade union comment on part-time work can be found in the business report of the DGB's department of women’s affairs (HA Frauen) of 1954-55, Geschdftsbericht der HA Frauen im Bundesvorstand der Deutschen Gewerkschaftsbundes, 1954—55, Diisseldorf, n.d. (1955), 29-30. 19. “Mutterkreuzjahrgang,” Der Spiegel, 14 April 1954, 14-15. 20. Only a week later, several newspapers used the Spiegel article as an opportunity to reflect on the difficulties of “mobilizing” women and on half-day employment: “If business needs

Paid Employment for Married Women? | 37

them, it must adapt to these circumstances, that means creating more half-day positions ... more nursery schools and meals for school-aged children.” WAZ, 20 April 1955, “Arbeitseinsatz von Frauen stot auf Schwierigkeiten,” ASD, ZASS I, P.

21. Letter of 19 October 1955 from the Norddeutscher Spinn- und Webstoff-Handelsgesellschaft Deiters to the BMA, BAK, B 149/658.

22. “Industrieinstitut: Frauenarbeit nimmt zu,” press release of 17 November 1954, DGBArchiv, 24.11, Abr. Frauen, 24/4204.

23. Methodologically, the institute oriented itself toward a US Department of Labor study of women’s part-time employment during peacetime in ten large American cities. Cf. Opal Gooden, Part-Time Jobs for Women: A Study in 10 Cities (Washington, DC, 1951). 24. Fuest, “Moglichkeit und Zweckmafsigkeit,” 29. On what follows, see also 27-37. 25. The findings were published in abbreviated form in Klare Pohl, “Die Teilzeitarbeit der Frauen,” BArb Bl. 1955, no. 20, 900-903. When the manuscript was passed on to the labor administration in 1957, the accompanying letter noted that “the opinions expressed therein cannot be accepted in all respects.” BMA to the BAVAV, 2 September 1957, BAK, B 118/1058, 3-5.

26. Tritz, note of 13 January 1955 concerning labor force planning, BMA, BAK, B 149/657.

27. BMA to the labor ministers of the federal states, 29 August 1951, concerning the special survey on the diminished employability of long-term unemployed female benefit recipients, BAK, B 149/1387. 28. By September 1955, many of the public employment offices were already remarking upon the “frequent treatment of the subject in the press.” AA Cologne to LAA NW, 19 September 1955, HStANW, LAA NW; no. 240 I, 287 RS. 29. This will be dealt with in more detail in the next section. Another conference on the subject was organized by the “Working Group on the Social Organization of the Workplace” of the “German Business Rationalization Board” (RKW) held on 8 and 9 November 1955 in Heidelberg. It is referred to in Manfred Riewe’s letter to the BAVAV concerning part-time employment, 5 April 1957, BAK, B 119/1047.

30. Schnellbrief-Runderlaff (express circular order) of 12 August 1955 from the BAVAV to the presidents of the regional employment offices, concerning women’s employment, here on positions with reduced working hours, HStANW, LAA NW, no. 240 II, 354.

31. BAVAV order of 19 August 1955 to the regional employment offices of Baden-Wirttemberg, Hesse, Lower Saxony, North Rhine-Westphalia, and Northern Bavaria concerning the readiness of female jobseekers to work, HStANW, LAA NW, no. 240 II, 367, 368.

32. Thus, in this survey, the labor administration also wanted to find out which women were drawing unemployment benefits wrongfully because they were unwilling to accept a full-time placement. Cf. BAVAV order of 19 August 1955 to the regional employment offices, HStANW, LAA NW, no. 240 II, 368. 33. “Feststellung zu der Frage der Teilzeitarbeit der Frauen,” report of 21 September 1955 from the LAA NW to the BAVAV, HStANW, LAA NW, no. 240 II, 372-76. There are similar results for Lower Saxony and Bremen, “Feststellung” of 30 August, 1 September, and 7 Sep-tember 1955, in NdsHStA, Nds. 1310, Acc. 53/72, no. 24. 34. Report of 21 September 1955 from the LAA NW to the BAVAV; report of 16 September 1955 from the AA Bielefeld, both in HSTANW, LAA NW, no. 240 IJ, 372, 381, and 181 RS. 35. Report of 21 September 1955 from the LAA NW, ibid., 374. 36. Report of 16 September 1955 from the AA Bielefeld, ibid., 381 and 181 RS. 37. Rejection of an internal recommendation on “administrative simplification,” here advertising for part-time employment, 17 November 1955, BAK, B 119/1046, 6/7. 38. Report of 17 September 1955 from the AA Velbert, HSLANW, LAA NW, no. 240 H, 392. 39. Pohl, “Teilzeitarbeit,” 900; report from AA Heilbronn to the LAA BaWi, 3 September 1955, StALu, K 318, Bi. 5103 B; LAA Nordbayern, 10 February 1956, which states: “Above all among the women not registered with the Employment Ofhce, there appears everywhere to be a certain interest in PT,” BAK, B 119/1047. Beginning in late 1957, however, the temporary

38 | The Pleasure of a Surplus Income

employment services in the larger cities noted a lively upswing in placements. They were now “reaching a completely new group of persons (wives wanting temporarily to earn a supplementary income and the like).” Temporary placement was restricted exclusively to cleaning occupations. Meeting of the heads of women’s placement in the large Employment Offices, 20 February 1958, HStANW, LAA NW, no. 240 I, 227.

40. BAVAV, Referat Frauenvermittlung to the BMA, 27 August 1957, concerning women’s part-time employment, BAK, B 119/1048. 41. BMW, BMA, “Gemeinsame Vorlage tiber die derzeitige Arbeitsmarktlage und die Mafsnahmen zur Sicherstellung des notwendigen Kraftebedarfs in der Wirtschaft,” 26 March 1956, presentation for the BT, draft, BAK, B 149/656.

42. Helmut Schelsky, “Der Irrtum des Familienministers,” in his Wandlungen der deutschen Familie in der Gegenwart. Darstellung und Deutung einer empirisch-soziologischen Tatbestandsauf-

nahme (Stuttgart, 1955), appendix 2, 376-93, here 377. 43. BMW, BMA, “Gemeinsame Vorlage tiber die derzeitige Arbeitsmarktlage,” 12. 44. UN Economic and Social Council, Commission on the Status of Women, 7th Session, Part-

Time Employment. Preliminary Report, prepared by the International Labour Office, 12 February 1953, ILO E/CN.G6/222. The report was based on surveys from Australia, Belgium, Canada, Chile, Denmark, France, England, India, the Netherlands, Norway, Switzerland, and

the United States.

45. Edith Hinze, “Halbtagsarbeit?” Die Welr der Frau, June 1954, 4-5. 46. “Part-Time Jobs for Women,” US Department of Labor, Women’s Bureau, Bulletin 238, 1951; see also E. Muntz, “Women’s Changing Role in the United States Employment Market,” International Labour Review 74 (1956): 415~36; for England, see Mary Smieton, “Problems of Women’s Employment in Great Britain,” /nternational Labour Review 69 (1954): 47-59. According to the Industrial Welfare Society in London, in 1951, 750,000 women, i.e., 11.1 percent of all employed women, worked fewer than 30 hours per week. Cited in /nformationen ftir die Frau 4, no. 12 (1955): 9. 47. Hinze, “Halbtagsarbeit?” 4. 48. Ibid., 5.

49. The number of women employed in industry rose 71.1 percent between 1950 and 1954 in West Germany, and in West Berlin 138.5 percent during the same period. Edith Hinze, Lage und Leistung erwerbstdtiger Miitter. Ergebnisse einer Untersuchung in West-Berlin (Berlin

and Cologne, 1960), 292. 50. On the politics of the DFD in Berlin, see Rita Pawlowski, “Der Demokratische Frauenbund Deutschlands (DFD),” in Frauenpolitik und politisches Wirken von Frauen in Berlin der Nachkriegszeit, 1945-1949, ed. Renate Genth et al. (Berlin, 1996), 75-102.

51. Ingrid Schmidt-Harzbach and Irene Stoehr, “Friedenspolitik und Kalter Krieg, Frauenverbande im Ost-West-Konflikt,” in Genth et al., Frauenpolitik, 229-52.

52. Edith Hinze, “Zur Frage der Halbtagsarbeit ftir Frauen,” Die Frau in Beruf und Staat. Nachrichten aus der Frauenarbeit 3, no. 1/2 (1953): 2. 53. In this point, the concept of relief was based largely on the work of the sociologist Gerhard Mackenroth; speaking from an “ethical” perspective, Mackenroth called upon the state “to begin by creating half-day positions for wives on a large scale.” Mackenroth, Bevélkerungslehre (Berlin, 1952), 365. On Mackenroth’s approach to family policy, see also Moeller, Protecting Motherhood, 120-22.

54. Hinze, “Zur Frage der Halbtagsarbeir,” 2. 55. Hinze, Lage und Leistung, 293n126. If one compares the study with others on mothers’ employment that appeared in 1960, one gains the impression that the analysis, with its emphasis on the consequences of the war, was already old-fashioned at the time. 56. Interest was not limited to the Working Group of Women Voters (AdW) in Bavaria. The Hamburg chapter of the German Women’s Ring asked the BAVAV for material on half-day employment in order to prepare a resolution on the subject of “half-day work for older female white-collar employees.” Hamburger Frauenring e.V. to the BAVAV, | February 1955, BAK, B 119/1044.

Paid Employment for Married Women? | 39

57. “Halbtagsarbeit—Teilzeitarbeit—ftir Frauen,” results of a working conference organized by the AdW e.V. held on 27 and 28 September 1955 in Munich, ed. AdW Munich, MS, n.p. (Munich), October 1955, DZI, 13 349. 58. Ibid., discussion, 5. 59. Olga Amann, “Probleme der Teilzeitarbeit,” ibid., 6.

60. Ibid. 61. Ibid., see also Pohl, “Teilzeitarbeir,” 900.

62. “Halbtagsarbeit—Teilzeitarbeit—ftr Frauen,” 7; see also Amann, “Halbtagsarbeit ftir Frauen,” in Die Wirtschaft braucht die Frau, ed. Ruth Bergholtz (Darmstadt, 1956), 222-36.

63. Olga Amann, “Sie soll zwei Herren dienen ... Ein kritischer Beitrag zur Erwerbsarbeit der Miitter,” manuscript for a broadcast by Bavarian Radio on 23 May 1956, from 9:45 pM to 10:15 pm, DZI, 14683.

64. Similar arguments had already been used to oppose the employment of married women in factories at the end of the nineteenth century. See Gerda Tornieporth, Studien zur Frauen-

(Weinheim, 1979). |

bildung. Ein Beitrag zur historischen Analyse lebensweltlicher Bildungskonzeptionen, 2nd ed. 65. Amann, “Sie soll zwei Herren dienen,” 9.

66. “Umstrittene Halbtagsarbeit fir Frauen—zu einer Miinchener Tagung,” Schwabische Landeszeitung, 15 October 1955; “Nach dem Alter wird nicht mehr gefragt—Halbtagsarbeit— ein Wunsch von Frauen geht in Erftillung—Nur ein Notbehelf oder Dauerlésung?” Miinchner Merkur, 26 October 1955; “Frauen, Halbtags,” FAZ, 4 October 1955; “Die Frau, gewiinscht als Arbeitskraft. Die Zahl der weiblichen Arbeitnehmer nimmt rasch zu—Teilzeitarbeit wiinschen sich viele Frauen,” Suddeutsche Zeitung, 20 October 1955, all in ASD, ZASS I, P. 67. Frauenverband Hessen, “Antrag an ‘den Sozialausschuf$ und den Ausschufs fiir Arbeit des Deutschen Bundestages,” 29 November 1955, regarding social protection for part-time work, reproduced in /nformationen fur die Frau 5, no. 12 (1955): 9. 68. See, e.g., the final resolution of the German Welfare Conference (Deutscher Fiirsorgetag) held in September 1955: “In order to provide relief to working mothers, it also recommends

the creation of appropriate home or half-day work in order to permit mothers to reduce their [hours of] paid employment.” Quoted in “Halbtagsarbeit—Teilzeitarbeit—fir Frauen, 11. 69. “Wirmeling will Halbtagsarbeit fordern,” WAZ, 8 November 1955. Wirmeling told the magazine Constanze, “That is precisely why we engage in family policy, not least with the objective of removing any compulsion for our mothers to take employment outside the home, or at least of reducing it to half-day employment.” Constanze 9, no. 17 (1956): 38. 70. “Halbtagsarbeit—Teilzeitarbeit—ftr Frauen,” 15-16.

71. Ibid., 11. 72. Hilda Mohrmann of the LAA Northern Bavaria, in ibid., 17. 73. On the trade union position, see also Christine von Oertzen and Almut Rietzschel, “Das ‘Kuckucksei’ Teilzeitarbeit. Die Politik der Gewerkschaften im deutsch-deutschen Vergleich,” | in Frauen arbeiten. Weibliche Erwerbstatigkeit in Ost- und Westdeutschland nach 1945, ed.

Gunilla-Friederike Budde (Gottingen, 1997), 212-51. 74. “Halbtagsarbeit—Teilzeicarbeit—ftir Frauen,” 13.

75. Ibid. 76. Thus, the AdW (Working Group of Women Voters) did not even bother to invite women from the DGB to their first public discussion in Nuremberg. District Secretary Marker, who attended on her own initiative, reported that it had been clear “that the discussion would have been quite one-sided had we not been there, which also became evident later in a private conversation.” Letter from Erna Marker to Irmgard Hornig, 25 November 1954, report on the AdW conference in Nuremberg, DGB-Archiv, 24.11, Abt. Frauen, 24/4204.

77. Letter from Irmgard Hornig to Erna Marker, Landesbezirk Nordbayern, 6 November 1954, ibid.

40 | The Pleasure of a Surplus Income

78. Thea Harmuth to the regional executives of the DGB and the trade unions, and the National Women’s Committee of the DGB, 13 December 1954, ibid. 79. Ibid. 80. DGB department of women’s affairs (HA Frauen), 29 November 1954, ibid. 81. On the politics of Catholic organizations, see Klaus-Jérg Ruhl, “Familie und Beruf. Weibliche Erwerbstatigkeit und katholische Kirche in den 50er Jahren,” Aus Politik und Zeitgeschichte (23 April 1993): 30-38, and Verordnete Unterordnung. Berufstatige Frauen zwischen Wirtschafiswachstum und konservativer Ideologie in der Nachkriegszeit, 1945-1963 (Munich, 1994), 177-88. 82. Moeller, Protecting Motherhood, 219. 83. Efforts by the SPD were directed, among other things, at providing housewives with their own social insurance and guaranteeing equality for both partners in marriage. “Forderungen der SPD-Frauen,” report from the central National Women’s Conference of the SPD on 11 October 1955, ADS, ZASS PI.

84. SPD women’s program of 28 June 1957, in ASD, ZASS P, I. In 1955, Marta Schanzenbach had still extended this to all mothers of school-age children. “Die Frau und Mutter in der Gesellschafr. Aus dem Referat der Kollegin Marta Schanzenbach, MdB,” Finigkeit. Zentralorgan der Gewerkschaft NGG, no. 20, 15 October 1955, 299.

85. At the DGB’s third national women’s conference of 1959, a speech to this effect met with thunderous applause. See 3. BFK, 1959, 69. See also Moeller, Protecting Motherhood, 219-20; Sigrid Bachler et al., “Da haben wir uns alle schrecklich geirrt ...” Die Geschichte der gewerkschaftlichen Frauenarbeit im Deutschen Gewerkschaftsbund von 1945-1960, ed. DGB (Pfaffenweiler, 1993), 158-59.

86. That is also the position of Heinrich Heitbaum, “Teilzeitarbeit der Frauen,” Gewerkschaftliche Beitrige zur Erwerbsarbeit der Frauen—Teilzeitarbeit, expanded special issue of Wirtschaftswissenschaftliche Mitteilungen, nos. 8/9 and 10, ed. Wirtschaftswissenschaftliches Institut (WWI) der Gewerkschaften, 22—26, here 26.

87. BFA of the DGB, resolution on women’s part-time employment, 18 July 1956, DGBArchiv, 24.11, Abt. Frauen, 24/4204. 88. Maria Weber, DGB-BFA, to Kabermann, NGG-Krefeld, 15 August 1956, in ibid.

89. Minutes of a conference held by the DGB regional district of Lower Saxony in Springe, n.d. (early 1955), DGB-Archiv, 24.11, Abt. Frauen, 24/4204. 90. Ibid. 91. Ibid. See also Kate Sodan, of the IG Druck und Papier, to the DGB department of women's affairs, 23 May 1956, concerning the position on part-time employment for women, in ibid.

92. This was the reaction of trade union women to the news that the attempt to have parttime positions over 20 hours per week covered by unemployment insurance had failed. Report of the BFA meeting held on 7-8 September 1956 in Diisseldorf, ibid. 93. Minutes of the conference in Springe, in ibid. 94. “Verktirzte Arbeitszeit ftir Miitter? Staatsregierung soll Méglichkeit der Schaffung von TZ-Arbeitsplatzen prtifen,” excerpt from Bayerische Landtagsdienst, no. 130, 14 March 1957, in ibid. 95. Ibid. 96. Hinze, Lage und Leistung, 294. 97. The first dispute berween middle-class social reformers and the women’s movement on the one hand, and the SPD and the independent trade unions on the other, erupted as early as 1906, when Friedrich Naumann, writing in Neudeutsche Wirtschaftspolitik, recommended half-day work in the factory for mothers as a means of combating infant mortality. See the programmatic responses of the “moderate” Else Liiders and the “leftist” Clara Zinzen-Ernst in “Halbtagsarbeit?” Die Frauenbewegung 12, no. 16 (1906): 121-22 and no. 19 (1906): 148-49. 98. In an article published in the Rheinische Merkur newspaper on 22 November 1957, the jour-

nalist Hanne Huber came to the sobering conclusion that “where part-time work is most

Paid Employment for Married Women? | 41

urgently needed, that is, in one-parent families (Halbfamilien), it is least possible, and where women would be well served by a small income from part-time work because of their husbands’ earnings, it is deemed undesirable. It is generally only deemed desirable in the case of older women in poor health, or retired women, who would like to supplement their pensions, but not so much that they must accept deductions.... And thus there is little response to the calls for part-time workers in many branches of the economy.” 99. In connection with the debates on the Maternity Protection Act, Moeller speaks of a “resumption of prewar trends” and notes a similarly “German” positioning: women’s place should ensure that the Germans were “neither fascist, nor communist, but not even Americans: mothers must defend against the danger of a mass consumption society.” Protecting Motherhood, 216-17. 100. Weisser also used the term when referring to the emancipation of the working class. In the course of the century, it had “developed from an apathetic proletariat into a self-confident social group with its own marked awareness of life.” Gerhard Weisser, “Verteilungspolitik,” Gewerkschaftliche Monatshefte 4, no. 4 (1953): 733-37, 736. 101. Fuest, “Méglichkeit und Zweckmafigkeir,” 28. 102. Ibid., ii, 25-26. 103. This argument was chiefly directed against Ehrhardt’s election slogan that a successful economic policy was the best social policy. The size of the pie could very well cause the struggle for pieces to become all the more bitter. See Oswald v. Nell-Breuning, “Sozialpolitik als integraler Bestandteil der allgemeinen Politik,” in Kallenberg and Albert, Sozialwissenschaft und Gesellschaftsgestaltung (Berlin, 1963), 327-40.

104. On the wider context of basic Social Democratic positions between the market economy and socialism, see Helga Grebing, “Der Sozialismus,” in Modernisierung im Wiederaufbau. Die westdeutsche Gesellschaft der 50er Jahre, ed. Axel Schildt and Arnold Sywottek (Bonn, 1993),

646-58. 105. Pohl, “Teilzeitarbeic.”

106. “Halbtagsarbeit—Teilzeitarbeit—fir Frauen,” 7. | 107. Ibid., discussion, 5. 108. Elisabeth Pfeil, Die Berufstatigkeit von Muiittern. Eine empirische Erhebung an 900 Miittern aus vollstindigen Familien (Tibingen, 1961), ix. 109. Ibid., vii. 110. See, in particular, A. Hedwig Hermann, Die Erwerbstatigkeit verheirateter Frauen (Stuttgart, 1957); Anton Christian Hofmann and Dietrich Kersten, Frauen zwischen Familie und Fabrik (Munich, 1958); and Henning Dunckelmann, Die erwerbstdatige Ehefrau im Spannungsfeld von Beruf und Konsum (Tiibingen, 1962). 111. Manfred Riewe, “Die Problematik der Teilzeitarbeit,” PhD diss., University of Mannheim, 1958; Maren Moll, “Die Teilzeitarbeit. Ein Lésungsversuch der Schwierigkeiten der aufserhauslich erwerbstatigen Frau mit Kindern. Forschungen und Probleme,” PhD diss., University of Cologne, 1960; and Francesca Schinzinger, “Die Auswirkungen der Arbeitszeitverkiirzung auf die Erwerbstatigkeit der Frau,” PhD diss., University of Mainz, 1960. 112. Riewe, “Problematik der Teilzeitarbeit,” 18. Schinzinger takes a somewhat more relaxed approach: “[O]ne motive deserves ... special attention: the need for personal and financial independence, which young women in particular acquired through employment before marriage, and which causes them to seek a position whose requirements can be reconciled with their family duties.” “Auswirkungen der Arbeitszeitverkiirzung,” 74. 113. Riewe, 65-66, citing Otto Kremer, Uber den Segen der Mufse (Berlin, 1953), 139. 114. Riewe, 46.

115. In her study, Mead expressly pointed out that the model of the bourgeois family by no means rested on natural laws, but rather corresponded to an ideology which postulated that “bearing children is enough for the women, and in the rest of the task all the elaborations belong to men.” Margaret Mead, Male and Female: A Study of the Sexes in a Changing World (New York, 1949), 381.

42 | The Pleasure of a Surplus Income

116. In 1958 the book, already a classic, was published as part of the much-read paperback series of Rowohlt’s German Encyclopedia, which was subtitled The Knowledge of the Twentieth Century in Pocketbooks with Encyclopedic Keywords.

117. Constanze was first published in 1948 by the Hamburg publishing house of John Jahr and, with a print run of some 600,000 dominated the women’s magazine market in the 1950s and 1960s, until 1969 when it became Brigitte, which is still published today. It appeared twice monthly until 1961, when it became a weekly. In 1956, a single copy was read on average by an estimated 8.6 persons. Thus, each issue reached an audience of over five million, about one-third of them men. Most readers, it was assumed, were younger women and middle-class former white-collar employees. See Gabriele Kienzl, “Frauenerwerbstatigkeit im Spiegel einer deutschen Frauenzeitschrift: Die ‘Constanze’ 1950-1965,” MA thesis, Freie Universitat Berlin, 1993, 6-9; and Silvia Lott, Die Frauenzeitschriften von Hans Huffsky und John Jahr. Zur Geschichte der Deutschen Frauenzeitschrift zwischen 1933 und 1970 (Berlin, 1985).

118. Hollander, born in 1892, belonged in the 1920s to the “Group 25” around Brecht, Déblin, and Kisch. He discovered the lifestyle theme in the early 1930s and during the Nazi period also published articles on bodily experience, exercise, and breathing techniques, marriage and sex education. In 1948 he continued his work in Constanze, and a short time later also in the magazine Hor zu in the advice column “Ask Frau Irene.” See Lu Seegers, “Fragen Sie Frau Irene. Die Rundfunk- und Familienzeitschrift ‘H6ér zu’ als Ratgeberin bei Geschlechterproblemen der fiinfziger Jahre, WG no. 21 (1998): 95-107, and Lu Seegers, Hor zu! Eduard Rhein und die Rundfunkprogrammeeitschrift, 1931-1965 (Potsdam, 2001), 56-63.

119. Walther v. Hollander, “Von Liebe sprach keiner. Gedanken tiber eine Ehe-Diskussion,” Constanze 6, no. 2 (1953): 18, 20, 22. Hollander had already propagated the ideal of a companionate marriage of working partners in the 1920s. Hollander, “Autonomie der Frau,” cited in Seegers, Hor zu! 62-64. 120. “Keine Liebe zur Halbtagsfrau!,” letters to the editor, Constanze 6, no. 3 (1953): 34. 121. Ibid. 122. “Lieber Gemiise putzen,” Constanze 6, no. 3 (1953): 34-35. 123. “Die Frauen werden knapp,” Constanze 9, no. 11 (1956): 19, 92, 93. 124. Hollander, “Die Frau verdient mit,” Constanze 9, no. 11 (1956): 44. 125. Martha Gehrke, “Die Frau verdient mit,” ibid.

126. “Minister Wiirmeling hat unrecht ...,” Constanze 9, no. 13 (1956): 24ff.; “Das Streitgesprich ... geht weiter,” Constanze 9, no. 17 (1956): 38 ff. 127. See, among others, “Briefduell mit Minister Wtirmeling,” Stiddeutsche Zeitung, 15 February 1956; “Wiirmeling und die Frauen im Beruf,” Deutsche Zeitung, 17 March 1956. 128. “Ein Problem vieler Staaten: Die erwerbstatigen Miitter,” Stiddeutsche Zeitung, 21 April 1956; “Aktuelle Erfahrungen mit der Teilzeitarbeit. Ein schwedisches Buch tiber interessante Untersuchungen,” Welt der Arbeit, 1956, no. 40; W. H. Edwards, “Come Back der verheirateten

Frau. Das Sozial-6konomische und arbeitsleidenschaftliche Motiv der berufstatigen Frauen,” Industriekurier 1956, no. 79, 10; Gabriele Bremme, “Frauen suchen Halbtagsarbeit. Entscheidung in der Rangordnung von Familie und Beruf. Neues Lebensgeftihl?” /ndustriekurier 1956, no. 79, 14; ““Gnadige Frau, wann wiinschen Sie zu arbeiten?—England hat ein neues System der Frauenarbeit entwickelt,” Mannheimer Morgen, 16 January 1957; “Berufstatige Mutter ohne schlechtes Gewissen. Probleme der Emanzipation in Schweden, FAZ, 9 November 1957. 129. “Mehr Frauen wollen arbeiten. In England sind es bereits 7 Millionen. Grote soziale Revolution aller Zeiren,” WAZ, 11 January 1956.

Chapter 2

CHANGING PUBLIC OPINION, 1959-1969

CO

The Economy Needs (Part-Time) Women On 10 September 1959, the BAVAV reported that its “most difficult task in the past, placing women jobseekers who ... are available only for part-time positions," had become easier.’ Companies were being forced to abandon their misgivings. Interest was also growing within the employers’ associations. In the winter of. 1959, the National Union of Employers’ Associations (BDA) spoke up, thereby injecting a new and decisive dynamism into the debate. It asked the BAVAV in Nuremberg whether it would be possible for the executive board, the most powerful self-administration body, to undertake a fundamental sounding out of interests on “the possibility and ... desirability” of part-time work.* On 25 May 1960, the topic was put on the agenda. The department for women’s placement prepared a report for the meeting that reviewed developments up until that point.’ It is impossible now to reconstruct whether the desk officers composed their report strategically to mediate on the highest level among employers, unions, and the state. The public debates had clearly left their mark on the department, since the report formulated the concept of part-time work as if it were possible. to satisfy the interests of all involved parties equally. At first glance, the report distinctly favored the relief model of part-time work proposed by women’s associations and trade unions, emphasizing that surely it had not yet developed into a genuine component of the labor market for a group of persons who appeared “overtaxed by full-time work.” A methodical investigation of the preconditions necessary for successful implementation on the ground would, however, pave the way for “systematic introduction and expansion.” The report then stressed that many companies were already practicing the relief concept by offering individual Notes for this chapter begin on page 64.

44 | The Pleasure of a Surplus Income

working-hour reductions to skilled employees of long standing in order to keep them from giving notice. The concluding assessment stated that part-time work had become a specific form of employment for women and could be “considered above all a contribution to solving the controversial problem of working mothers, who escaped in this way from the looming threat to their health caused by the double burden of family and job.” This verdict obscured the fact that, as the report stated at the end, “part-time work primarily promotes the employment of married women and mothers.” The apparent synthesis of standpoints constructed here masked the old contradictions between mobilization and relief. Essentially, it only documented the circumstance that the social political misgivings of the relief faction were taken seriously. Under these conditions, the executive board of the BAVAV, which consisted of equal numbers of employers and union representatives, was apparently able to

reach a consensus on the expansion of part-time work. The short minutes of the meeting’s conclusions at least suggest that this was the case.’ No reservations from the trade union side are recorded there. Instead, the document contains very specific steps for an efficient mobilization. Thus, “the problem of employing women part-time’ should be “subjected to a thorough investigation, since it is presumed

that this would provide important starting points for tapping the silent labor reserve.” In order to facilitate the adoption of this new employment form by firms

that had no previous experience with it, there were plans to prepare a careful overview of the characteristics, possibilities, and limits of part-time employment in collaboration with companies in a position to share their own experiences. Finally, systematic educational campaigns by the employers’ associations and state institutions would make the advantages widely known. The BAVAV meeting provided the impetus for management's first far-reaching and serious efforts to promote part-time work through the employers’ associations. The BDA financed a survey of seventy companies from a wide range of

branches and sectors. It served as a basis for a major information campaign, which emphasized the limits but above all the benefits for companies of this form of employment, particularly the higher productivity of part-time shifts.’ A leaflet

intended to help industrial firms cope with the initial organizational problems was sent out to plants in the spring of 1961 through BDA members.°® Even more aggressively than the BDA, the working committee on women's

work of the powerful economic policy network association, German Business Rationalization Board (RKW), promoted the advantages of part-time work for companies.’ Some members of this body had visited English industrial enterprises with long experience of short shifts.* Using very particular, generalizable examples, the RKW aimed to show West German companies the conditions under which part-time work could be successfully introduced and established on a permanent basis.’ Facts from workplace practice should replace “sweeping, often more emotional than factual statements and opinions.”!° In the spring of 1962 the RKW commissioned the research group Der neue Betrieb (the New Workplace) to prepare such a practice-oriented report on workplace experiences

Changing Public Opinion, 1959-1969 | 45

with part-time employment. The research group was not a purely scholarly institution, but focused on applied research. Its members included more than 100 companies eager to improve their personnel and social policies."' Both the approach and the character of the report reveal the close collaboration with companies in its preparation. The empirical basis for the findings

consisted of interviews of several hours’ duration with managers on various decision-making levels from forty-five large companies that already employed women part-time: the report’s authors spoke with personnel officers, heads of departments, and foremen and forewomen who daily faced the problems of labor organization. Consciously divested of “social political” and “psychological” premises and expectations, the study depicted part-time work as a technical, organizational, and above all personnel policy problem, that is as “one form of employment among others ..., a form that has its peculiarities, to be sure, but that should not be burdened with the expectation that it can save the family or do away with latchkey children.” The report managed successfully to refute most of the common prejudices concerning the “unprofitability” of part-time work. Using examples, it showed that many alleged disadvantages had by no means been empirically demonstrated. The existing studies, including the Weisser Report, spread subjective reservations and wholly unrealistic suggestions for implementation. After reading this study, one could not help but view as popular legend the widespread conviction that part-time work in factories was never more than an emergency measure, that is, in times of acute labor shortages, but never a profitable option. ‘The possibilities for an efficient deployment of part-time workers were even more various in industrial production than in commerce, they simply had not yet been tested in the same way. |” The educational campaigns mounted by employers’ associations and the RKW began by successfully sweeping aside the negative clichés about part-time employees. This unleashed a sort of euphoria. In the hope chat the labor shortage could be effectively mastered with part-time employment, companies began their aggressive recruitment campaigns in 1961.'° ‘The labor ministry supported the initiative of the employers’ associations only rather reticently, and behind the scenes. This seems at first surprising, given the bold mobilization intentions with which the labor minister Storch had distin-_ guished himself in the Bundestag several years previously, in 1956. In the main, however, the ministry was proceeding cautiously out of consideration for the public debates. Thus, in an internal statement of 1957, the ministry had expressed the principle that part-time work was essentially desirable as a working-hours model for women’s employment. Part-time work, however, “had to be developed into a genuine, crisis-resistant form of employment relationship,” and its “harmonious integration into relations of production” needed to be facilitated.'* The labor ministry rejected the liberalistic recommendations of the Weisser Report, arguing instead, in accord with the demands of women’s associations and trade unions, that the objective should be to place part-time work on an equal footing with full-time employment under social security law.!°

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This conceptual reticence had very real consequences for labor market policy. Until 1965 there were no direct governmental incentives for companies to set up part-time positions. Legal measures were restricted to social security for employees, and their negotiation was left largely to adjudication. The coordination of the parttime offensive was delegated to the BAVAV and its subordinate offices. Their task was to observe the regional labor markets and, if they could no longer find women to place in full-time employment, suggest to companies that they might set up parttime positions.'® As the federal labor minister revealed in a 1964 cabinet meeting, this policy was based on a carefully thought out labor market and gender-political strategy, which followed a similar logic of concealment as that formulated by the BAVAV’s womens affairs desk in 1960. The additional mobilization of women would be successful only if part-time employment was “promoted circumspectly.” The labor minister thus firmly rejected the kind of aggressive incentives that the federal ministry of economic affairs had repeatedly demanded since 1963. If part-time work offered “excessively tempting conditions’ for interested women, one ran the risk of “workers leaving full-time employment for part-time positions.” It had been

possible to prevent this up until now. This success should be valued all the more, since large numbers of women with family responsibilities were now pursuing paid employment: “Pushing part-time employment too obviously [could] awaken [womens] very understandable wish to gain relief by switching from full-time to part-time work. What is desirable from the perspective of social and family policy can then compete with measures that are necessary in the current economic climate. Any pro-

motion of part-time employment must thus avoid making visible the antinomy of objectives existing here.”'” With this strategy, the labor ministry created the political

preconditions that allowed for a mobilization campaign for part-time work in the 1960s while the term “relief” continued to be used everywhere.

The Broad Public and the Pleasure of a Surplus Income “The working housewife has become a hit,’ the journalist Rosemarie Winter noted at the beginning of a radio broadcast in the autumn of 1960.'® She hastened to add that this statement should not distract from the reality that extra earnings were sorely needed by most of the housewives in paid employment. Her introductory motto, however, pointed to the fact “that housewives’ paid employ-

ment, whether it provides the main support of her family or extra income, is generally and everywhere [regarded] as an enriching experience, a change and addition to the monotonous routine, a topic of conversation, offering an occasion to contribute one’s opinion, and even represents a prestige factor.” It was her impression that even husbands were proud to say, “My wife has a job now, too” as long as they did not have to do without the domestic comforts they had come to enjoy. In short, housewives’ employment had become socially acceptable, and indeed had even, “like work more generally in our era,” become a virtual fashion. The modern housewife went out to look for a part-time job.

Changing Public Opinion, 1959-1969 | 47

It would be difficult to find such a thoroughly positive image in any other contemporary account of part-time work, particularly with regard to husbands attitudes about their wives employment. Nevertheless, the response in the press shows how quickly the new form of employment gained public acceptance. The media gave the impression that by the early 1960s, it was no longer a taboo for married women to go out to work even if they did not strictly “need” the money. Particularly between 1960 and 1963, the issue of part-time employment served as a means of publicly addressing women’s occupational orientation and life planning, underlining their options and expectations, and promoting the acceptance of newly discovered motives and desires for employment. Newspapers, magazines, and radio programs doubtless reflected the efforts of the employers’ associations and labor ministry to spread information about part-time work.'? Articles with such titles as “Mornings in the Kitcchen—Afternoons on the Job” or “Housewives Step behind the Shop Counter” mainly told the success stories of particular trade associations and sectors, which were also intended to mobilize more workers.*°

Other contributions such as “Part-Time Women Ingratiate Themselves” were published under the “Business and Stock Market” rubric in order to dispel the prejudices of entrepreneurs and managers.”! The long article that appeared in the tabloid Bildgeitung in September 1961, which attacked this “unprecedented courtship” of housewives in sensationalistic terms, was a rare skeptical exception. Most other media, particularly the major illustrated women’s magazines and radio broadcasts directed at women, expressly welcomed the fact that many women were quite willing “to heed the call of companies.”** Articles published in Constanze, the largest-circulation German women's magazine, show in exemplary fashion that the press considered itself and acted as a mouthpiece for the new age. In the autumn of 1960, the illustrated magazine had already devoted an entire issue to the first major campaign to promote part-time work. ‘The report was entitled “Half-Day Work Gets a Green Light.””? The extensive report on the subject assigned far more importance to housewives’ chances of half-day employment at the post office, hairdresser’s, department stores, offices, factories, hotels, and restaurants than to the wellknown misgivings.?4 The term “relief” (Evtlastung) appeared here in a context in which one could not help but advocate part-time employment. The sales clerk Emmi B., for example, had had “increasing trouble ... keeping boredom at bay” since her son began his apprenticeship and was no longer at home in the daytime. Now she worked in a food shop between 8:00 am and 1:00 pM, and daily contact with customers had made her come alive. According to the article, many women expressed the sentiment “My job has made me so much younger.” Working half days was like a “medicine for loneliness and aging,” with the pleasant side-effect of wages. Frau B., for instance, could afford her first vacation in the Black Forest paid for with her own money. From early 1960 on, Constanze was an unwavering champion of the classic clientele of this reinterpreted model of part-time work as relief. “What can a woman do to occupy herself when her children are grown?” asked one article, and boldly

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demanded “New Tasks for Grandmothers!” Full-page pictures imagined them less tending to their grandchildren than working in typing pools, department stores, and workshops.*? “A woman has to change jobs every ten years,” noted a two-page photomontage in Constanze in early 1961.7 Once, she had had “nothing else to do” but “be a woman.” That was no longer enough.*’ The typified biography of an office worker was used to drive home the message that in the future, paid employment would simply be part of the female life cycle: at the age of forty, after occupational training, employment, marriage, and raising her children, she stood behind a shop counter half days. At fifty, now an elegant receptionist, she had returned to a fulltime job in her old occupation, only to bid a final farewell to working life at sixty. Returning to work was normal; women working part-time, however, were apparently expected to accept jobs beneath their original level of qualification. The compatibiliry between working hours and family schedules seemed more important. As the magazine learned from a survey of readers, many younger mothers also regularly studied the want ads in the newspapers to find a job that fit their daily routines.*® This also met with the magazine's complete approval, especially when women expressed a desire to contribute to a “better life” for their families. Thus, Constanze reported on a mother of two small children who worked half days as a mail sorter in order to finance her husband's further education. Another worked the evening “housewives’ shift” on the assembly line at a candy factory, while her

husband looked after the children. Particularly for those wives who had completed occupational training, the desire for employment and the “intrinsic value of work” were considered the legitimate expression of their “awareness of life.” A married but still childless nurse continued to work half days because she “enjoyed working,” an article in Constanze noted. A hairdresser with a two-and-a-half-year-

old daughter wanted to earn “pocket money’ and not “get out of practice” in her occupation. The magazine also expressly accepted womens frequent wish for money of their own. In the view of the magazine's editors, what came to light in their survey “My Dearest Wish?” was not the fur coat, symbol of a consumer-oriented and much criticized materialism, but women’s justified personal interests. In reply to the survey “My Dearest Wish?” the editors let one letter speak for many: “To be able to spend my pocket money on myself for once.” The desire for employment was noted even more strongly—and apparently was approved of—in the case of very young women who had married immediately after completing their occupational training and had their first child early. According to a 1962 report on Hessian Radio, many of these women wanted “to go back to work immediately after their period of maternity leave.” The report showed understanding for young mothers who felt little hesitation about leaving their children in the care of others, even if they did not have to work out of economic necessity: “Does she need to work? No, not at all. Her husband earns good money, but she just cant stand it.... Countless young expecting mothers wonder

how they might combine a job and a child, and also their thirst for life and a child. One cannot simply reject this thirst for life. And it cannot be silenced. It is there.”°° The report’s recommendation would have been utterly unthinkable in

Changing Public Opinion, 1959-1969 | 49

the late 1950s: a good nursery school to help women reconcile their “thirst for life” with child-rearing. It broke with the dogma that only mothers could care for their children in the first few years of life. Constant care by a small group of familiar persons was important for toddlers. Half-day employment or home work was thus also suitable for young women, since it allowed them to be relaxed and loving with their children rather than frustrated.?! The statements give the impression that in West German public consciousness, the future had already begun in the early 1960s. Fears and insecurities about the impending destabilization of the gender order were less prevalent than in the mid-1950s, although the sense of being in the midst of a dynamic process, which would change the lives of women in particular, remained present in many journalistic texts on part-time employment. ‘Thus, according to an article in Constanze at the end of 1961, one could not find out “where the woman of today stands because she does not stand still, but is always on the move. She is on her way from a tradition-laden past into a future with a wholly new framework.”°* The magazine also noted and frequently addressed the conflicts that this caused in many marriages. To be sure, in 1961 the magazine programmatically promoted the idea that “marriage and a job are compatible” and asserted that two-thirds of its readership had answered “Yes” to a test question on the issue.°? But where previously both partners had “pulled together” in the family, the new options for women in the working world made it more of a “tug-of-war.”*4 In an article in the weekly newspaper Die Zeit in 1962, Gabriele Strecker suggested that the solution to the dilemma lay in all forms of temporary work.*? This compromise, which for her included both part-time work and a temporary withdrawal from paid employment, demanded that women relinquish the old ideal of lifelong occupational ties, to which the more highly qualified among them, in particular, still clung. If, however, most women married and had children while young, the qualities with which they would reconcile employment and family the life in the future, and turn the labor market on its head, were “flexibility, switching to new jobs, and adaptability.” And married women could be pioneers not just when it came to working hours. Perhaps, Strecker noted, “the woman of the future could bring something like a new work ethic into the working world, above all when she does not merely need to work, but wants to, because she enjoys what. she does. Significantly more women than commonly believed are already doing this.... Material reasons are often cited in justification.... In truth, however, pleasure in the work, in proving and doing something for themselves play a role.”°° No one was better placed to assure the West German public that such assessments had earned them a position in the “modern Western” world than the popular authors Alva Myrdal and Viola Klein. Their book Womens Two Roles, published

in London in 1956, soon became a bestseller.2” The book was received enthusiastically in the Federal Republic even before the German translation appeared.°® The Swedish and English co-authors had answered the initial question of whether married women should be employed outside the home with an appeal for women’s right to a family and an occupation. Their study of the gender-specific structural

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transformation of the Western world, at once committed and readable but by no means superficial, deemed the increase in women's paid employment to be characteristic of all industrial societies. Myrdal and Klein called for a “mental revolt” in order to respond adequately to these developments. First, the evaluation of women’s work within and outside the home required fundamental revision. With good will, societies could be organized in such a way as to yield a practical scope

of action for both “female” tasks, so that women would not have to dispense with the “pleasures of one sphere” in order to experience “the satisfactions of the other.”*? Second, women for their part should no longer give up their vocational orientation when they married. Marriage was not a life task, and even child-rearing was limited to fifteen years, at most. Before and after that phase mothers, too, should practice an occupation.“ The authors rejected part-time work in principle, because they wanted to break down the gender-specific division of labor.*! Until that had happened, however, women could at least maintain ties to their occupation during the phase of caring for a family, and for the third phase as well parttime work had a role to play alongside full-time employment.

By the time the German edition of the book, Die Doppelrolle der Frau in Familie und Beruf, came on the market in 1960, Myrdal and Klein's so-called three-phase model was already quite familiar. Their study now helped popularize the Western view of married women's paid employment within a very short time. The authors for their part incorporated the Federal Republic into the community of Western industrial nations. The empirical section of the original English edition referred only to data from the United States, Britain, Sweden, and France.

Viola Klein then added a brief afterword to the German edition, in which she emphasized that a revision of the data was no longer necessary in order to apply the findings to West German conditions. Since the end of the war, women in the Federal Republic had “completely caught up with their Anglo-Saxon sisters.”* In 1967, from the safety of this new sorority, West German women could risk a very self-confident look over the border at “working housewives” in the GDR.*? Comparisons with “over there” no longer led to the conclusion that mothers and wives in West Germany should go out to work as little as possible, or not at all. They now enjoyed the privilege of seeking employment because they wanted to, while wives in East Germany—despite the official rhetoric of equality—still did so out of financial necessity. What was sold as “evidence of self-realization and a sign of solidarity with the Socialist state,” a lengthy broadcast on Hessian Radio's

Womens Program criticized, was in fact the result of the simplest imaginable calculation. “The state needs more workers. The family needs more money. As long as items considered normal acquisitions here are deemed luxuries on the other side of the Elbe, women in Central Germany [Mitteldeutschland, i.e., the GDR] will continue to take upon themselves the double burden of household and employment.” A sense of superiority is readily evident in this judgment, even if it was based on false information. The public rhetoric of equality in the GDR had succeeded above all in obscuring to the outside world the fact that a far larger proportion of women in the East worked part-time than in the West.

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Political Adjustments to “Societal Necessity” The expansion of part-time employment and the popularization in the press of women's desire to work so thoroughly shook up the gender-political concepts of all political parties and the unions that they revised their positions between 1960 and 1965 and moved toward a new consensus on married women’s employment. Ironically, the process of rethinking began at a time when the “sole breadwinner” model of the family came within the reach of male wage workers for the first time. In the late 1950s, their real incomes had risen to such an extent that they could actually cover their families’ basic needs and even offer them a modest prosperity.*? Nevertheless, married women were clearly not giving up their jobs. In fact, their ranks grew rapidly and even disproportionately as a percentage of employed women. No end to this development seemed likely in the foreseeable future. Married women’s employment was no longer an economic necessity for the family, but it was desirable, and the economy needed it.

The SPD was the first party to move, abandoning its old positions in 1960 shortly after adopting the Godesberg Program. The 1959 program marked a radical break with social democratic party tradition and brought about a reorientation in many areas. The programmatic perspective departed from questions of principle and more strongly addressed concrete social problems.*° This change was linked to a political strategy: the party sought to formulate a “socially acceptable” politics in order to develop the outlines of a popular party, which was elect-

able by a broader segment of the population, and had a chance to move from opposition to government in the federal elections of 1961.47 This fundamental reorientation also directly influenced the SPD’s stance on married women’s employment and thus on part-time work. Typically enough, it occurred as part of a shift in family policy, which was mainly the initiative of the only woman in the party executive, Marta Schanzenbach. ‘The social worker from Baden had the reputation of having little time for theory and preferring practical solutions.*® Thus, unlike many older Social Democratic women of the Weimar generation, she had no problem whatsoever with the party’s “new style.”*? The change of course suited her pragmatic and sometimes populist understanding of politics. At a February 1960 meeting of the subcommittee on the family, which was set up | after the adoption of the Godesberg Program by the party executive's social policy committee, Schanzenbach expressed her criticisms quite plainly.°? The SPD’s family policy was “unfortunately not yet socially acceptable.” The undervaluation of the family and “exaggerated hopes” placed in state childcare in previous decades must be abandoned and replaced by the “unconditional recognition and afhrmation of the family.” At the same time, they must take account of “woman's new position in society,’ which had emerged with the strong rise in employment. For Schanzenbach, support for the private sphere of the family did not mean opposition to womens place in the world of work. On the contrary, along with the old socialist principles of socialized childcare she also threw overboard assumptions that approved of married women's employment only in the context of economic necessity.

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Schanzenbach was apparently able to push through her concept quite rapidly. This is evident in the SPD’s Social Political Family Program approved by the committee on 7~8 October 1960. Six months later it was published under the title “Guidelines for Social Democratic Family Policy” as a resolution of the party executive.?! The program contains a careful political consideration in the assessment of married womens paid employment. In principle, following Myrdal

and Klein, it held the structural development of industrial (Western) society responsible for the large increase in women’s employment outside the home, thus completing the orientation toward the West that the SPD policy analyst Gerhard Weisser had already promoted in his report on part-time work in the mid-1950s. The discovery of a new—societal—necessity for married women’s employment absolved them of individual guilt, that is, of a desire for personal profit or exag-

gerated consumerism, if they went out to work. The program noted that the new significance of paid work for women in West Germany had fundamentally altered their position in the family and society. In order to fulfill their “moral, educational and economic duties” outside and inside the family, women thus needed a good education above all else. In this program, part-time work appears as a measure to “protect employed women, but is clearly addressed to the new clientele of housewives. Point 5c states unambiguously: “In order to allow women who run a household to take up paid employment, we should work toward the provision of part-time or half-day positions.” This program doubtless attained social acceptability because of its growing proximity to conservative concepts of the family. This move toward the middle of the road in order to gain votes at all costs, however, meant that necessity was no longer considered the only acceptable reason for married women to go out to work. This shift of perspective, which made the SPD the first political party to react to the societal dynamic, even enabled it to re-establish links with old socialist ideals of emancipation. A lengthy essay of September 1961 by Hety SchmittMaass, titled “The Woman of Today in the Family and Employment,” in which she explained in detail the guidelines of the family program, may be interpreted in this manner.’ Schmitt-Maass, who was responsible for women’s affairs in the party executive, was convinced that “the increasing employment of wives and mothers ... [must] not lead them to turn their backs on their maternal sphere of duties.”°* Women did, however, have a right to paid employment and to decide freely whether they wanted to work or not. To be sure, mothers only had the right to decide freely if they were not forced to work for money because of economic hardship. In future, husbands’ “breadwinner wages” should both cover the families’ basic economic needs and guarantee wives’ right to earn a voluntary supplementary income.’ If women no longer worked out of necessity, though, their double role in family and employment posed questions that could not be resolved “with yesterday's methods.” Essentially, women were now confronted with a dilemma, and the less economic conditions compelled them, the greater the mental strain and guilty conscience became if they did decide to go out to work. One solution that Schmitt-Maass offered as mental relief for women was

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part-time work.°° Although this suggestion entailed “some problems,” there were two reasons for promoting it vigorously in the current situation: first, in the interest of mothers and families, “to afford them additional income and emancipation

without overburdening them,” and second, in the interest of business, which sought to satisfy its need for workers.’ With these new guidelines on family policy, the SPD abandoned its defensive stance on women’s policy of the 1950s and moved to the head of the political race to control definitions of the family and women’s employment, which had previously been clearly dominated by the conservative parties. Analyses of the 1961 federal elections provided additional ammunition for this offensive. The SPD had profited handsomely from the growth in the number of female voters, although

not enough to defeat the Christian Democrat-Liberal coalition government. A clear pattern in voter behavior emerged, however, according to which married and employed women were more likely to vote for the Social Democrats than single “housewives” who did not work outside the home.” Even if internal party electoral analyses did not explicitly mention this, it was evident that a stronger rooting of paid employment in women’s biographies could have only positive effects on the SPD’s chances of finally coming to power. At the end of 1962 the SPD parliamentary party demonstrated that it was capable of putting effective pressure on the federal government in matters of women’s and family policy. The significant shift in political power became evident when the SPD called upon the government to commission a comprehensive report on the situation of women in the family, the workplace, and society, and to present the parliament with recommendations for a “fundamental improvement in the social position of women.””” The motion was discussed in the Bundestag for the first time in April 1963 and finally approved in 1964 with additions from the CDU parliamentary group.°° The speech in which Kathe Strobel launched the SPD motion in 1963 documents the party’s assertive stance and strong position as impressively as it shows the central importance accorded to establishing part-time work programmatically. Strobel portrayed the new social conditions that the SPD had formulated in its program as the point of departure for its change of course. To look at women’s employment either as a mere necessity or as a crisis of the family was to misunderstand the fundamentally altered situation. Strobel eloquently attacked this view as shaped by massive prejudices, taboos, half-truths, and clichés, and announced self-confidently that the time was ripe for a major systematic study that would reveal the true “causes and effects of the continuing transformation of the familial and economic structure of industrial society,” in order to “find our way out of the climate of ad hoc solutions and partial remedies and to meet social changes with targeted measures.”°! It was time to create the most important preconditions so that mothers of older children could also go out to work if they wished. For the SPD, part-time work represented a central solution in need of a structural framework. The SPD’s change of course and its straightforward propagation of part-time employment also forced the unions to reconsider their attitudes. Gertrud Mahnke, womens affairs secretary of the metalworkers’ union IG-Merall, was the first to

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react to the news from party headquarters, which was met without enthusiasm.” In response, women trade unionists prepared a new survey to examine the prevalence of part-time work. ‘The realities of the labor market, the report revealed, had already changed sufhciently to render the old union positions untenable. First, “in the meantime, very many more women than is generally known” were already working parttime, as the national women’s committee of the DGB noted in November 1962. Second, massive industry recruitment had mobilized a new potential membership, which trade union women had previously had no cause to regard as their responsibility. In a 1960 letter to Maria Weber, Margarethe Traeder of the [G-Metall characterized the wholly altered situation: “[W]hat we once wanted, part-time employment for women to get them away from full-time work and give them half a day for the family, has been rendered obsolete by today’s part-time employment.” Those now being recruited for part-time work were mainly married women who had not been employed before, who basically, and without really needing to, “just [wanted] to earn money, if only temporarily. Traeder regarded this behavior as reprehensible from the standpoint of social politics, and detrimental to union interests. While the IG-Merall official still roundly rejected part-time work, the DGB’s Department of Women’s Affairs and National Women’s Committee were busy

rethinking the matter. A Small Commission on Part-Time Work, formed in November 1962 by the National Women’s Committee, which met for the first time in February 1963, laid the foundations for a revision of the union position on married women’s employment.®? The members of the commission adopted the SPD’s terminology almost verbatim. They, too, noted “irreversible social and economic changes” whose most obvious characteristic was that the “strong representation of married women among the female employed is here to stay.” To accept this development meant to bid farewell to the gender-political concepts of the 1950s, against the background of which the development could only seem virtually paradoxical.

As the National Women’s Committee put it in a report on part-time work, the economic necessity for married women’s employment had been replaced by a social necessity, which a complex society can no longer do without.”°” The concept of part-time work formulated in 1963 by the DGB’s Small Com-

mission on Part-Time Work fell short of the emancipatory thrust of the SPD program, however. What had great appeal as a “patent recipe” for SPD women, despite numerous problems, remained a threat to trade union women in their concrete representation of labor and social security law interests. Nevertheless, at the very beginning of its work the commission formulated a recommendation that part-time employment should be regarded “as a significant source of income for a certain group of persons, e.g., women with family responsibilities, or women with relatives in need of nursing care, taking into account the three phases of women’s lives.” It should also “provide an opportunity, particularly in the case of skilled occupations, to retain contacts to one’s vocation and to the world of work.”® The survey undertaken by the Small Commission on Part-Time Work between February and September 1963 was submitted to the National Women’s Commit-

tee in October 1963. From a union perspective, the main problems (as in the

Changing Public Opinion, 1959-1969 | 55

1950s) turned out to be aspects of labor and social security law that stood in the way of the equal treatment of part-time and full-time employment. Whereas in the 1950s attention had been focused on possible disadvantages for full-time workers, there was now a heightened awareness of discrimination against women employed part-time. Above all, the report criticized that women working parttime in commercial occupations were often expected to do almost the same work as full-time employees, and demanded that part-time workers “not generally” be excluded from opportunities for advancement.’” The unions change of course was most clearly evident in two areas: collective bargaining policy, which now actually began gradually to aim at incorporating part-time employees,’! and strategies for gaining new members among part-time workers. [he rethinking process began with the IG-Mertall in Baden-Wiirttemberg, where the form of employment was already more widespread than in other federal states. Instead of marginalizing part-time workers from the outset as “hard

to organize, the union was now to target them and include their interests in its policies, also in the interest of shielding women full-time workers from lowwage competition. At this point, trade union women discovered a major barrier that would keep part-time workers from joining the union. Membership dues amounted to one hour's wages per week. For women who only worked half the hours, this represented twice the burden borne by full-time members. The IGMetall in Baden-Wiirttemberg was the first to change its dues system, introducing graduated contributions on | January 1961, which took the same percentage of wages from all members.’? The employers’ associations also contributed to the acceleration of this rethinking process. In July 1964, they loudly demanded the creation of “farther-reaching incentives” for part-time work and the expansion of employment free of social

insurance contributions.’? Just a few days after this assault on the solidarity principle that underlay the West German social insurance system, the DGB’s National Women’s Committee resolved to launch a concerted union educational and membership campaign for housewives who worked part-time. At the same time, it laid down the new Baden-Wiirttemberg system for collecting dues for all unions. Io be sure, here, too, unions were primarily moved by the recognition that they “needed to look after part-time employees in the interest of securing the working conditions of their present membership.””4 Part-time employment must, however, be viewed “as a reality” and not merely “as a side-effect of full

employment, noted a declaration of principles issued by the Department of Women’s Affairs in 1966. If the unions wished to prevent the development from

having negative effects for them, they must devote serious attention to these issues and “seek ways in which [they] can attend to and include this group of persons now and in future.”’”? The skepticism is clearly evident here. Nevertheless, the call for massive recruitment of women working part-time, particularly by the HBV, which represented sales, banking, and insurance employees, represented an

important turning point. “Ihe DGB,” stated a press release of July 1964 from the National Womens Committee, “regards part-time work as a possibility for

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employing mothers with children, in particular, which we can no longer imagine doing without.””° From this standpoint, women in the unions defined their new front against management. Part-time work should be regarded not as an exception dictated by the current business cycle, but rather as a “form of employment” for women with family responsibilities, which should for that reason be placed

on an equal footing with full-time employment in social security, labor, and collective bargaining law.’” At its national congress in 1966, the DGB adopted an identical declaration as its new, official position.’”* In so doing, the umbrella organization of the West German unions put into practice, albeit with major reservations, the program set out by the SPD on the conceptual level or in the realm of representative’’ union politics. The misgivings expressed internally, however, also explain why the unions continued to prefer not to promote the expansion of part-time work actively. In 1964 the Christian Democrats, too, finally followed the new trend. To be sure, the parliamentary group had already spoken out in favor of promoting parttime work in 1961.°° When, however, the question was debated not as a labor market policy imperative, but in the context of social and gender politics, the Christian Democrats kept a low profile until 1964. The growing activity of female party members in particular fortifies the thesis that the SPD had succeeded in the early 1960s in taking the leading role in fundamental issues of gender politics. Clearly, CDU women also turned to the issue of female employment in order to promote their political influence over family policy. They were concerned not least to prevent the loss of female voters, to whom the CDU owed its advantage over the SPD. A 1964 article in the Westfalische Rundschau newspaper poked fun at this circumstance when the Christian Social women’s congress convened in Bochum to address the problems of working women explicitly and exclusively for the first time in the party's nineteen-year history.®’ Here, under the slogan “Women and the World of Work—Tomorrow,” the departure from the image of women and womens politics of the 1950s became evident. Aenne Brauksiepe, a member of the party executive, declared in her opening speech that for the CDU, “adapting to circumstances” was the convincing argument for a change of course. According to Brauksiepe, the party could not close its eyes to social change and must realize that “women’s activities in the family and workplace contribute significantly to the development of a healthy world for tomorrow.”**

The national congress of 1964 brought together mainly women from the CDU. All of the party’s cabinet ministers had made their excuses, thus either discreetly avoiding taking a stand on the party's change of gender policy or deeming

it too unimportant to attend. As one of the few men present, the CDU’s acting chairman, Josef-Hermann Dufhues, was made to feel quite clearly that women had abandoned the old ideological foundations. His remark that the foremost duty of any woman was to be a housewife and mother elicited little enthusiasm. The pugnacious speech by the journalist Gabriele Strecker, who spoke on behalf of highly qualified women and demanded an active acknowledgment that women consciously chose lifelong careers not out of hardship but for “purely

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rational and economic reasons,” garnered far more approval.®? As in her 1962 article in Die Zeit, here, too, she pronounced that the classic ideal of lifelong ties to a vocation, which replaced the family for single women, was obsolete. In light of the options of job and family, new possibilities for combining the two were needed.*4 The sociologist Gerhard Mobius from Mainz ultimately formulated a compromise capable of mediating between the two incompatible positions. In his opinion, it was only “primarily” women’s nature to be a mother and wife. He thus recommended to young working women facing the alternatives of “child or employment” not to give up the latter, but rather to “limit” it by working part-time. He felt it necessary to emphasize that this decision “to be there for the child” might mean a sacrifice, but no “loss of intrinsic value” for women, however qualified their professions.®

The speakers at a conference held at the party-run Akademie Eichholtz in November 1965 argued in quite similar terms. Here, too, as the CDU organ Frau und Beruf reported, social political questions concerning mothers’ employment had been addressed “rather little” up to that point.8° Now, however, those attending listened to a talk by an official from the Federal Office of Statistics, Hermann Schubnell, on the actual extent of employment among mothers and its effects on childcare. Not long before, Schubnell had written an article providing the first official evidence that the problem of latchkey children had been greatly exaggerated in the 1950s.°®” The first precise statistics showed that only a miniscule minor-

ity of children were actually left unsupervised all day by their working mothers. ‘The statistician was able to reassure his listeners in another respect as well, and to enlist support for the acceptance of a new societal treatment of married women’s and mothers’ employment. The continual increase in the number of employed wives and mothers was normal in industrial nations. With an appeal to “avoid sweeping generalizations’ he explained to the audience that mothers employment must be considered differently according to the type of occupation, number of children, and extent of the position. And despite all the gloomy prognostications,

the number of children actually rose with growing family income.*® In the opin- | ion of the CDU, the conference concluded, the battle-cry “woman belongs in the home” should be heeded only by the mothers of small children. Childless married women and those whose children were already older or out of the house were. actually “wrong” to “ignore the call of society.” A program to educate the public should thus encompass the “recognition of a specifically female life plan, which includes periods of emphasis on family duties and tasks in the world of work and life outside the home.”® More nursery schools and more opportunities for parttime employment needed to be created for this to become a reality. Gabriele Strecker went even further in 1965, when she spoke at the SchleswigHolstein CDU’s regional women’s congress on the topic of “Woman—in the Family and Employment” and called for a stop to “all criticism of women earning a supplementary income, and of their doing so for material reasons.” Instead of accusing employed married women of materialism or rampant consumerism because they did not actually need to work, society should finally accept that

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older women in particular “felt a desire to return to the world of work and accept a task in public life.” Women did not want to “stand on the sidelines.””° These changes were not expressed in the CDU party platform until the late 1960s.?! In contrast, the official inquiry on the situation of women demanded by the SPD saw to it that the Christian Democrats had to deal intensively with the subject of part-time work in the Bundestag. Women’s “new life plan,” as it was formulated in the official inquiry, should thus also be understood as a political consensus on part-time work, which paid tribute to the social necessity of married womens employment in the Federal Republic as a Western industrial nation. On 22 September 1966, the government submitted the report on the situation of women in the family, workplace, and society repeatedly called for by the SPD to the Bundestag. The 650-page tome impressively documents changes in womens and gender politics in West Germany.’ The central issue was the altered meaning of married women’s and mothers’ paid employment in all areas of society. Although the official inquiry was criticized by some Social Democratic women for the “backward-looking tendencies” evident in various sections, it created a broad public awareness of the extent of social change. In so doing, as the FDP Bundestag member Hedda Heuser commended, it accomplished “a piece of social criticism,’”? which provided a decisive impetus to further-reaching demands for gender policy reform.” Indeed, even the brief preface left no doubt of the governments conviction that “people’s basic conditions and ways of life” had changed fundamentally and now offered women more opportunities. This knowledge had not yet penetrated the general consciousness, however. “[raditional notions” continued to hold sway, “even if they no longer correspond to today’s needs.”” The official inquiry contains some detailed segments on part-time employment, but is preceded by a section on “The Social Position and Standing of the Housewife and Mother” that is even more important in this context. Here, the government report, which was prepared by the women’s affairs desk officers of the different ministries under the auspices of the ministry of labor and social order, once again explicitly traced the changes in the societal assessment of married womens employment. In the main, it referred in these basic remarks to the bestsellers that had shaped the public debate since the mid-1950s: Margaret Mead, Simone de Beauvoir, Elisabeth Pfeil, Gabriele Strecker, and Myrdal and Klein are cited in the footnotes. In so doing, it noted and approved, on the highest level, as it were, the “new” insights of the 1950s that “the model of woman is not something that exists a priori, but rather develops historically,” determined more by “ideas about woman’s nature” than that nature itself. Thus, the model was open and susceptible to change. Only in one point did the official inquiry insist on a constant: motherhood. In this area, women’s role was “fixed once and for all.”?® The model of the housewife who did not go out to work, however, had long been considered desirable, but now belonged to a past era. In more recent times, an altered model had emerged under the influence of Western ideals. “This is the notion of woman who makes a life plan according to her abilities, and in so doing prepares both for her duties in marriage, family, and society and for an occupation.”

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Family and household should remain the measure of woman’s commitment to her occupation, and particularly during the “child-rearing phase,” mothers should be able to reduce their paid employment. On the whole, however, the report could not deny that women’s greater life expectancy, declining number of children, and above all their “striving for personal development” had produced a trend, according to which they “walk alongside men in all phases of life, equally and in shared social responsibility, in order to shape family, working, and public life together with them and—if in a different manner—to regain a weightier position in the social framework, with similar significance, such as they had before the industrial revolution.” The government report, too, concluded that only reducing working hours, that is, introducing part-time work, could do justice to the new significance of women’s paid employment outside the home.”’

The Confessional Consensus The churches, too, advocated the introduction of part-time employment. Like the political parties, this commitment reflected an important shift in the power to define social and gender politics. The churches’ departure from the concepts of the 1950s were determined largely by the Evangelical Church in Germany (EKD), and can be dated to the period between 1961 and 1965. During those four years, the EKD and the Protestant women’s associations contributed decisively to gaining the broadest social acceptance for part-time work. ‘The reasons for this commitment must be sought not least in the acute personnel shortage in church-run institutions, particularly in the caring professions. As the governing boards of the Protestant churches announced in 1965, “in future, single women would no longer be able to cope with all this work.”’® The “nursing emergency” could only be resolved if the church abandoned the prohibition on marriage and thoroughly redefined the profession.”” This was the immediate context in which part-time work became important for the churches.

In a broader context of social politics and interdenominational and international relations, the subject became pressing for the West German churches when the Western European ecumenical movement began to react to the increase in

womens employment. The Commission for Cooperation between Men and Women in the Church, Family, and Society founded in 1959 discussed the social political consequences of this development and possibilities for church influence in a transnational context. ‘The activities culminated in a conference on part-time

work held in Geneva in 1964. In preparation, the EKD’s German commission took up the subject in 1961.'°° Here, Protestant Church officials still advocated the relief concept of the 1950s. The Catholic Church also expressed discomfort with intentions to mobilize women as part of labor market policy, addressing the topic in detail at a working conference of the Central Committee of German Catholics in Freiburg in 1962, which also recommended part-time work to relieve the burden of working mothers.'°'

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One of the chief reasons why the Protestant Church soon abandoned this position and actively promoted part-time employment for housewives must be sought in changes in the confessional, political, and gender-specific power structure within the government. With the expansion of the cabinet to include a new portfolio, Elisabeth Schwarzhaupt was appointed minister for health at the end of 1961. Schwarzhaupt, West Germanys first female minister, had already fought for equal rights for women and the reform of family law as a member of the legislative committee of the Bundestag in 1953.'°? Because of her work in the Protestant Church's family law commission, she appeared predestined to set new trends in the governments policy on women. As had been the case with the creation of the family ministry in 1953, the competencies of the new ministry of health were at first not clearly defined. The outlines of its work in human medicine, veterinary medicine, and food safety as well as environmental protection were clearly drawn, but not its responsibilities in questions of social politics. Schwarzhaupt thus defined the promotion of public health as not just a technical but also a social hygiene problem in order to include women’s policies within the ministry's competencies. Matters of public health also offered the opportunity of giving the ministry a sharp political profile via the issues of mothers’ or married women’s employment. Thus, in a sense Schwarzhaupt inherited the subject of mothers’ work, at least insofar as it touched on part-time employment, from the Catholic family minister Wurmeling.'°° The fact that the debates on part-time work between 1962 and 1966 were conducted in close thematic conjunction with public health work, in close collaboration with the Evangelical Women’s Service, and in consultation with the governing board of the Protestant Church owes much to Schwarzhaupt’s personal commitment, her political, confessional, and occupational roots in the Protestant Church and the women’s movement, and her work in the ecumenical movement in Geneva. Because Schwarzhaupt was apparently unable to make much headway as a minister in Adenauer’s and later Erhard’s cabinet, her activities were visible not as CDU politics, but rather as nonpartisan, confessional commitment. Shortly after her appointment, Schwarzhaupt directed the Central Office of Public Hygiene (Deutsche Zentrale ftir Volksgesundheitspflege) to organize a working conference on the theme of women’s part-time employment, similar in

scope to that initiated and mounted in 1955 by the Bavarian Working Group of Women Voters.!°4 The Evangelical Women’s Service’s Commission for Social

and Medical Women’s Issues began preparations for the conference. Marlies Cremer of the Protestant Academy at Bad Boll was enlisted as moderator.'* On behalf of the EKD’s ecumenical Commission for Cooperation between Men and Women, Cremer conducted studies on part-time work which were to serve as a basis for the church’s position in Geneva.'®° She also gave the keynote address at the conference. Experts from many fields were invited to the conference, where

rather than exchanging views on questions of social politics, they provided an initial overview of the various issues of social medicine, labor, social security, and collective bargaining law. When they did address the basic significance of part-time work, however, the consciousness of social transformation was evident

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here, too. In her introductory paper, Cremer presented well-known explanations, which differed from Social Democratic analyses more in style than substance. The structural transformation enabled women “to shape their lives consciously” and to “adapt flexibly” to the needs of their families, without damaging their own health. Part-time work should also be regarded as a “positive compromise’ to the extent that it served as an intermediary between the excessive burdens of full-time work and the insufficient challenges of the “existence of women who are housewives only.” It was now up to society to “mark” this “new life model” for women with clear signals.'° Like the German Central Office for Public Hygiene, the umbrella organization of Protestant women’s associations, the Evangelical Women’s Service in Germany also addressed part-time work on Schwarzhauptss initiative. Here, too, the connection with her new political office is manifest. The minister did not speak at the conference herself, but it is more than likely that she personally put the subject on the agenda of the Evangelical Women’s Service's legislative committee for the first time shortly after taking office in February 1962.'°° In the period that followed, this body intensified its “theoretical reflections,” “implementation of feasible solutions,” and “practical search” for further applications of part-time work in order to push its expansion within the church’s social service agencies.'°” In 1964, the legislative committee invited representatives first of industry, then of trade unions and the labor administration, and finally of personnel officers from the church social service agencies, to a series of three meetings devoted to part-time work.'!® The essence of these exchanges was distilled in a nineteen-page

manuscript, which would be sent at the end of 1965 to the relevant member organizations and church social service agencies as inspiration for further work

and practical guidelines for the introduction of part-time employment.''' The Evangelical Women’s Service did not, however, adopt a unanimously positive view of part-time work. As in the SPD and the trade unions, the women agreed to stress the conceptual advantages of part-time employment over its practical “perils” and to advocate and actively promote its expansion. The author who prepared the report of the meetings with experts was thus asked in her final version “to emphasize less the dangers of part-time work, and to highlight its advantages,

since it represented the last chance for employed women in the future.”!!? , As becomes clear in the context of later statements by the Protestant Church,

what members of the committee regarded as a “last chance” referred less to women than to the stability of the future gender order. The church leadership saw the latter as under massive threat and felt called upon to grasp the last opportunity to head off a further and final erosion by promoting part-time work. While the women’s associations carried on a practical campaign of information about part-time work within the church, the EKD Church Office went public in 1965 with two open letters and a memorandum on part-time work. ‘The Geneva conference of the Ecumenical Council had taken place shortly before, and the ecumenical Commission for Cooperation between Men and Women in Church, Family, and Society had presented the subject of part-time work there for the

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first time to a broader church audience. The EKD memorandum, which bore the “ecumenical” label and thus claimed to represent a confessional consensus, was prepared in direct connection with the conference and printed in important Protestant newspapers and periodicals.''? The self-confident open letter with which the committee introduced the memorandum on part-time work to the confessional public affords an unambiguous impression of how actively involved the church was in constructing the new role model for married women, and how urgently it appeared to move with the times

in order to influence them in the right direction.''* Thus, the church found it absolutely necessary to combat prejudices against married women’s employment as well as the idea that the world of work must be oriented toward a “standard” working day. Part-time work needed to mediate between these two fronts, “and to offer the young generation convincing role models of a responsible way of life” before

it was too late. The central message for such a role model was that “small children need their mothers.” Thus, everything must be done “to allow and convince mothers with small children to stay home with their families.” Business demands, women’s wishes, and the needs of society and families made extensive reflection necessary in order to “discover, practice, and gain recognition for possibilities” that encouraged women not to combine job and family at the cost of the latter.'!?

The EKD’s seven-page ecumenical memorandum is remarkable not just because it displays the church's consciousness of its own power of interpretation so optimistically. The unconditionally positive assessment of married women’s and mothers’ employment is equally noteworthy and characteristic of the process of rethinking within society. The church leadership advocated part-time work not because of the labor shortage, but rather because “the modern woman is responsible to the world of work.” It firmly supported “contact with the world outside

the household” and the express wish of many married women to continue to work in their occupations, “because they no longer want to do without them, and granted this to all women, not just the highly qualified. Those who wanted to work half days “in order to raise their living standards permanently to a higher level and to allow their families to participate in the things that make life easier and more pleasant” were regarded as being on an equal footing with those who gave a genuine “pleasure in their occupation” as their reason for employment. The Protestant church practically advocated knocking the old ideal of the “only housewife” off its pedestal. As the memorandum noted in its concluding remarks, it is “always a step backwards for the position of women in today’s society when the role of the wife and mother is valued more highly than that of the working woman. Both roles should be recognized as equally valuable and should complement each other. Part-time employment is particularly appropriate for this.”''® Independent of economic necessities, the EKD sought to make womens needs the point of departure for its argumentation. The terms “new awareness of life” and “desire to work” appear in this context as a “contribution to a fulfilling life’ and “pastoral-therapeutic help” for women.!!” These phrases could also be used to argue that the benefits of part-time work for business and the economy in times

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of full employment should be regarded as a particular social opportunity, which enabled the modern housewife and mother to do equal justice to the “demands of the family” and her “abilities in the world of work.”''® ‘The internal and public debate about part-time work conducted by the Prot-

estant Church in the first half of the 1960s offers very solid evidence of the “profound political reorganization of West German Protestantism” in the postwar period, which Christoph KlefS$mann has recently described on the basis of various

other EKD memoranda from the years between 1947 and 1965.''? KlefSmann locates the driving force behind this change in the Protestant Academies newly founded after 1945. According to him, their programmatic “opening up to society was expressed above all in a rapprochement with Social Democracy, and was reciprocated by the “Protestant faction” of the SPD in the form of a policy convergence that took shape in the Godesberg Program.'?° In the early 1960s, the debates on part-time work show, the EKD and SPD also converged quite significantly through fundamental issues of gender politics. This convergence was initiated and supported by the Protestant Academies, women’s associations, and also by female party members (including Christian Democrats). Otherwise it would be difficult to explain why the public discussion of part-time work culminated in the middle of the decade in such an astonishingly unanimous approval of the gender-specific form of employment. In the early 1960s, the Catholic Church and the conservative parties, which had asserted their power of definition in the discourse on family policy and married women’s employment in the 1950s,

were replaced by the SPD and the Protestant Church. It was these actors who promoted the positive social consensus on married women’s employment, while at the same time attempting to preserve women’s primary responsibility for the family. The shift of social constellations that emerges in this new coalition also expressed itself in a gradual shift in political power relations. Like all che actors involved, the SPD and the EKD were convinced that their gender-political revisions were merely adjustments to a structural development

that was essentially not subject to influence. Nevertheless, they were helping to shape a social transformation that the economic situation seemed to render necessary. Labor market policymakers and the state labor administration set the framework in which the necessary recruitment of additional female workers could” continue to be negotiated in terms of “social politics.” Employers’ associations and economic policy networks provided important impulses that helped to refute

entrepreneurial prejudices against part-time work and to set recruitment for part-time work in motion on the ground. In so doing they promoted a societal dynamic that had been looming since the mid-1950s. The Western industrial nations had been the force behind the discovery of “women’s desire to work,” or of married women’s pleasure in their own income. The rapid public acceptance of this epochal reinterpretation of married women’s paid employment, which manifested itself in the media in the early 1960s, indicates that the economic and social transformations of the late 1950s created a cultural and political climate in which a West German society dominated by the consequences of war

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quickly assumed the more open characteristics of a “modern” reform society.'?! The public assessment of married women’s (part-time) employment represents a sort of seismograph of this process. All advocates succumbed to the conceptual attractions of this form of employment. Part-time work had disadvantages on many levels of practical implementation, and these were evident to everyone.'”* This was also one reason for the trade unions’ reluctant and at best half-hearted acceptance of (let alone willingness to demand) part-time work, which they did only under political pressure. In light of the feared “migration” of more married

women into the work process, however, this ultimately appeared opportune even to the conservative parties. Part-time employment was considered above all a guarantee of societal and gender-political adjustment to the rapidly growing “modernization” that accompanied the transition to an affluent consumer society, since it allowed women personal freedoms without fundamentally challenging and imperiling power relations between the sexes. The disadvantages for women employed part-time were tacitly accepted or, as the women’s magazine Constanze put it, dismissed as “little blemishes” that “would surely clear up soon.”'*? Many people also believed that married women who worked part-time did not have to worry about day-to-day survival anyway because they could rely on their pensions or their husbands’ incomes.

Notes 1. “Die Wirtschaft pafst sich den vorhandenen Kraftereserven an,’ BAVAV press release of 10 September 1959, BAK, B 119/1052. 2. Query from the BDA to the BAVAV’s department of women’s placement, 9 November 1959, BAK, B 119/1050. 3. BAVAV, submission of 20 May 1960 for the board meeting on 25 May 1960, TOP 13, Parttime work, 4, ibid. The quotation that follows is also from there. 4. BAVAV, executive board, third term of office, minutes of 23 August 1960 on the second meeting of the board on 25 May 1960 in Nuremberg, TOP 13: Observations on the introduction of part-time employment in the workplaces, 18-19, BAK, B 119/1372. The quotations that follow also come from there.

5. “Betriebliche Erfahrungen mit der Teilzeitbeschaftigung,” Der Arbeitgeber 14, no. 12 (1962): 363Ff.

6. This was mentioned by Maria Béckling of the BAVAV at the conference of the German Central Office of Public Hygiene (Deutsche Zentrale ftir Volksgesundheitspflege) on 19 and 20 November 1962 in Frankfurt. Probleme der Frauenteilzeitbeschaftigung in sozialpolitischer, arbeitsrechtlicher und sozialrechtlicher Sicht. Bericht der Arbeitskonferenz des Ausschusses fiir soziale

und medizinische Frauenfragen, ed. Walter Best (Frankfurt, 1963), 54.

7. The RKW was founded in 1947 as the successor organization to the Reichskuratorium ftir Wirtschaftlichkeit set up in 1921, a nonproftt organization dedicated to “the cultivation and promotion of rationalization efforts.” The members were approximately 1,400 associations and companies, including top organizations from the fields of business, science, technology, and economics, as well as central federal authorities and trade unions. The working group on

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womens employment included representatives of the federal ministries of labor and economics, Management, unions, and some members of parliament. It was founded in 1957, and saw its task as the quantitative and qualitative “promotion of women’s employment.” Selfdescription at a conference of the RKW on 14 November 1958, BAK, BA 149/857]; see also “Frauenarbeit. Ergebnisse einer Befragung,” ed. Rationalisierungskuratorium der Deutschen Wirtschaft, MS Berlin 1960 (mimeographed manuscript). 8. D. Werlssow, “Teilzeitarbeit in England,” typescript distributed at a meeting of the working group on women’s employment on 13 November 1958, BAK, B 149/8571.

9. Ibid., 17. 10. Exrfahrungen mit der Teilzeitarbeit der Frauen. Im Auftrage des Rationalisierungskuratoriums der Deutschen Wirtschaft—RKW—erstellt vom Studienkreis fiir betriebliche Personal- und Sozialpolitik e. V. ‘Der neue Betrieb’ (Essen, 1963), 11-12.

11. “Zehn Jahre Studienkreis “Der neue Betrieb,’” Der Arbeitgeber 14, no. 4 (1962): 107-8. 12. Erfahrungen mit der Teilzeitarbeit der Frauen, 38. 13. On this, see chapter 5 in this volume, especially the section “A Delicate Balance: Company Interests, Job Placement, and Women’s Interests.” 14. Note from Dr. Hentschel of the BMA in a critique of the Weisser Report of 7 August 1957, BAK, B 119/1048. 15. The report was published only as a typescript and also distributed within the administration with a note warning that the economic premises should be ignored because “part-time work is generally understood a priori as an irregular form of employment, engaged in for a supplementary income.” Note by Dr. Hentschel of the BMA in a critique of the Weisser Report of 7 August 1957, ibid. 16. Circular order of 25 March 1959 from the BAVAV to all regional employment offices, concerning the intensification of reporting on questions of labor market observation in regard to the placement of women, BAK, B 119/1050. 17. BMA, “Konjunkturpolitische Mafnahmen, Stellungnahme und Entgegnung auf eine Kabinettsvorlage des BMWi,” 16 September 1964, BAK, B 149/5722. 18. Rosemarie Winter, “SIE sucht Zuverdienst. Vom Nebenberuf der Hausfrau—Was wird bevorzugt, was am besten bezahlt?” Manuscript of a broadcast of the Women’s Program of Hessian Radio (HR), broadcast on 10 October 1960 from 6:45 to 7:00 pm, Archiv des HR, HStAH, Abr. 2050, no. 36. 19. Beginning in 1960, the federal government's Press and Information Office supplied the public broadcasting corporations with “commentaries” on part-time employment. See, e.g., the letter of 14 October 1960, from the federal government's press and information office, broadcasting department, to Hessian Radio’s Sozialfunk, HstAH, Abt. 2050, no. 541. In this letter, the federal government explicitly noted that in light of the allegedly obligatory employment of women in the GDR, programming should point out the “wholly voluntary nature of this measure. See also chapter 5 in this volume (at note 111). 20. “Hausfrauen treten hinter die Ladentheke. Halbtagskrafte im Einzelhandel bewahren sich— Entlastung in Spitzenverkaufszeiten,” Rheinische Post, 17 August 1963; “Morgens in der Ktiche—nachmittags im Betrieb. Textilindustrie beschaftigt mehr Hausfrauen—Teilzeitarbeit setzt sich durch,” Rheinische Post, 23 May 1963. 21. “Teilzeit-Frauen machen sich beliebt. Fiir viele Betriebe zuverlassige Krafte—Sie arbeiten ftir den Lebensstandard,” Rheinische Post, 18 October 1963. 22. “Damit lockt die Industrie die Hausfrauen,” Bildzeitung, 16 September 1961. 23. “Freie Fahrt fiir Halbtsagsarbeit!” Constanze 13, no. 23 (1960): 2-9. 24. See also “Muf$ denn Teilzeitarbeit Sitinde sein?—Leihdamen auf Abruf,” Die Zeit, 6 April 1962. 25. “Neue Aufgaben fur Grofsmiitter!” Constanze 13, no. 9 (1960): Gff. The picture is titled: “The grandmother of today does not want to sit around in her armchair knitting. She is more youthful than the grandmothers of bygone days. Not yet ready to rest, she seeks new duties.” Ibid. 26. “Eine Frau muf alle zehn Jahre umsatteln,” Constanze 14, no. 10 (1961): 6-7.

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27. On changes in the magazine’s ideal woman, see Kienzl, “Frauenerwerbstatigkeit,” 3-4. 28. “Nebenverdienst fiir Hausfrauen,” Constanze 16, no. 29 (1963): 4-7. 29. “Ehe und Beruf vertragen sich,” Constanze 14, no. 22 (1961): 8-10. 30. Elisabeth von Kleist, “Trennung von Mutter und Kind im ersten Lebensjahr,” manuscript fora broadcast on the Women’s Program (Frauenfunk) of Hessian Radio, broadcast on 19 October 1962 from 10:00 to 10:10 am, Archiv des HR, HStAH, Abr. 2050, no. 53. 31. In the 1950s, such advice would have been unanimously condemned as assisting women in evading their maternal duties. See, e.g., the contributions by Otto Speck, “Was sollte ich den ganzen Tag bei meinem Kind? Zum Problem der Kinder berufstatiger Miitter,” Unsere Jugend 5, no. 3 (1953): 151; and Elisabeth Gliicksmann-Liidy, “Noch einmal: Was sollte ich den ganzen Tag bei meinem Kind?” Unsere Jugend 5, no. 9 (1953): 425-26. 32. “Probleme 1962,” Constanze 14, no. 33 (1961): 2. 33. “Ehe und Beruf vertragen sich,” Constanze 14, no. 22 (1961): 8-10. 34. Ibid., 10. 35. Gabricle Strecker, “Eine Lésung: Beruf auf Zeit. Die Frau gehért nicht nur ins Haus—Ehe bringt Ansehen,” Die Zeit, 21 September 1962, 43. 36. Gabriele Strecker, “Der Platz der Frau in der Arbeitswelt,” broadcast manuscript for the Women’s Program of Hessian Radio, broadcast on 25 February 1965 from 7:45 to 8:00 pm, Archiv des HR, HStAH, Abt. 2050, no. 96. 37. Alva Myrdal and Viola Klein, Womens Two Roles: Home and Work (London, 1956). 38. The book appeared in German translation as Die Doppelrolle der Frau in Familie and Beruf (Cologne, 1960). On the reception of the book in the 1950s, see e.g., the discussions that took place at further training sessions for female placement officers of the BAVAV. See Oertzen, Teilzeitarbeit und die Lust am Zuverdienen, chap. 2.2.3. 39. Myrdal and Klein, Women’ Tiwo Roles, xiii.

40. Ibid., 24. 41. “Making husbands, and fathers, full partners in the affairs of their families, instead of mere ‘visiteurs du soir, seems to us so much to be desired that, with a general shortening of working time in mind, we think the full-time employment of married women preferable to their doing part-time work—although for a period of transition part-time employment may be easier to do (it certainly is not easier to find).” Ibid., 193-94. 42. Myrdal and Klein, Die Doppelrolle der Frau in Familie and Beruf (Cologne, 1960), 253. 43. Renate Sprung, “Die berufstatige Hausfrau in der DDR,” broadcast manuscript for the Women’s Program of Hessian Radio, broadcast on 16 June 1967 from 3:30 to 4:00 pm, Archiv des HR, HStAH, Abt. 2050, no. 139. The quotations that follow are also from there. 44. See chapter 6, this volume. 45. Michael Wildt, Am Beginn der Konsumgesellschaft. Mangelerfahrung, Lebenshaltung, Woblstandshoffnung in Westdeutschland in den 50er Jahren (Hamburg, 1994), esp. chaps. 1 and 2. 46. On the Godesberg Program, see Kurt Klotzbach, Der Weg zur Staatspartei. Progammatik, praktische Politik und Organisation der deutschen Sozialdemokratie 1945-1965, 2nd ed. (Bonn, 1996), 449ff. 47. Anew opposition style established by the party leadership in 1960 also served this purpose: as a “quiet opposition,” the SPD now understood its role chiefly as arguing on points of detail in order to show itself capable of governing. See Siegfried Heimann, “Die Sozialdemokratische Partei Deutschlands,” in Parteienhandbuch, ed. Richard Stéss (Opladen, 1986), vol. 4, 2025— 2217, 2069, 2093. 48. “Frauen wissen eben manches besser. Marta Schanzenbach halt nichts von Theorien,” Vorwérts, 23 August 1961, 8.

49. Herta Gotthelf, editor-in-chief of the SPD women’s journal Gleichheit, took quite a different position, noting that she had “no time” for the “new style.” When Gotthelf left the party executive in 1958 it was ostensibly for health reasons, but fundamental differences over women’s policy doubtless also played a role. Gortthelf’s successor on the party executive was

Changing Public Opinion, 1959-1969 | 67

Hety Schmitt-Maass, who firmly supported the new course and assumed editorship of Gleich-

heit after Gotthelf’s death in May 1963 until publication of the journal “for the working woman’ stopped in 1965. On Herta Gotthelf, see above all the extensive portrait in the final issue of the journal, “Kampferinnen fiir den Fortschritt,” Gleichheit, 27 (1965): 227-30.

50. Schanzenbach before the subcommittee on the family of the SPD’s party executive's Social Policy Committee on 1 and 2 February 1960, minutes of the explanation of the main points of the SPD’s family policy, ASD, SPD BT-Fraktion, 3. WP, no. 142. The quotations that follow also come from there.

51. “Richtlinien sozialdemokratischer Familienpolitik,” Jahrbuch SPD 1960/1, 465ft. Also reproduced in Gleichheit 23, no. 4 (1961): 161 ff. I cite here from Gleichheit.

52. The “double burden” of women who actually worked full-time should be alleviated by retaining the free day to do housework. Ibid. On the politics of housework day, see Sachse, “Ein ‘heifSes Eisen’: Ost- und westdeutsche Debatten um den Hausarbeitstag,” in Budde, Frauen arbeiten, 252-85. 53. Hety Schmitt-Maass, “Die Frau von Heute zwischen Familie und Beruf,” manuscript of 9 September 1961, SPD-Pressedienst P/XVI/204, ASD, PV-Referat Frauenarbeit, no. 0208 A. 54. Ibid., 12. 55. Ibid., 13. 56. This was only one of a whole range of Social Democratic demands including equal wages, the forty-hour, five-day work week, improvements in maternity care, maternal protection legislation, childcare, and all-day schools. Ibid., 10. 57. Ibid., 11. 58. “Das Verhalten der Wahlerinnen bei der Bundestagswahl 1961, Erfahrungen und Konsequenzen. Vorlage fiir den Parteivorstand, Frauenausschufs,” n.d. (1961), ASD, PV-Frauenausschuf$ 0240 B. The Federal Office of Statistics confirmed the electoral analysis, Statistisches Bundesamt Wiesbaden, Wahl zum 4. Deutschen BT am 17.9.1961 (Stuttgart, 1962), vol 4: Textliche Auswertung der Wablergebnisse, 41.

59. Motion by the SPD parliamentary party regarding the situation of women in work, family, and society, 11 December 1962, Verh. BT, 4. WP 1961, Drs. 1V/837. 60. Bundestag resolution of 9 December 1964, Verh. BT, 4. WP 1961, Drs. 1V/2771. Gl. Verh. BT, 4. WP 1961, 149. Session of 24 April 1963, 5798f. The quotations that follow also come from there.

62. IG-Merall, executive committee, Gertrud Mahnke to the members of the women’s committee of [G-Metall and the women’s affairs officers at the district headquarters, 8 August 1961, concerning part-time employment, IGM-ZA, Frauenausschufs SV. 63. Excerpt from the minutes of the meeting of the DGB-BFA held on 20-21 November 1962 in Bad Miinder/Deister, DGB-Archiv, 24.11, Abt. Frauen, 24/4535. 64. Margarethe Iraeder to Maria Weber, 21 April 1960, ibid., 24/4373. 65. Record of the meeting of the “Kleine Kommission Teilzeitarbeit” of the DGB National Women's Committee on 13 February 1963, DGB-Archiv, 24.18, Abt. Tarifpolitik, 24/6362. Women trade unionists representing the sectors in which part-time work was particularly widespread who attended included Kathe Sodan (IG Papier), Ingeborg Ténessen (OTV), Gertrud Mahnke (IG-Metall), and Marlies Kutsch (IG-Bergbau, cleaning personnel). Two additional members, Moser and Linde, probably represented the HBV and IG Textil und Bekleidung. 66. Ibid. 67. “Rund um die Teilzeitarbeit,” position paper of the Department of Women’s Affairs, 20 January 1966, 17, DGB-Archiv, Abt. Frauen, 24/4535. 68. Record of the meeting of the “Kleine Kommission Teilzeitarbeit,” 13 February 1963, 2, DGBArchiv, 24.18, Abt. Tarifpolitik, 24/6362. 69. Presentation for the meeting of the BFA on 17 October 1963, DGB-Archiv, 24.11, Abt. Frauen, 24/4535. 70. Minutes of the meeting of the National Women’s Committee on 17 October 1963, ibid.

68 | The Pleasure of a Surplus Income

71. Fora detailed account, see Oertzen, Teilzeitarbeit und die Lust am Zuverdienen, chap. 2.1.1. 72. Resolution of the Third Women’s Conference of 1G-Metall in Baden-Wiurtremberg in Stuttgart 1960. As of 1 January 1961, part-time employees and young people up to the age of 18 whose gross monthly wages did not exceed 220 DM had to pay dues of 0.90 DM per week. DGBArchiv, 24.11, Abt. Frauen, 24/4373. 73. “Teilzeitarbeit fordern! Mobilisierung der letzten Arbeitskraftereserve,” press release of the German employers’ associations, 10 July 1964, ibid., 24/6362. 74. Record of the meeting of the “Kleine Kommission Teilzeitarbeit” of the National Women’s Committee on 8 July 1964, 3, ibid., 24/4535. 75. “Rund um die Teilzeitarbeit,” position paper of the Department of Women’s Affairs, 17, ibid. 76. Press release from the DGB, Women’s Section (Abt. Frauen), 8 July 1964, ibid. 77. Women’s Section to Pay Policy Section, 20 July 1964, DGB-Archiv, 24.18, Abr. Tarifpolitik, 24/6362. 78. Resolution on part-time employment, Motion A 89 of the 7th Regular National Congress of the DGB, 9-14 May 1966 in Berlin, DGB-Archiv, 24.11, Abt. Frauen, 24/4535. 79. Martina Klein, Gewerkschaften und Teilzeitarbeit in Deutschland. Eine vergleichende Untersuchung des Einzelhandels und der Gebdudereinigung (Baden-Baden, 1995), 212. Klein shows that even in the 1970s and 1980s, this did not necessarily include an “advocatory,” concrete representation of interests.

80. Gertrud Mahnke to the members of the women’s commission of the ]G-Merall and the women’s affairs officers at the district headquarters, 8 August 1961 concerning part-time employment, IGM-ZA, Frauenausschuf SV. 81. “Die Frauen und die Wahlerstimmen. CDU-Kongress beschaftigt sich mit den Problemen der berufstatigen Frauen,” Westfalische Rundschau, 4 December 1964, ACDP, Bestand III-0021074/2. 82. “Frauen haben sich eine eigene Arbeitswelt erobert. Aenne Brauksiepe er6ffnete CDU-Frauenkongref$ in Bochum—Teilzeitbeschaftigung gefordert,” Die Glocke, 3 December 1964, ACDP, Bestand ITI-002-1074/2. See also Aenne Brauksiepe, “Mehr Mut zum Engagement,” Frau und Politik 12, no. 10 (1966): 4. 83. “Frauen haben sich eine cigene Arbeitswelt ...,” Die Glocke, 3 December 1964. 84. “Die Frau hat eine Chance wie nie zuvor. Frau und Berufswelt morgen—CDU-Kongress im Bochum,” Echo der Zeit, 13 December 1964, ACDP, Bestand II]-002-1074/2. 85. “Frauen haben sich eigene Arbeitswelt ...,” Die Glocke, 3 December 1964. 86. “Probleme der miitterlichen Erwerbsarbeit, Bericht tiber eine familienpolitische Arbeitstagung der Akademie Eichholtz v. 4.-6.11.1965 in K6nigswinter,” Frau und Politik 11, no. 2 (1965): 8.

87. See Hermann Schubnell, “Die Erwerbstatigkeit von Frauen und Miittern und die Betreuung ihrer Kinder,” WS, no. 8 (1964): 444-56. 88. “Probleme der miitterlichen Erwerbsarbeit, Bericht ... v. 4.-6.11.1965 in Kénigswinter,” Frau und Politik 11, no. 2 (1965): 8. 89. Ibid., 9 90. “Die Frau in Familie und Beruf. CDU-FrauenkongrefS im Lande Schleswig-Holstein am 28.4.1965,” Frau und Politik 11, no. 7 (1965): 8-9.

91. This finding is consistent with the assessment that in the 1960s, the CDU and CSU lost their role as shapers of political and social developments and came to be “inhibited and imprisoned by the respective concrete, historical societal situations.” See Alf Mintzel, Die CSU— Anatomie einer konservativen Partei, 1945-1972 (Opladen, 1975), 44; Dorothee Buchhaas, Die Volkspartei. Programmatische Entwicklung der CDU, 1950-1973 (Disseldorf, 1981), 253. As in the case of the SPD, here, too, an analysis of the parties’ policies toward women remains to be done. 92. “Bericht der Bundesregierung tiber die Situation der Frauen in Beruf, Familie und Gesellschaft, erstellt vom Bundesminister fiir Arbeit und Sozialordnung,” BT, 5. WP 1965, Drs.V/909, Bonn 1966, cited in whar follows as “Frauenenquéte.”

Changing Public Opinion, 1959-1969 | 69 93. Hedda Heuser, “Ein Leben aus zweiter Hand?—Kommentrar zum ersten Bericht der Bundesregierung tiber die Situation der Frau in Beruf, Familie und Gesellschaft v. 25.9.1966,” ADL, A 5-30, 37/8. 94. For example, the establishment of part-time employment within civil service law, which was supposed to give highly qualified female university graduates “practical equality” within the civil service. Cf. Christine von Oertzen, “Women, Work and the State: Lobbying for PartTime Work and ‘Practical Equality’ in the West German Civil Service,” in State Policy and Gender System in the Two German States and Sweden 1945-1989, ed. Rolf Torstendahl (Upsala, 1999), 79-104. 95. “Frauenenquéte,” preface. 96. Ibid., 9. 97. Ibid., 85.

98. “Offener Brief der EKD an die Kirchenleitungen der evangelischen Landeskirchen v. 17.8.1965,” Die Mitarbeit. Zeitschrift zur Gesellschafts- und Kulturpolitik 14, no. 6 (1965): 89. 99. Marlies Cremer, “Probleme der Teilzeitarbeit fiir Krankenschwestern,” Deutsche Schwestern-

zeitung 16, no. 4 (1963): 117-19. |

100. Minutes of the conference of the Commission for Cooperation between Men and Women in the Church, Family, and Society held on 6-7 October 1961 in Diisseldorf, ADW, HGS 5, 4656. 101. Arbeitstagung v. 10.-14.4.1962 in Freiburg, ed. Zentralkommittee der Deutschen Katholiken (Paderborn, 1962), 41-44. 102. For biographical information, see Elisabeth Schwarzhaupt, “Jahrgang 1901—als Frau in Beruf und Politik,” Frauen in der Politik. Die Christdemokratinnen. Unterwegs zur Partnerschaft, ed. Renate Hellwig (Stuttgart, 1984), 225-42; and Ursula Huffmann et al. Frauen in Wissenschaft und Politik. Sammelband anlafslich des 60jahrigen Bestehens des Deutschen Akademikerinnenbundes e.V. (Diisseldorf, 1987), 99-101. The prospective jurist had to leave her position as a trainee lawyer in 1936, earned her doctorate in Frankfurt, and then worked for the German Association of Retirees (Deutscher Rentnerbund) before joining the legal staff of the EKD Church Office in 1942. After 1945, she became a member of the World Council of Churches in Geneva and executive secretary of the Evangelical Women’s Service (Evangelische Frauenarbeit). In 1953, she became a member of the Bundestag for the CDU, as well as a member of the legislative commission of the Evangelical Women’s Service. She was a member and from 1970 to 1974 chairwoman of the German Association of Women University Graduates, and from 1970 to 1972 chairwoman of the German Women’s Council. Elisabeth Schwarzhaupt died in 1986. 103. Fides Krause-Brewer, “Was sind die Aufgaben einer Gesundheitsministerin?” Stuctgarter Zeitung,

13 February 1962, ADW, HGStr 5, 5655. 104. Probleme der Frauenteilzeitbeschaftigung, “Vorwort.” 105. Cremer was also a member of the Protestant Committee for Labor Issues (Aktionsgemeinschaft fur Arbeiterfragen). Minutes of the meeting of the legislative commission of the Evangelical , Women’s Service on 9 February 1962 in Frankfurt, ADW, HGSt. 5, 4656.

106. Minutes of the conference of the EKD Commission for Cooperation between Men and Women in the Church, Family, and Society held on 6-7 October 1961 in Diisseldorf, ibid. 107. Marlies Cremer, “Teilzeitbeschaftigung der Frau in soziologischer Sicht—Méglichkeiten zu einer optimalen Lésung,” in Probleme der Frauenteilzeitbeschaftigung in sozialpolitischer, arbeits- , rechtlicher und sozialrechtlicher Sicht. Bericht der Arbeitskonferenz fiir soziale und medizinische

Frauenfragen am 19. und 20. November 1962 in Frankfurt/M., ed. Walter Best (Frankfurt/M., : 1963), 1-23, here 2~3. 108. Minutes of the meeting of the legislative commission of the Evangelical Women’s Service in Germany on 9 February 1962, ADW, HGSt 5, 4656. 109. Cover letter sent with the manuscript “Teilzeitarbeit” to the member organizations of the : Evangelical Women's Service in Germany, 25 November 1965, ibid.

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110. Submission for the discussion on part-time employment with industry representatives on 5 June 1964, enclosure with the minutes of the meeting of 5 May 1964, ibid.; minutes of the meetings of 12 and 13 November 1964 with representatives of trade unions, Christian social services, and the labor administration on the subject of part-time employment, ADW, HGSt, 4655.

111. “Teilzeitarbeit. Ergebnisse einer Befragung von Personen, die verantwortlich tatig sind in Industrie, Handel, Diakonie, Gewerkschaft und Arbeitsvermittlung, durchgefiihrt vom Rechtsausschuf$ der Evangelischen Frauenarbeit,” MS, sent to the member organizations of the Evangelical Women’s Service in Germany on 25 November 1965, ADW, HGSt 4656. 112. Minutes of the meeting of the legislative commission of the Evangelical Women’s Service on

21 January 1965, p. 6, point 4, “Part-time employment,” ibid. 113. “Offener Brief des Ausschusses fiir Zusammenarbeit von Mann und Frau ..., v. 10.5.1965 nebst der ‘Denkschrift ttber die Teilzeitarbeit der Frauen,” Die Mitarbeit 14, no. 6 (1965): 88-96; also in Mitteilungen des Sozialamtes der evangelischen Kirche von Westfalen, 22 Septem-

ber 1966, 41-46. In what follows I cite from the latter edition. 114. “Offener Brief des Ausschusses ftir die Zusammenarbeit von Mann und Frau ..., v. 10.7.1965,” in ibid., 41, which is also the source of the quotations that follow. 115. Ibid., 42. 116. “Denkschrift tiber die Teilzeitarbeit der Frauen,” ibid., 46. 117. Minutes of the conference of the EKD’s Commission for Cooperation between Men and Women in the Church, Family, and Society held on 6-7 October 1961 in Diisseldorf, ADW, HGSt 5, 4656. 118. “Denkschrift iiber die Teilzeitarbeir der Frauen,” 44. 119. Christoph KlefS8mann, “Kontinuitéten und Verinderungen im protestantischen Milieu,” in Schildt and Sywottek, Modernisierung im Wiederaufbau, 403-17, here 408-9. He mentions the Stuttgart Confession of Guilt of 1947, the positions on rearmament and atomic weapons, and the EKD’s Memorandum on Property of 1962 and Memorandum on Relations with East European Countries of 1965. 120. Ibid., 414, cited in Martin MOller, Evangelische Kirche und Sozialdemokratische Partei in den Jahren 1945~1950. Grundlagen der Verstandigung und Beginn des Dialogs (Gottingen, 1984), 175.

121. See also Anselm Doering-Manteuffel, “Deutsche Zeitgeschichte nach 1945. Entwicklung und Problemlagen der historischen Forschung zur Nachkriegszeit,” V/fZ 41, no. 1 (1993): 1-27. 122. The oft-mentioned disadvantages included poor opportunities of advancement, low qualification levels, poor social security benefits, job insecurity due to dismissal, and low wages, Winfried Haase, “Frauen im Beruf,” Frau und Politik 12 (1966): 13. 123. “Freie Fahrt ftir Halbtagsarbeit,” Constanze 13, no. 23 (8 November 1960): 34.

Chapter 3

New RIGHTS FOR MARRIED WOMEN The Legal Institutionalization of Part-Time Work

CEO

We can trace the gradual lessening of societal misgivings about married women’s

employment into the mid-1960s quite precisely by examining the legal establishment of part-time work.! The institutionalization of a regular, reduced working-hour model for married women and mothers presented numerous legal problems, since in West Germany health, unemployment, and old age insurance were tied to the model of the so-called standard eight-hour working day. The entire legal regulation of the state-protected labor market rested on this construct. Since the advent of industrial capitalism in Germany, the central norm of “full-time” work had proven a particularly effective and efficient instrument for establishing and perpetuating gender hierarchies, particularly in times of rapid economic and social change, when the maintenance of the gendered division of labor appeared to be endangered.’ The construct of a regular, that is, “full-time,” and contractually and socially secure employment relationship served to enforce and maintain the ideal of the male “main breadwinner”; men were expected to build a continuous, lifelong work history in order to do justice to their status as head of the family. For decades, this expectation remained at the heart of both union demands and middle-class models of the family. Accordingly, the “worker” (Arbeitnehmer) whose status needed to be secured represented a male head of household. His wife, who was not employed, and his minor children, in contrast, were defined as “dependents.” [hey were insured not in their own right, but only through coverage under the employed father’s insurance, and in this way could claim benefits in case of illness, old age, or the disability or death of the “breadwinner.” Social security according to this “family principle” followed the notion that the collectivity of Notes for this chapter begin on page 79.

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employed insured people formed a mutually supportive group (Solidargemeinschaft) which included nonemployed dependents. Originally, insurance coverage applied

only in a few key manufacturing sectors with a largely male workforce. Thus, in the first half of the twentieth century, many male and the overwhelming majority of female workers were not covered by social insurance. Only with the gradual expansion of employment subject to social insurance payments did “employee status, which ensured access to direct state benefits, come to acquire the character of a universal principle of social participation in Germany. The time berween 1955 and 1974 is considered the period in West Germany during which the standard working day and standard employment relationship became a dominant reality in the world of work.’ It was during these very years, in which West Germany most closely approached this ideal of a working society with total social security coverage,

that the legal framework of part-time work for women was put in place. Since no one was willing to touch the norm of the “standard working day,” the pros and cons of part-time work were debated energetically between 1955 and 1970. In what follows, I pursue and sketch these debates using individual examples from social security, tax, and civil service law, and show which legal problems the newly discovered “enthusiasm for work” (Erwerbsfreude) of married women created in West Germany, and how part-time work was anchored in the network

of regulations surrounding the standard working day. I am interested here in showing that the legal security of part-time work resulted from a complex, almost artful process of negotiation. Society reached a broad-based compromise, which permitted married women an “employment status of their own” while at the same time not challenging the gendered division of labor.

Misgivings about women working part-time proved particularly intractable in the field of unemployment insurance. Such reservations were expressed in the early 1950s not only when women who worked less than full-time became unem-

ployed and applied for benefits. Married women and mothers who registered with the state employment offices found themselves confronted with the general suspicion that they were not “genuine workers” (echte Arbeitnehmer) and thus were not “really” unemployed. To be sure, under the law unemployed women with “family responsibilities” had had a right to benefits since 1947 if they had worked more than twenty-five hours a week for longer than twenty-six weeks and paid contributions to the social insurance system.* When the labor market situation deteriorated after the currency reform, however, and jobless figures rose, the West German employment offices became highly inventive in devising ways of refusing unemployment benefits to wives and mothers who had a household

to look after. Women with such domestic responsibilities, argued the Hessian Regional Employment Office, for instance, were “in general not” to be regarded as employed persons. A woman's “own domestic establishment” and the care of her “own family members” represented “the center of ... [her] life, interests and work.” By definition, any but marginal paid employment had no place in her life. And if women expected to be regarded as “workers” (Arbeitnehmerinnen), they had to prove they were serious by taking up full-time employment.’

New Rights for Married Women | 73

The thrust of this line of argument was clear enough. The state employment offices regarded representing the interests of women who could not be placed under the “conditions of the regular labor market” as an expensive inconvenience. For that reason, they assumed from women’s “family responsibilities that they could only be employed in a marginal capacity,’ labeled them “not truly unemployed,” and refused to pay them unemployment benefits. Mothers of toddlers were the most likely to be denied support, even if they had paid contributions and wanted to work more than the minimum number of hours. The reason was that some regional social insurance arbitration courts (Spruchkammern) went so far as to claim that babies could only be cared for by their own mothers, and that if women preferred working to raising their own children then it was the “business of public institutions to remind [them] of these duties.”® In no other area of insurance was the state policy of excluding women pursued so efficiently as in the field of unemployment insurance, and nowhere else did the standard working day serve so blatantly as a gender-political bulwark to refuse independent social security benefits to married women. In 1956, despite insistent protest from the SPD opposition, this strategy acquired the legal basis it had been lacking up until that point. The eligibility requirements of 1947 were redefined in such a way that one could only expect unemployment benefits if one was “seriously

prepared and ... in a position, according to one’s capabilities, and not hindered by other circumstances, particularly by actual responsibilities, which exclude more than marginal employment, to pursue employment under the usual conditions of the general labor market and available as an employee according to the generally accepted standards prevailing in working life.”’ The government hoped that the new regulations would make it far more difficult in the future for married women and mothers to enforce their claims to support and thus to “abuse” insurance benefits.®

Nevertheless, much to the dismay of the legislation’s authors, the “generally accepted standards’ regarding the nature of married women’s employee status

changed rapidly almost before the law had an opportunity to go into effect. Women who had been refused unemployment benefits because they could not work full-time continued to register protests and complaints. They now had far a better chance of having them heard, too, since previously the labor administration itself had decided on such complaints, and had been only too prepared to” do so in its own interest. In 1954, however, independent social security tribunals (Sozialgerichte) were established in West Germany, and they were responsible for actions against decisions of the state employment offices. For the first time, the social security tribunals set standards in social insurance based on the rule of law. They put an end to biased verdicts by insisting on proper procedures of taking evidence. Now it was up to the employment offices to prove that married women lacked a “serious willingness to work.” This was only possible if the benefit recipients refused several job offers. In this way the true reasons for the difficulties in

placing women who were unavailable for full-time employment came to light. It was not that women were “work shy.” Instead, it became clear that few if any companies were interested in hiring women part-time.”

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The persistent labor shortage meant that companies had to abandon their resistance after 1959. As will be shown in more detail below, a genuine competition for scarce workers ensued. The sudden interest of companies in hiring “housewives,” who were not organized, also alarmed the trade unions, with immediate and farreaching legal consequences. Unions and management went to the negotiating table. Although both sides were only reluctantly willing to call for social benefits

beyond the norm of the standard working day, they now demanded that the stipulations of unemployment insurance law be interpreted more leniently in favor of married women and mothers. The companies did so because they hoped that this would afford them easier access to desperately needed half-day employees, and the unions did so because they wanted to protect their clientele of fulltime workers against cheap competition.'° This solidarity accelerated the change of direction within the labor administration toward viewing married women as “genuinely unemployed” and actually paying them benefits. This revision was, however, already the result of people “voting with their feet.” Women, particularly highly trained white-collar employees, no longer trusted the labor administration. The unemployment offices had already gained the reputation, and not without reason, of serving less as job placement agencies than as “defensive institutions for the prevention of the unjustified drawing of benefits.”"! As early as 1958, the labor administration had already noted with dismay that placement figures for the female labor market had actually fallen sharply, despite favorable conditions. In order to counteract this development, and to prevent the erosion of the state’s placement monopoly by private employment agencies, the president of the BAVAV ordered an immediate change of course.'* The BAVAV’s central department for women’s placement provided the substantive arguments, following the altered public attitude toward married women’s and mothers’ paid employment. Officially, the last word in questions of insurance coverage was left to the courts. Internally, however, even before a high court verdict, the directors of the local public employment offices were persuaded to be obliging when assessing the status of jobless married women and mothers as genuine workers.'° When the Supreme Social Insurance Tribunal (Bundessozialgericht) decided in 1962 that women with “family responsibilities” had a right to unemployment benefits if they were in a position to work at least twenty-five hours a week, there was no longer any mention of defending the “regular labor market” against married women ‘wrongfully seeking entry.” On the contrary. The court even expressly pointed out that the state should privilege employed women with children precisely because they did family work. For this reason alone they deserved a particularly protected place in the state-regulated labor market, even if they did not fulfill its “standard criteria.”'* In this way, the Supreme Social Insurance Tribunal sanctioned a new approach to married women’s employment and helped facilitate the legal establishment of part-time work as a regular employment status.

Unemployment insurance was not the only area of social insurance in the early 1960s to depart from the norm of full-time employment by independently insuring married women who worked part-time. Beginning in 1961, women

New Rights for Married Women | 75

who were earning a supplementary income and their employers were also more consistently asked to pay health and pension insurance contributions.'? This altered practice met with far less approval among both the so-called supplementary income earners (Zuverdienerinnen) and companies than the new regulations concerning unemployment insurance. Up until then, both sides had profited from the “family principle” of social insurance: if women could credibly make the case that they were working not to support their families but only to earn (a bit of) money to pay “for Christmas presents, a vacation, or the like,” the insurance funds were willing to dispense with their contributions, even when their income or length of employment was anything but “marginal.”!° Much to the regret of the unions, young married women frequently saw no reason why they should suddenly part with 12 percent of their hard-earned “pocket money” for insurance contributions when they were already insured for sickness and retirement through their husbands. Older women were most easily convinced to pay health and pension insurance contributions out of their part-time earnings since they were concerned with their own retirement benefits.'” When in 1964 employers forcefully argued that the government should “promote’ part-time work by generously expanding the area of employment exempt from social insurance, it was above all older women whom the unions could successfully mobilize against such efforts.!® The political tug-of-war between the “family principle” and “mutual social liability” (Solidarhaftung) ended with the compromise that azy paid employment of more than twenty hours a week for a period of longer than three months was liable to both pension and health insurance contributions.’ Thus, in the mid-19G60s, part-time work was thoroughly anchored in the social insurance system and at the same time established as a regular, gender-specific standard employment relationship. For the first time, this offered married women who earned a “supplementary income” a place of their own in the labor market and direct participation in social security, as insufficient as it may have been in reality. The insurance compromise that was achieved could

not, however, prevent growing numbers of married women from accepting unin- : sured positions beneath this level because they did not wish to pay social insurance contributions, or because their employers refused to do so." The incorporation of part-time employment into social security law was not. the sole cause of the definitive break with the absolute normative power of the standard working day. From 1958 on, the full-time civil service and its exclusively masculine ethos also found itself under assault. In Lower Saxony, the first federal state to introduce part-time work for female schoolteachers with civil servant

status in 1960, the chief concern at first was to find pragmatic solutions to the | acute shortage of teachers. For that reason defenders of the reform used the new views of married women’s employment to justify and enforce a departure from the “traditional principles of the professional civil service.” Thus, the minister of the interior for Lower Saxony declared himself convinced that female civil servants who worked half days were capable of “unconditional loyalty” to the state and “complete devotion to their profession,” even if they were not present during

76 | The Pleasure of a Surplus Income

full working hours. When it came to becoming or remaining a civil servant, what counted was not the amount of time spent in public service, but rather the quality of the work.*! In addition, much as occurred a short while later in the case of unemployment insurance, the minister insisted in a novel manner on the state’s duty to look after the interests of working mothers. It must protect its female civil servants and their families in a similar fashion. For that reason it was unconscionable to continue to force married schoolteachers to choose between working fulltime and leaving the civil service altogether. The state was called upon instead to provide married female civil servants with the special right to work reduced hours while retaining all the privileges of civil servant status, so that they could fulfill both their duty of loyalty to the state and their family responsibilities. At the same time, this would also permit the state to offer a new form of lifelong career perspectives to young women, which would encourage them to become teachers.” The option for female teachers with civil servant status to reduce their working

hours by half for a period of up to ten years went into effect in 1960 in Lower Saxony and in 1962 in Baden-Wiirttemberg.*? The discussion began two years later on the federal level, where it took on the character of a thoroughly political debate on fundamental principles centered on a new demand for women’s equality. To be sure, the West German women’s organizations, which vigorously supported the introduction of the “half-day civil servant,” still accepted that women were primarily responsible for their work in the family.?4 Nevertheless, they insisted on the creation, beyond mere formal equality of opportunities, of conditions under which women could actually grasp those opportunities. Ihe German constitution guaranteed women the same access to public office as men. Just like men, however, they should be able to stay in those positions when they started a family.*? In 1969, after five years of tough wrangling between women’s organiza-

tions and the government, bureaucracy, and professional associations, German federal law was changed so that a civil service career no longer required full-time work. The womens rights lobby celebrated this success as a breakthrough for “practical equality’: “From this day forward,” noted the FDP deputy Hedda Heuser after the legislation passed in the Bundestag, “it shall thus be possible for female civil servants to do equal justice to their familial and professional duties and ... inclinations, without constantly having a guilty conscience, without either their profession or family suffering, and without harming themselves either.”?° When the Bundestag unanimously passed legislation allowing female civil servants to work part-time, the prejudices against a working world that was not oriented solely toward the standard working day appeared overcome, and also legally dispelled in those laws that regulated the basic position of working wives between the workplace and the family. Naturally, especially in labor and collective bar_ gaining law, the vagaries of part-time work had not even begun to be remedied. The greatest worries had, however, proved unfounded in the 1950s and 1960s. To be sure, the institutionalization of women’s “pleasure in a supplementary income made it necessary to abandon the standard working day as the sole and central mode of access to social security. It did not, however, require a simultaneous

New kights for Married Women | 77

challenge to the gender order. The latter remained intact, since other regulations bolstered the hierarchical system of the division of labor, even if married women and mothers were conceded the status of workers in the labor market. A final example from tax law will make this clearer. Throughout the 1950s, debates raged over whether married women’s earnings from wages should be taxed separately or together with their husbands’ income. The finance ministers and all those who would have preferred for women to stay in the kitchen argued for joint taxation, which was supposed to ensure that married couples would find their “double incomes” very expensive indeed. This idea did not win out, however. On several occasions, vehement public protests and determined

opposition in parliament forced Adenauer's CDU government to back down from this project. The Federal Constitutional Court finally put an end to the “marital taxation war” in 1957, publicly repudiating the plans of the federal ministry of finance and its counterparts in the states and stipulating that the wages of working spouses be taxed equally and separately.?” A new tax bracket,

Steuerklasse [V, was introduced for married couples in which both partners worked. If both spouses were employed, wives now had to switch from tax class (Steuerklasse) 1 to tax class IV. Husbands moved from tax class II or III to the new tax class IV. This change represented a significant improvement for women

who worked full-time, since they could now take half of any deductions for dependent children from their own income. Husbands, in contrast, were now in a worse position. Previously, as “main breadwinners” in tax class II or III, they had been able to double all personal deductions, and subtract all deductions for dependent children from their taxable income alone. Now they had to share the deductions with their wives.*°

The new tax system shook all those sectors of the female labor market in which seasonal, hourly, or home work dominated. From one day to the next, women stopped going to work.”? They said that earning a supplementary income no longer “paid.” In fact, this was initially a result of the government's failure to devise an arrangement whereby married women could make use of the deduc-

tions owed to them when they earned income, but not enough to profit from those deductions. An agreement was soon reached that deductions that wives could not use could be transferred to their husbands’ tax returns. The difficulties continued, however, despite the solution to this problem. Eventually it became clear why people were still complaining: most husbands had a very hard time giving up their old tax status as “main breadwinner.” They feared losing face in the workplace: the boss “might misunderstand” tax card IV or “the little office employees might talk about it.”°? It soon became clear that equal taxation for spouses was unenforceable in West Germany. Men were simply unwilling to relinquish the privileges of main breadwinner status, not just to save face before their employers and colleagues, but also before their own wives. When conflicts arose, women quit their jobs if at all economically possible, or they tried to earn their money in the informal sector.?! At any rate, they did not want their supplementary earnings “to burden their husbands and disturb the peace of the family.”°?

78 | The Pleasure of a Surplus Income

The effects on the labor market of these solutions to marital conflicts were so tangible that in 1960, the finance ministry already decided to test a new tax card | for women, “F” (for Frau), which re-established the differential taxation of husbands and wives. If husbands did not wish to give up their privileged status as “main breadwinner,’ women could use the “F” tax card to avoid marital conflicts over their employment. In that case, however, their wages were treated as if they were the husband’s second income, and taxed at a high rate.*’ This procedure re-established the domestic “harmony” of the gender hierarchy between the “main breadwinner,’ and the “supplementary income earner.” It met with such great approval that the “F” tax card was integrated into the general income tax system in 1965 as tax class V, and made available not just to women who earned a minimal income, but to any working wives whose husbands were unwilling to relinquish their status as main breadwinner. This gradual generalization within the tax system of the principle of tax card “F” should also be understood as a slowly expanding acceptance of married womens employment as a whole. It could only gain ground in West German society if men’s status as sole breadwinner was upheld at the same time.

On the whole, as this brief outline has shown, the legal establishment of part-time work marks a key break with the immediate postwar period. The new regulations created structures which decisively influenced the future of work and the gender order. Growing numbers of married women went out to work, and apparently they increasingly did so not out of sheer necessity, but by choice. The institutionalization of part-time work created a permanent place on the labor market for “women’s desire to work,” a place that indeed breached the norm of the “standard working day,” even if the legal exceptions at first remained tied to females and to marital status. In the early 1960s, however, the anchoring of part-time work in social security, civil service, and tax law rang in the normative break with the “standard working day” long before anyone began speaking of its “crisis” or “erosion” with respect to collective bargaining law.*4 The establishment of part-time work is thus significant not just for the history of women’s paid employment. It also had far-reaching

consequences for the persistence of a norm that lies at the heart of the West German social welfare state.

New Rights for Married Women | 79

Notes 1. This chapter is a brief summary of the second chapter of the original German edition of this book. I have tried here to trace the broad outlines of developments for a readership unfamiliar with the minutiae of the West German welfare state system. For a detailed analysis of the legal discourse, see my Teilzeitarbeit und die Lust am Zuverdienen. Geschlechterpolitik und gesellschaftlicher Wandel in Westdeutschland, 1948-1969 (Gottingen, 1999), 120-209. 2. See in particular Sabine Schmitt, Der Arbeiterinnenschutz im Deutschen Kaiserreich. Zur Konstruktion der schutzbediirftigen Arbeiterin (Stuttgart, 1995), as well as Regina Wecker, “‘Weiber

sollen unter keinen Umstanden zur Nachtarbeit verwendet werden.’ Zur Konstituierung von Weiblichkeit im Arbeitsprozef,” in Was sind Frauen, was sind Manner? Geschlechterkonstruktionen im historischen Wandel, ed. Christiane Eifert et al. (Frankfurt/M., 1996), 196-215. 3. The large SMAF research project, for example, divides the history of the standard working day between 1850 and the mid-1980s into three main phases, with the time between 1955 and 1974 described as the period when the forty-hour week was established with relative ease, “thanks to the consensus-conducive conditions” of prosperity and economic growth. Edwin Schudlich, Die Abkehr vom Normalarbeitstag. Entwicklung der Arbeitszeiten in der Industrie der Bundesrepublik seit 1945 (Frankfurt/M., 1987), 14. 4. In addition, compulsory unemployment insurance had been extended under the influence of the British military government to include seasonal work, agricultural labor, and work in agricultural processing industries, and thus covered far more women than ever before. On this, see in particular Kurt Draeger, “Zur Wiedereinfihrung der Arbeitslosenversicherung,” Arbeits-

blatt fiir die Britische Zone \, no. 11 (1947), 400-405. Up to 1956, unemployment insurance , existed in this form only in the British Occupation Zone (BOZ). In the Palatinate, Bavaria, and Baden-Wiirttemberg the Weimar regulations were reintroduced unaltered. According to these regulations, only workers employed thirty or more hours a week were required to pay unemployment insurance contributions, and agriculture and agricultural processing were not included in compulsory insurance. Issues concerning the inclusion of women who could not work under “normal conditions” were thus discussed mainly in the former BOZ. See von Oertzen, Teilzeitarbeit und die Lust am Zuverdienen, 140-63. 5. “Dienstanweisung Nr. 6/49 des LAA Hessen an die AA v. 25.1.1949, betr. Personenkreis der Arbeitslosenfiirsorgeempfanger,” BAK, B 149/1387, p. 2. 6. “Entscheidung des Oberversicherungsamtes Hannover v. 3.2.1950,” Das Arbeitsamt. Fachzeitschrift fir Theorie und Praxis der Arbeitsverwaltung 2, no. 5 (1951), 154. 7. §76 AVAVG n.F, Ab1, Satz 1-3, BGBI. I, 1957, 333. 8. Contrary to the intention of the law, the term “availability for job placement” became an effective tool in this practice of exclusion, and between 1948 and 1955 it functioned in the courts and the public employment offices as the central criterium for claims to all types of benefits.

See von Oertzen, Teilzeitarbeit und die Lust am Zuverdienen, 169-75. , 9. “Bericht des Arbeitsamtes Hagen v. 1.6.1957 betr. Feststellung der Griinde der Arbeitslosig-

keit,” HStANW, LAA NW, Nr. 240 I, p. 27.

10. This was the position of the administrative commission of the North Rhine-Westphalian Regional Employment Office, which consisted of equal numbers of trade union members and employer representatives. On 8 February 1961, its chairman, Hermann Beermann, called upon the board of the BAVAV to interpret the regulations of insurance law generously, “since additional half-day employees are quite desirable.” “LAA NW, Abr. II] an Abr. Il a, v. 4.10.1961, betr. Sitzung des Ausschusses fiir allgemeine Fragen,” HStANW, BR 1180, LAA Diisseldorf,

Acc. 57/91, Az. 7103 A+B. On trade union politics, see Christine von Oertzen and Almut Rietzschel, “Das “Kuckucksei Teilzeitarbeit’. Die Politik der Gewerkschaften im deutschdeutschen Vergleich, 1945-1970,” in Frauen arbeiten. Weibliche Erwerbstatigkeit in Ost- und Westdeutschland nach 1945, ed. Gunilla-Friederike Budde (Géttingen, 1996), 212-51.

80 | The Pleasure of a Surplus Income

11. Minutes of the meeting of female placement officers at BAVAV headquarters in Nuremberg on 27 November 1958, BAK, B 119/1050. 12. Ibid. While the BAVAV recorded a decline in placements of 120,000, the figures for private employment agencies rose by 15 percent. Ibid., 3. 13. Meeting of the directors of the Employment Offices in Lower Saxony on 12 and 13 October 1961 in Helmstedt, ibid., vol. 2. 14. “Urteil des BSG v. 3.7.1962 zu §76 AVAVG,” Entscheidungen des Bundessozialgerichts (1962), no. 38, 164-67. On this, see also Ehmke, “Arbeitszeit und Verftigbarkeit. Ein Beitrag zur Auslegung des §76 AbI AVAVG,” Die Sozialgerichtsbarkeit 9, no. 6 (1961): 162. 15. Cf. Entscheidungen des Bundessozialgerichts (1961) no. 7, 29-33 and no. 9, 38f. If insurance contributions were due, the employer had to bear 50 percent of the costs. 16. Odendahl, “Sozialversicherung der Aushilfskrafte,” Zentralblatt fur Sozialversicherung und Versorgung (1956): 33-35. 17. This mainly affected older women who wished to return to regular employment in order to improve their pensions after taking many years off to care for their families. Cf. von Oertzen, Teilzeitarbeit und die Lust am Zuverdienen, 130f. and 267f. 18. “Teilzeitarbeit Fordern! Mobilisierung der letzten Arbeitskraftreserve,” Bundesvereinigung der Arbeitsgeberverbande, press release of 10 July 1964 from the press service of the Deutsche Arbeitgeberverbande in Diisseldorf, DGB-Archiv, 24.11, Abt. Frauen, 24/6362. 19. Cf. the so-called hardship amendment (Hartenovelle) to the pension reform, “Rentenversicherungsdnderungsgesetz v. 1.6.1965,” BGBI. I, 1965, 476ff. 20. Thus, it was mainly the proportion of mothers working too few hours a week to be covered by insurance that rose rapidly in the 1960s. Of the women who began working part-time between 1960 and 1970, the highest proportion were mothers, making up 65 percent between 1964 and 1970. However, the proportion of mothers working only 14 hours a week also rose by 10.4 percent between 1962 and 1969 to 18.4 percent. In 1970, 27.7 percent of them worked fewer than 24 hours a week. See esp. “Frauen mit Teilzeitarbeit. Ergebnisse des Mikrozensus,” Wirtschaft und Statistik 23 (1971), 416-18; and von Oertzen, TJeilzeitarbeit und die Lust am Zuverdienen, 230F. 21. Interior Minister Kopf in the Lower Saxon Landtag, on the first reading of the Civil Service Law on 2 October 1958, “Stenographischer Bericht des niedersachsischen Landtags, 3. Wp., 13. Tagungsabschnitt, 70. Sitzung am 2.10.1958,” cols. 3897~3910, col. 3902. 22. “Zweiter Vermerk des KultMin zur Kabinettsvorlage des InnMin v. 19.3.1958 als Erganzung zur Vorlage ftir die Kabinettssitzung und als Stellungnahme zum Vermerk des Staatssekretars v. 26.3.1958,” 7, NdsHStA, Nd400, Acc. 121/81, Nr. 27, BI. 10. 23. Niedersichsisches Beamtengesetz (NBG) of 14 June 1960, in Miedersachsisches GVBI (1960), 145ff.; Baden-Wiirttembergisches Landesbeamtengesetz (LBG) of 1 August 1962, GBI. 90ff. (in the version of the Fourth Act amending the Landesbesoldungsgesetz of 16 October 1963, GBI. 145ff.). 24. The backbones of this lobby politics were the Deutsche Akademikerinnenbund (German Association of University Women) and its chairwoman, the retired Federal Constitutional Court judge Erna SchefHler. The right of female civil servants to work part-time on the federal level was intended in particular to guarantee highly qualified university graduates employed in the public sector the same right to combine family and work as the rapid expansion of part-time employment appeared to offer women blue- and white-collar workers. See “Eingabe von Dr. Erna Scheffler, Verfassungsrichterin a.D., Vorsitzende des Deutschen Akademikerinnenbundes e.V. an die Bundesregierung und die Regierungen der Lander v. 5.7.1965, betr. Zulassung von Teilzeitarbeit ftir Beamtinnen mit Familienpflichten,” DGB-Archiv, 24.11, Abt. Frauen,

| 24/4290. See also Erna Scheffler, “Ist Teilzeitarbeit fir Beamtinnen mit dem Grundgesetz vereinbar?” Die offentliche Verwaltung 18, no. 6 (1965): 181-83. 25. The Social Democrat Annemarie Renger made this statement during SPD question time in the Bundestag, in a discussion that she initiated on this subject. Verhandlungen des Deutschen Bundestages, 5. WP, 128. Session of 25 October 1967, col. 6452 D.

New Rights for Married Women | 81

26. Verhandlungen des Deutschen Bundestages, 5. WP, 215. Session of 12 December 1969, col. 11664 D. 27. “Urteil des Bundesverfassungsgerichts v. 17.1.1957,” Ensscheidungen des Bundesverfassungsgerichts 6, no. 9 (1957): 55-84. 28. “Steueranderungsgesetz v. 18.7.1958,” BGBI. I, 1958, 437ff. For the final version, see “Bekanntmachung der Neufassung des Einkommensteuergesetzes v. 23.9.1958, §26: Veranlagung von Ehegatten, BStBL 1, 1958, 678. Under tax class IV, of the approximately 1.5 million married couples with two incomes, 900,000 paid less tax than before, and 600,000 paid more. The new tax bracket meant higher taxes mainly for those couples who earned high incomes, thus generally in those cases where the husband and wife had roughly similar, substantial incomes. “BMFin, Referat IV B3 an Referat Vw/4, betr. Zahl der Falle, in denen bei der Steuerklasse IV Mehr- oder Minderbelastungen eintreten, v. 10.12.1958,” BAK, B 126/6304, n.p. 29. Cf. the urgent petition from an industrial laundry, whose owner reported that “all hell had broken loose” in his plant when the new regulations were announced. Petition of 17 September 1958 from the Wascherei- und Rasenbleiche E. and M. Albrecht to the federal minister of

finance, BAK, B 126/6304, n.p. |

30. Petition of 10 October 1959 from the Baby-Gold-Werkstatte in Altenkunstadt in Upper Franconia to the federal minister of finance, BAK, B 126/19006. 31. Thus, the German association of newspaper publishers (Bundesverband der Zeitungsverleger) noted that many women preferred to work as cleaners rather than continue to deliver newspapers, because in the former field, “scarcely anyone cared about their tax cards.” Petition of 25 June 1959 from the Bundesverband to the federal minister of finance, ibid. 32. Petition of 15 January 1959 from the woolens manufacturer Georg W. to the federal minister of finance, BAK, B 126/6304, n.p. | 33. Minutes of the 19 October 1960 meeting of the Commission on the Simplification of Income Tax Law (Ausschuss fiir Vereinfachung auf dem Gebiet der Lohnsteuer), BAK, B 126/19006,. BI. 17-24. 34. According to the general opinion among scholars, the crisis of the standard working day only began in the mid-1970s when, with “the emergence of new forms of flexible working hours,” the standard eight-hour day “gradually lost its status as a point of orientation.” Edwin Schudlich, Die Abkehr vom Normalarbeitstag. Entwicklung der Arbeitszeiten in der Industrie der Bundesrepublik seit 1945 (Frankfurt/M., 1987), 107. See also Sigrid Quack, Dynamik der Teilzeitarbeit. Implikationen fiir die soziale Sicherung von Frauen (Berlin, 1993), 50-57. For a thorough and gender-specific analysis of the “obsolescence” of this norm from the perspective of labor and social insurance law in the 1990s, see the study by Hildegard Matthies et al., Arbeit 2000. Anforderungen an eine Neugestaltung der Arbeitswelt (Reinbek bei Hamburg, 1994), esp. 24-26.

Chapter 4

PartT- TIME EMPLOYMENT BECOMES NORMAL

CO

Part-Time Work and Statistics: Definitions, Omissions, Problems of Interpretation It is commonly acknowledged nowadays that statistics are not objective, but rather reflect certain dominant perspectives on the quantitative level. Gender history, in particular, with its qualitative analyses, has made important contributions to the historicization of statistics.! This problem is particularly pressing for the issue of part-time work, since it is largely statistical registration itself that presents the history of its gradual introduction and acceptance. Its increasingly frequent appearance in official tables reflects how government statistics followed and helped shape the debates on married women’s and mothers’ employment. The analysis of the data will thus be preceded by a brief overview of the growing statistical visibility of part-time work. Before 1964, no ofhcial statistics were available on part-time work in West Germany, but only estimates. It was also rarely clear precisely which conditions of employment were meant by the term “part-time.” To be sure, the United Nations’ definition of part-time work as permanent and contractually regulated employment in which the working hours have voluntarily been reduced was frequently cited. But as the conflict over extending the level of income exempt from social insurance payments (Versicherungsfreigrenze) showed, the term “part-time” was

often used to refer to insurance-exempt, temporary unskilled labor. Once its expansion had assumed statistical relevance, that is, became measurable and thus

“measure-worthy, part-time employment had become a virtual synonym for “housewives work.” This changed the categories used for quantitative recording, in regard both to the lowering or raising of hourly definitions and to duration of Notes for this chapter begin on page 99.

Part-Time Employment Becomes Normal | 83

employment. And even if one understood and counted any employment status with reduced hours as part-time, there remained a large number of unreported cases in the field of marginal employment, which resists statistical recording even today.* Precise quantitative figures on the expansion of part-time work are thus impossible to come by, and the problem becomes incomparably more complex when one tries to reduce developments in the Federal Republic and the GDR to comparable phenomena. Depending on the authors’ perspectives and interests, contemporary estimates had their eyes on quite disparate morphologies of the part-time labor market. ‘The first attempts at providing a quantitative picture were accordingly contradictory and fragmentary. The Weisser Report, for example, concluded on the basis of the first major study of 1954 that around 1 percent of all women employed in industry worked “half days.”° The figure was based on information from state employment ofhces and industrial and employers’ associations. It is doubtless too low, if only because many large companies did not include part-time employees in their personnel statistics.4 Elisabeth Pfeil reported that 12 percent of the employed married mothers she interviewed in 1957 worked part-time or half days.° Based on a 1958 survey of their members regarding the burdens of working women in the household, workplace, and family, women trade unionists found that an average of 7-8 percent of the women were employed part-time.® After a survey conducted in seventy companies in 1961, the employers’ associations calculated that some 3 percent of female industrial workers and 9 percent of female commercial employees worked less than full-time.’ The survey commissioned by the RKW in 1961 was the most careful in considering the methodological problems and the meaningfulness of estimates. It presented similar findings, however: in the sixty-one industrial enterprises studied that employed women part-time, the percentage of part-time workers was 4.1 percent among blue-collar and 3.9 percent among white-collar staff. The average was assumed to be 4 percent of women

working part-time. Commerce was not included, since often no distinction was made there between wage workers and salaried employees. In those commercial enterprises that had introduced part-time employment, the RK W estimated that the average percentage of part-time workers in the total female workforce had already reached 12 percent in 1961.° Between 1957 and 1966, official government statistics started including parttime employment. The process began with the | percent random survey of the microcensus, which was conducted in West Germany for the first time in 1957. The microcensus of 6-12 October 1957 was the first statistical survey since 1950 that permitted up-to-date conclusions about the total number of persons in employment.’ In addition, unlike the population and occupational census of 1950, the microcensus counted “all persons who participate at all in paid employment, that is, regardless of how many hours they worked. Previously, people had only been counted if they worked at least four hours a day.'® The interest in expanding the concept of the survey did not relate explicitly to part-time employment; rather, it arose from the desire to express the proportion of work being

84 | The Pleasure of a Surplus Income

done by family members who helped in family farms or businesses and to provide as precise a picture as possible of employment in such areas of the economy as agriculture and sales, in which seasonal labor, unskilled auxiliary work, and positions with limited working hours prevailed."! With its new recording modalities, the 1957 microcensus encompassed a far broader segment of female employment than previous surveys. The data obtained in this manner were frequently wrongly interpreted as indicating a rise in female employment. If one also takes into account that the figures for 1950 were very

imprecise and too low, the statistics for the period 1950-57 dramatized the increase in womens labor market participation. According to the findings of the 1957 microcensus, the actual dynamic of structural change in the female labor market, which expressed itself in women “streaming into the factories, offices, shops, and government agencies, occurred mainly between 1950 and 1957, only to slow thereafter. Official fgures had the number of employed women increasing by 1.4 million between 1950 and 1957, from approximately 4.8 million to 6.2 million, and by only 900,000 between 1957 and 1962." Statistically speaking, however, this meant that since the 1950 census, the total number of employed women had risen by 19 percent, while the number of women of working age had increased by only 9 percent during the same period. The 1962 microcensus found over 2.3 million more women employed than in 1950.'° The results of the 1957 microcensus were published in 1960 in a form that permitted only very general statements about the diverging weekly working hours

of men and women." To be sure, the data collected had already allowed for more precise conclusions about women’s working hours. At the time of analysis, however, a more detailed breakdown was apparently regarded more as a statisti-

cal experiment and was used to conduct a statistical run-through of publicly debated issues behind closed doors.'? The first table on part-time employment that the Federal Office of Statistics compiled from the data of the 1957 microcensus, at any rate, was not included in the agency’s official publications.'® The table differentiated among female workers and employees in four branches of the economy. The inquiry focused not on annual working time but on the women's momentary employment situation. It largely ignored seasonal work. Working hours were divided quite crudely into only two categories. Separate categories were introduced, however, for working hours reduced for collective bargaining or contract reasons, short-time work, and weekly hours reduced because of vacation or illness. The rubric “part-time employment by choice,” which is used here, encompassed all formally voluntary employment relations with reduced working hours. According to this calculation, table 4.1 shows the numbers of women who worked fewer than 44 hours per week by choice. A comparison with the figures on all employed women shows that these numbers were somewhat higher than those yielded by most surveys of the early 1960s. As we can see from table 4.1, according to the microcensus, in October 1957 a total of 84,300 women workers “chose” to be employed fewer than 44 hours a week in the manufacturing sector. The census found a total of 2,085,000 female

Part-Time Employment Becomes Normal | 85

TABLE 4.1 Women Working Reduced Hours “by Choice,” According to the 1957 Microcensus

Wage Workers Salaried Employees

0-34 35-44 0-34 35-44 Manufacturing 59,500 24,800 15,400 1,500

Agriculture 13,700 3,400

‘Trade and transportation 21,800 4,300 24,200 4,100 Public sector and services 47,800 9,000 9,800 1,100

Total 142,800 41,500 49,400 6,700 Source: Compiled from the figures in Schinzinger, “Auswirkungen,” 88-89, tables 8 and 9.

workers in manufacturing.'’ As a percentage of part-time employees, in 1957 we already have a statistically relatively secure value of 4 percent for female workers in manufacturing. This value, like the estimates presented here, should naturally be regarded more as a benchmark than an “actual” value, especially because we know nothing about the contractually agreed upon duration of employment. The Federal Office of Statistics only published a first attempt to tackle the issue of part-time employment in 1963, with the findings of the census of business premises (Betriebsstattenzahlung) of 6 June 1961.’ This survey permitted no more precise statements than the microcensus of 1957, because it was based on “cases of employment’ rather than persons. Thus, double-counting could not be excluded. Above all, though, the figures say little about the number of reducedhour positions. The inclusion of unpaid family members distorts the statistics for most sectors so severely that the figures are unreliable even as crude indicators. For 1961, they found that 11.5 percent of women wage workers and 7.2 percent of salaried employees were working part-time.” The Federal Office of Statistics introduced more sophisticated modes of registering part-time work only gradually, and responded somewhat belatedly to public debates. Until 1964 the agency produced data only rather incidentally, that is, in general quantitative falsifications on questions of married women’s and mothers employment. Particularly instructive and noteworthy here is the 1962 “Major Survey of Mothers,” which was conducted in addition to the microcensus. The survey mainly addressed the problem of the alleged 3 million latchkey children.

For the first time, more than 1.5 million working mothers were asked who looked after their children while they were away from home. This survey included both the duration and location of women’s work as well as the contractual basis

of positions, that is, whether the work was permanent, temporary, seasonal, or casual.*® The survey was repeated in 1969. Taken together, the two surveys permit key conclusions on the development of part-time employment.?! The absence of publicly available and statistically reliable figures on the state

of part-time work was lamented from various sides beginning in 1962. In early

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1964, the DGB’s Department of Women’s Affairs finally commissioned an analy-

sis of the 1962 microcensus.*? At the same time, early efforts to modify the survey modalities of government statistics, which had also been called for by the International Conference of Labour Statisticians in Geneva, began to bear fruit.*° 1964 was a breakthrough year in many respects for the statistical establishment of part-time employment. On the one hand, data on part-time employment began to appear following the more evolved concept of the 1957 microcensus. On the other, the previously unpublished figures from 1960 onward were made available. Beyond the rudimentary data on women’s working hours, the agency now also published figures that revealed the development of part-time work in the various sectors of the economy. That same year the statisticians also succeeded in storming an important bastion of the taboo regarding mothers’ employment. Using the findings of the “Major Mothers’ Survey” of 1962, they were able to unmask and defuse the myth of the “latchkey child.” It turned out that very few children were actually left unattended during their mother’s absence, and that many mothers only worked part-time anyway.”4 The next stage in making part-time work more visible followed in 1966 with its inclusion in the survey of wage and salary structures.”? Here, too, researchers entered statistical terra incognita. The program of tables was thus not nearly as extensive and illuminating as it was for women employed full-time.*° The surveys add valuable facets to the picture, but in general provide only crude outlines of the development of part-time employment. Most results were only published in 1969 and after. The first major retrospective overview of the development of part-time work since 1960 based on the microcensus data did not appear until 1971.?7

New Qualities and Old Patterns: The Development of Women’s Part-Time Work by Branch, Occupation, Age, and Working Hours, 1962-1968 The DGB’s 1962 analysis of the microcensus was the first differentiated statistical

analysis of part-time employment. At first, it existed in manuscript form only, but excerpts were published in the annual report of the Department of Women’s Affairs for 1962, which also circulated outside the unions. It was frequently cited and considered a reliable basis for assessing the status of part-time employment.”®

The definition of part-time work used here was deliberately narrow, which is understandable from a union perspective. Only women who worked part-time in positions where people “normally [worked] full-time” were taken into account.”? The survey included employment of up to thirty-five hours a week. According

to this definition, a projected 577,100 women were voluntarily employed in a permanent position at reduced hours.°? Temporary and seasonal workers, that is, those who were employed de facto for a limited period, however, could not be calculated out of this figure. By this method the DGB arrived at one-third fewer part-time workers than the International Labour Office, which had also counted

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cleaners, cloakroom attendants, theater ushers, and newspaper delivery women in a representative survey and arrived at 857,000 female part-time workers in West Germany in 1962, which represented 8.7 percent of all employed women.*! The DGB, in contrast, came up with the figures shown in table 4.2. The proportion of part-time blue-collar workers turned out to be surprisingly high.°? Of the total number of women working part-time, 69 percent were categorized as workers and only 30.4 percent as salaried employees.’? The assumption that part-time employment was particularly common in the service sector proved true, but it had to be qualified by the finding that here, too, most women worked in blue-collar positions. The results suggested widespread discrimination against part-time employees. It was impossible to break down the figures by the kind of tasks women performed, but it was likely that many part-time employees, unlike their full-time colleagues, were members of the pension insurance fund for wage

workers rather than that for salaried employees.*4 : Most female part-time workers—79 percent—were married, and surprisingly few—13.9 percent—were widowed or divorced.°*? This confirms that part-time work was not an appropriate means of relief for women who headed a household on their own. Well over one-half of the women (58.8 percent) were between the ages of 26 and 45. The age cohort of 36- to 45-year-old-women was the largest group, at 33 percent. Older women were also frequently represented, however: according to the surveys projection, 17.9 percent were between 46 and 55, and 12.3 percent were over 56. By age and marital status, the 26- to 35-year-old and

36- to 45-year-old married women were the largest groups with 139,000 and 142,000 employees, respectively. The typical part-time worker was not easy to define, but she tended to be married and between the ages of 26 and 35, or more

TasB_e 4.2, Women Working Part-Time in 1962 (DGB analysis of 1964)

Blue-collar workers in industry 79,700 Blue-collar workers in commerce, banking, and services 106,400

Blue-collar workers in “other branches” 215,800

Total blue-collar workers 401,900

White-collar workers in industry 21,000

White-collar workers in commerce, banking, and services 114,600 |

White-collar workers in “other branches” 39,600

Total white-collar workers 175,200 Total women working part-time in 1962 577,100 Note: This division into sectors remains unsatisfactory because “industry” lists only three branches separately: (1) food, alcohol, and tobacco processing; (2) electrical, iron, and metallurgy; and (3) steel and mechanical engineering. “Other branches” includes so many workers as to make the category appear virtually nonsensical, but the 1962 microcensus apparently did not permit further distinctions.

Source: Compiled according to the table on page 11 of DGB-Auswertung.

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frequently between 36 and 45. Thus, there is much evidence that women worked part-time when their children were very young, but even more frequently when they were already of school age. The analysis also proved illuminating in regard to actual working hours. More

than half of all women, or 50.8 percent, worked between 24 and 35 hours a week. The overwhelming majority of these had access to the full range of social security protections, including unemployment insurance, which only applied to those who worked 25 hours a week or more. Also noteworthy, particularly with a view to the GDR, was the fact that a substantial number of women, 9.3 percent, worked 10 hours or fewer a week, and 39.9 percent between 11 and 23 hours; that is, 49.2 percent of women worked fewer than 24 hours a week. Half of women working part-time were thus ineligible for unemployment insurance, and a substantial proportion probably worked under the 20-hour limit for social insurance contributions. This finding is all the more surprising since the DGB

study consciously used a very narrow definition of part-time work and thus excluded “hourly and cleaning jobs” from the outset. Classified according to status, as shown in table 4.3, 10.5 percent of blue-collar workers worked up to 10 hours a week, 38.8 percent worked 11-23 hours, and 203,000 or 50.7 percent worked between 24 and 36 hours. Circumstances were rather different for white-collar workers. There were significantly fewer employees who worked fewer than 10 hours a week (6.6 percent), but somewhat more who worked 11-23 hours (42.3 percent), while 51.1 percent (89,400) of salaried employees worked between 24 and 36 hours a week.*®° The absolute figures alone did not confirm the impression of the public employment offices that women who were looking for unskilled part-time manufacturing jobs tended to do so “more” because they “truly” needed the money, and thus preferred to work a good deal more than 24 hours a week.°’ The regional distribution of part-time employment offered the following picture: North Rhine-Westphalia and Baden-Wiirttemberg were leaders among the federal states with 27.5 percent and 23 percent of all female part-time workers, respectively.°* This ranking points to a direct connection between the degree of industrialization and the expansion of part-time employment. At the same time,

TABLE 4.3, Weekly Working Hours of Part-Time Blue- and White-Collar Workers, 1962 (DGB analysis of 1964)

Blue-Collar Workers % White-Collar Workers %

Up to 10 hours 42,000 10.5 11,600 6.6 11—23 hours 156,000 38.8 73,000 42.3 24—36 hours 203,000 50.7 89,400 51.1

Total 401.900 100.0 174,600 100.0 Source: Excerpt from DGB-Auswertung, 9.

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it also corresponded to chronological factors. The introduction of part-time work began earliest in Baden-Wirttemberg, from the mid-1950s on; while in the traditional female labor markets surrounding heavy industry in the Ruhr region, expansion began around 1957. ‘Ihe ranking shifts somewhat if one looks at the total numbers of employed women in the different federal states. In this case,

Baden-Wirttemberg with 132,000 women working part-time had the highest proportion, 11.2 percent, followed by Hesse and the city-states of Hamburg and Bremen.” The degree of industrialization appears to have been just as decisive as an urban environment with expanding service sector occupations. Unfortunately, no precisely comparable study exists for later years. ‘Thus, fur-

ther developments can be documented only in broad outlines and individual aspects, which in what follows are differentiated according to branch of industry, occupational status, working hours, wages, and time of day worked (i.e., mornings, afternoons, or evenings). Beginning in 1964, the yearly microcensus permits insights into the expansion of part-time work in individual branches. ‘These surveys also ignored all relations of employment that mandated reduced working hours for operational or similar reasons. Unlike the DGB analysis, however, the data published by the Federal Office of Statistics include all reduced-hour positions up to 39 hours a week, and the division into branches of the economy does not distinguish between family assistants or workers (mithelfende Familienangehorige), employees, and the self-employed. In the mainly industrial branches, this lumping

together of categories does not distort the picture too much. In the retail trade, however, a relatively high proportion of family workers was presumably counted along with the rest. The differentiation concentrated on traditionally female industries, but did not distinguish between the various service occupations.

According to the 1972 microcensus, women worked part-time “by choice” between 1964 and 197] in the industries shown in table 4.4. Despite the abovementioned deficiencies in this table, one may note clear tendencies within the

various branches of the economy in regard to both the distribution and the different development of part-time employment. In the four “classic” industrial employers of female labor, the proportion of part-time workers in 1964 ranged from just under 12 percent in the electrical and food-processing industries to 15 percent in the wood- and paper-processing industries. By 1971, the proportions rose to over 21 percent in these latter branches, as well as in the leather, textile, and garment industries, while in the electrical industry growth was far slower and stagnated at 16 percent. It is also particularly striking that the recession of 1966-67 expressed itself in all branches, but most clearly in the electrical industry, which had the highest average wages, as a sharp break in the increase of part-time employment. Particularly in well-paid industrial work, the temporary lessening of pressure from the labor shortage led to the immediate dismissal of part-time employees. Part-time work expanded more dynamically in the wholesale trade, the cleaning business, and private households than in industry. Here, by 1970 part-time workers already made up more than one-quarter of female employees. In these

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TaBLe 4.4 Women Working Part-Time “by Choice” by Industry (Microcensus) in Percentages, 1964-1971 Electrical,

Precision Wood, Leather, Food, Optical Printing Garment Tobacco Trade Trade

Engineering, Paper, Textile Alcohol, Wholesale Retail

1964 11.7 15.2 13.6 11.7 14.7 13.6 1965 13.1 17.1 15.4 12.5 17.7 15.0 1966 13.7 19.2 17.1 14.0 18.6 16.6 1967 13.0 20.2 17.2 15.1 20.1 15.4 1968 13.8 18.1 17.1 15.0 20.8 15.1 1969 14.2 21.7 18.6 18.1 22.8 16.3 1970 16.1 21.5 21.0 19.3 24.5 19.2 1971 16.3 23.6 22.) 21.2 26.5 21.6 Postal Restaurants, Health Private Public Cleaning Service Hotels Services Households Admin.

1964 15.8 14.9 13.9 11.0 8.6 8.4 8.7 7./ 15.2 7.6 1965 16.1 8.5 1966 17.0 16.0 9.5 10.0 15.8 9.2 1967 18.7 15.4 10.8 10.3 20.0 9.6

1968 19.4 15.1 11.7 I1.1 21.8 10.6 1969 20.8 16.3 11.7 10.8 22.5 13.3 1970 22.7 19.2 11.8 13.2 23.9 14.9 1971 25.2 21.6 12.5 14.9 25./ 16.5 Source: Excerpt from “Zusammenstellung der Ergebnisse des Mikrozensus von 1960 bis 1971: Aus eigenem Entschluf teilbeschaftigte Erwerbstatige nach Stellung im Beruf, Familienstand und nach Wirtschaftszweigen (1960-1971 Mikrozensus),” Statistisches Bundesamt, Fachserie A 6/1—Bevolkerung, Kultur, Erwerbstatigkeir, 1972, 192.

areas, the recession acted as an accelerator rather than a brake on the increase of part-time employment. There is a connection between the two opposite trends. As the developments on the ground described in the next chapter will show, the demand for part-time labor grew with the economic downturn, and many women who lost their jobs in industry were forced to take traditional “hourly positions” in private households or with cleaning companies. The recession of 1966-67 marks an important turning point in the expansion of part-time employment. It contributed significantly to a displacement among branches of the economy which, as will be explained below, was expressed particularly in a polarization of working hours.

Unfortunately, it is impossible to reconstruct the spread of part-time work in sales and office work, that is, in the typical white-collar occupations, on the basis of table 4.4. The figures for public administration and the postal service are not reliable parameters, because the post office, the largest part-time employer

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in West Germany since the early 1950s, employed mainly blue-collar workers at reduced hours.*? As for public administration, the figures are not broken down, although the proportion of part-time female tram conductors in particular was very high. The clearest indicator seems to be the category “Other” that is not included here, which apparently referred to “other service occupations.” Here, the percentage of women working part-time rose from 10.1 percent in 1964 to 17.1

percent in 1971. Finally, the increase in part-time employment in health care appears illuminating in connection with the vigorous efforts of the Protestant Church to reorient the nursing profession and hospital organization toward married trained nurses: in this field, the proportion of part-time employees doubled from just under 8 percent to nearly 15 percent by 1971.

The survey on wage and salary structures conducted in 1966 permits further distinctions according to womens occupational status. It counted 205,000 female part-time blue-collar workers in industry.*! According to this calculation, in 1966 about one in six, or 16 percent of female workers in industry (including construction and other trades), were employed part-time. The proportion ranged

from 13.2 percent in the electrical industry to 19.1 percent in the engineering industry. This percentage, however, included the high but not quantifiable proportion of female cleaning personnel. According to the public employment offices, they represented a substantial proportion of part-time workers in industry. The statisticians from the Federal Office of Statistics assumed, however, that the relatively high figures in traditionally female sectors made it likely that, at least in those branches of the economy, most of the part-time labor force were “workers in actual production” and not cleaners or cafeteria personnel.” This survey revealed that the proportion of part-time workers fell with the growing size of companies. In firms with fewer than twenty employees, every third female worker was a part-timer, while in those with a workforce of between 100 and 500 it was every fifth, and in those with 100 or more employees it was every ninth female worker.*? One of the reasons the estimates of the early 1960s arrived at such small percentages of part-time workers in industry was thus probably that the institutions surveyed were generally better able to assess the situation in large concerns, and even in direct surveys of companies it was usually the bigger firms that answered, which, as it turned out, employed many part-time. workers in absolute numbers, but proportionally by far not the most.“4 The classification by working hours undertaken by the survey of wage and salary structures is highly instructive. According to these figures, table 4.5 shows the breakdown of women who were employed. The most common working hours were clustered in the middle range: some 68 percent of women worked between 15 and 30 hours a week. Only one in nine (10.5 percent) worked more than 35 hours and only one in sixteen fewer than 15. If one classifies the working-hour categories according to whether they were subject to insurance contributions, however, a different picture emerges. In this case, table 4.5 underlines that, similar to the DGB figures, 18.9 percent or a substantial proportion of part-time bluecollar workers were employed fewer than 20 hours a week, that is, too few hours

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TABLE 4.5 Women Working Part-Time by Working-Hour Category (Paid Weekly Working Hours), 1966

Paid Weekly Working Hours Number of Workers %

Under 15 12,574 6.1 15 to 20 26,108 12.8 20 to 25 62,047 30.2 25 to to 35 30 32,541 50,358 15.8 24.6 30 35 or more 21,529 10.5 Toral 205,157 100.0 Source: Figures from “Teilzeitbeschaftigte Arbeiter,” 532, table 5. Unfortunately, no comparable data were published for salaried employees.

to be included in the social security system in their own right. One-third of the women worked between 20 and 25 hours, which meant that they probably had their own insurance coverage but were not included in the unemployment insurance system. In total, 49.1 percent of female part-time workers were employed fewer than 25 a week; 40.4 percent worked between 25 and 35 hours and thus enjoyed full social insurance coverage. Only the 10.5 percent employed for more than 35 hours a week had working hours that no longer differed much from those of full-time employees. Here, presumably, lay a significant difference between the working hours of part-time employees in West Germany and the GDR. The average paid working time of part-time blue-collar employees was 25.9 hours a week, 15.8 hours fewer than that of female full-time workers. Most women

working part-time were paid at a piece rate (73 percent). This proportion was even higher than for full-time female blue-collar workers. It was mainly younger women who were paid performance-related wages; 76 percent of them were under the age of 45, in contrast to 56 percent of women paid purely by the hour.

Forty-seven percent of all female part-time blue-collar workers under 30 belonged to Performance Group (Leistungsgruppe) II, that is, the younger women were better trained and were better paid than the older women. Most part-time workers, however, were between the ages of 30 and 45. Thus, on average they were paid less per hour than full-time employees and tended to perform unskilled tasks. Some 58 percent of all women working part-time were deployed for work that required no special training, which was paid according to Performance Group III, while this was the case for only 45 percent of full-time workers. To be sure, some industries deviated from this average; particularly in leather, textile, and garment manufacturing, the proportion of part-time workers in Performance Group II (59.1 percent) was relatively close to that of full-time workers (65.9 percent). Everywhere, however, part-time employees were always more numerous in Performance Group III than full-time workers, and could be found

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far less frequently in Performance Group II, let alone 1.4? The part-time workers in Performance Group III also had the shortest working hours in all of the branches of industry for which we have figures. As the figures for 1966 already make clear, there was an inescapable connection in industry between the number of hours worked and the skills required for a job. With an average gross wage of 3.27 DM per hour in 1966, the hourly earnings of women working part-time were 7.1 percent below those of female full-time workers. Ihe average gross weekly earnings of female part-time workers in industry were 85 DM, or 42 percent less than those of full-time workers. The monthly earnings of part-time workers were restricted to the three lowest wage categories; 33 percent of female part-time blue-collar workers earned less than 300 DM a month. In 1966, the average monthly wage for part-time work was 355 DM.*° Similar tendencies existed for part-time white-collar workers as well, although we have no published figures broken down by working hours. For 1966, the survey of salary and wage structures provides an absolute figure of 222,000 female part-time white-collar employees. Here, too, it is difficult to say anything about the increase between 1962 and 1966. The DGB figures counted 175,000 whitecollar employees. A clear rise in numbers is thus to be expected here, too, alchough not as large as that among blue-collar workers. Around one in seven white-collar

employees (14 percent) in trade and the service sector and around one in ten in manufacturing worked part-time in 1966. In 28 of a total of 50 branches, more than 10 percent of female salaried employees were on part-time contracts. The proportion was particularly high in wholesale trade, retail sales, and the service sector. In these areas, around one in four or five female employees (20-25 percent) worked part-time. More than half (56 percent) of all women employed part-time worked in retail and wholesale (37 percent). The quite dramatic spread of part-time work in commerce revealed as early as 1962 that the proportion of women employed fulltime was falling in favor of part-time employment.*” In all, 69 percent of female part-time employees, in contrast to G1 percent of full-time employees, worked in seven branches of the economy: electrical engineering, banking and finance, insurance, the mechanical engineering industry, commerce, and the wholesale trade. For white-collar workers, too, the proportion of part-time employees fell with growing company size. Some 35 percent of all female salaried employees worked

for companies with a workforce of fewer than 20. Here, one in five female employees worked part-time. In firms with 100-500 employees, the figure was one in eight, and in companies with 100 or more employees, one in ten. In 1966, 39 percent of female part-time salaried employees were between the ages of 30 and 45, while 29 percent were under 30 and 21 percent between 45 und 55. To be sure, this age structure differed substantially from that of full-time employees, 60 percent of whom were younger than 30.*8 Nevertheless, part-time white-collar employees were younger than their blue-collar counterparts, only 16.1 percent of whom were under 30.*? This contrast illustrates a generational difference that played an important role in the expansion of part-time work more generally. Younger women were better trained than older ones and thus had more

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opportunities to find a part-time position in a more highly qualified occupation with higher earnings. Nonetheless, female part-time salaried employees, too, also worked in lower performance groups than their full-time colleagues. Threequarters of all part-time salaried employees, as opposed to two-thirds of full-time workers, were paid according to the lowest Performance Groups IV and V. On average, part-time employees earned 58 percent of the monthly gross income of full-time employees, with strong variations by performance group and sector. At 420 DM, however, the average gross monthly salary of part-time white-collar employees was significantly higher than that of women wage workers (355 DM), and in fact most salaried employees earned more than part-time blue-collar workers. Fifty-six percent of all female salaried employees working part-time earned between 300 DM and 500 DM a month.”° Thus, the following trends emerged from the findings of the survey of salary and wage structures for part-time female blue- and white-collar workers: the overwhelming majority were married women between the ages of 30 and 45, with white-collar women on average being substantially younger, performing more skilled tasks, and earning more money. Compared to full-time workers, however, blue- and white-collar part-time employees occupied an equally poor position. Because of the lack of figures on working hours for white-collar women, the finding that a surprisingly large proportion of blue-collar employees worked fewer than 24 hours a week cannot be generalized. Following the results of the DGB analysis for 1962, it is likely that the proportion of salaried employees working below the compulsory social insurance level was somewhat lower. The major “Mothers’ Survey” of 1962 previously mentioned permits us to draw some further conclusions about how many women actually worked parttime below the compulsory social insurance level. The number of mothers of school-age children who were employed outside the home nearly quadrupled between 1950 and 1962 from 336,000 to 1.2 million.?! In 1962, however, only 56.6 percent of these 1.2 million mothers were employed full-time, that is, more than 40 hours a week. In addition, 10.4 percent worked fewer than 14 hours, 16.7 percent between 15 and 24 hours, and a further 16.2 percent between 25 and 39 hours a week. A total of 529,000 employed mothers worked part-time, 331,000 (27.5 percent) of them fewer than 24 hours a week.°” Therefore, here too we see that a large percentage of women employed at reduced hours worked half-time at best, so that it is unclear whether or not they were subject to social insurance contributions. ‘The survey criteria unfortunately do not list separately the women who worked under 20 hours a week, and were thus not necessarily insured. Another finding of the survey suggests, however, that a significant proportion of jobs under 24 hours a week must be defined de facto as marginal employment (geringftigige Beschaftigung). This section of the survey shows the proportions of children of women working full- and part-time and divides them according to whether their mothers worked in temporary or permanent positions. Of 100 married mothers in dependent employment, 87 had permanent jobs, while 13 worked on temporary contracts or did casual labor.

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The study does not distinguish here between part- and full-time employment. It does, however, indicate how many children were cared for by mothers who worked full-time or half days in permanent or temporary positions. Most of the children, 1,313,000, had mothers in permanent, full-time employment; 210,000 children, or 13.7 percent of those in this survey, had a mother who was a part-time employee in the stricter sense of the word, that is, with a permanent position.°° The mothers of 50,000 children did part-time temporary or casual work. Among the small number of children whose mothers worked half days, the latter were far

more likely not to be employed permanently, namely, in 20 percent of cases.” ‘There thus appears to be a connection between shorter hours and the temporary nature of the work, which may be considered a further indicator that a large proportion of women working part-time were not in the social insurance system. The figures on mothers’ incomes also offer evidence for this finding. Of all those

surveyed, 17 percent had a monthly income of under 150 DM. Since one may assume that mothers working part-time had the lowest earnings, it seems justified to apply these figures to them alone. In that case, 60.4 percent of mothers employed part-time earned less than 150 DM. The average income of female part-time workers in 1966 was 355 DM. It was lower in 1962, but even then the income of many mothers employed part-time seems very low and in many cases was presumably a supplementary income not subject to insurance contributions. Most of the mothers with low earnings were also blue-collar workers (87 percent), and only 12.9 percent were white-collar employees. Mothers working part-time as white-collar employees,

it seems, were generally in regular employment relationships. : The low incomes of mothers who worked part-time provide some surprising additional information about income distribution within families. Of 125,000 women with very low earnings, a total of 62 percent—and this, too, is an extremely

instructive finding—had husbands with monthly incomes of less than 300 DM, which placed them in the lowest wage category. [his finding makes it clear that, in general, the minimal earnings of women working part-time can scarcely be viewed as extra pocket money.’ On the contrary, measured against their husbands’ income, it seems to have been precisely those mothers who earned the least who “needed” it the most. Mothers with the lowest incomes had husbands with the poorest wages.

The husbands of the 389,000 mothers who earned berween 150 DM and 300 DM overwhelmingly belonged to the next highest income group. Of these men, 66 percent earned between 300 DM and 600 DM a month, 27 percent just over 600 DM, and the rest significantly more. Of the mothers with incomes between 300 DM and 600 DM, in contrast, three-fifths earned as much as their husbands. Whether these figures express a deliberate balance in the gender hierarchy is impossible to tell. In light of the income situation of couples with low earnings, however, one gains the impression that wives earned only enough so that it clearly remained a supplementary income, and did not become a “main breadwinner wage.” ‘The study also listed the part-time working hours that mothers chose according to the ages of their children. As long as children did not yet attend school, family life could apparently be organized more flexibly, because other acquaintances or

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relatives (grandparents) could look after them in the afternoons as well. Thus, children up to the age of six could be cared for by other persons or institutions in the mornings or the afternoons, and about half of mothers chose each of these options. So before their children began school, mothers could choose more flexibly between morning and afternoon employment. With few exceptions (about G percent), mothers of school age children worked in the mornings and stayed home and looked after their children in the afternoons. School age children were seldom cared for by other people.’? While their children were in school, the “functional imperatives” of the family appear to have restricted mothers far more exclusively to morning working hours. In conclusion, | will discuss the significance of part-time employment within the West German labor market between 1960 and 1971 on the basis of a slightly

expanded table tracing the development of part-time work that was compiled by the Federal Office of Statistics, as shown in table 4.6. According to these figures, the proportion of women in part-time dependent employment rose from 7.1 percent in 1960 to 19.3 percent in 1971. As these numbers show, in the 1960s part-time employment developed into an employment model for married women and mothers not just conceptually, but also practically. The permanent changes in conditions on the female labor market become evident when we compare the expansion of part-time work to the development of female employment more generally. Between 1960 and 1971, the total number of working

women fell by 300,000. At the same time, though, the number of women in dependent employment rose statistically by nearly 1.1 million, or over 14 percent.*° This resulted primarily from the increase in, and better recording of, wage work by married mothers. The proportion of married women in dependent employment rose from about 19 percent in 1950 to 35 percent in 1961 and around 50 percent in 1970.°” The proportional increase was highest among mothers, compared with single women and childless married women, reaching 38 percent between 1967 and 1970.?° During the same period, between 1960 and 1971, the number of women in part-time dependent employment tripled, while the proportion of those working full-time fell by 4 percent between 1964 and 1970 alone.”’ In 1970, of the nearly 7.5 million women in dependent employment, 27 percent worked fewer than 40 hours a week. Of the women, 19.3 percent were employed part-time in the stricter sense, that is, “by choice.” The number of women who worked from 1-24 hours a week rose by 38 percent between 1964 and 1970, and the number of those who worked 25-39 hours rose by 49 percent. The increase in part-time employment was particularly marked among married women (43 percent) or mothers (65 percent). On the whole, 41 percent of married women worked less than full-time, with the figure for married mothers even higher. Of the latter, 50 percent were employed part-time in 1970. The percentage of mothers who worked 1-24 hours was 27.7, while 22.5 percent worked 25-39 hours. The percentage of mothers employed 14 or fewer hours a week rose from 10.4 percent to 18.4 percent between 1962 and 1969.°

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Taste 4.6 Women Working in Dependent Employment Part-Time “by Choice,” Part- Time “Family Workers,” and Total Employed Women, 1960-1971 Working Women

In Dependent (incl. “Family

Employment Part-Time Workers” and Part-Time “by “Family Self-Employed) In Dependent

Choice” % Workers” Total Employment Oct. 1960 499,000 7.1 628,000 9,854,000 6,585,000 Oct. 1962 685,000 9.5 481,000 9,778,000 7,149,000

April 1963 714,000 10.0 542,000 9,780,000 7,175,000 April 1964 787,000 10.9 308,000 9,760,000 7,224,000 : May 1965 890,000 12.1 337,000 9,834,000 7,330,000 April 1966 994,000 13.5 323,000 9,779,000 7,374,000 April 1967 990,000 13.9 364,000 9,465,000 7,129,000 April 1968 1,031,000 14.5 362,000 9,426,000 7,131,000 April 1969 1,163,000 15.9 371,000 9,534,000 7,318,000 April 1970 1,337,000 17.8 344,000 9,602,000 7,496,000 April 1971 1,466,000 —-19.3 305,000 9,547,000 7,604,000

Source: Excerpt from “Aus eigenem Entschluf teilbeschaftigte Erwerbstitige nach Stellung im Beruf, Familienstand und nach Wirtschaftszweigen, 1960-1971 Mikrozensus,” Statistisches Bundesamt, Fachserie 6/1-1972, 192f; figures for women in dependent employment from Statistisches Jahr-

buch der Bundesrepublik Deutschland, 1962-1972.

Government statisticians believed these figures signaled the realization of the ‘three-phase model’ that had been propagated since the early 1960s. A large portion of these women, the results seemed to suggest, must once have given up their jobs altogether and now returned to the workforce, or indeed “newly” entered the labor market. Only rarely, in contrast, did women switch directly from full- to part-time employment.” Divided by age group, the figures reveal that married women who newly entered (part-time) employment mainly did so in the “third phase” (after the age of forty-five). Women in the younger age groups were more likely to change from full- to part-time employment. The concepts of relief and mobilization through part-time work thus enjoyed varying degrees of success. All things considered, part-time work did relieve the burden of younger mothers in individual cases, but the “mobilization” of older married women was far more striking. If married women’s employment was freed from taboos, this applied above all to older married women and mothers over the age of thirty. On the whole, this resulted in an absolute rise in the numbers of women in dependent employment. We need to be far more circumspect in speaking of an increase in the volume of female dependent employment, however. Unfortunately, we have no precise figures here. There is no doubt, however, that the volume of work rose with the recruitment of female “guest workers,” all of whom were employed full-time.

98 | The Pleasure of a Surplus Income

Although imprecise figures and a lack of comparable units of reference have meant that I could present only the outlines of developments in this chapter, a quantitative approach nevertheless allows for a basic structural positioning of part-time employment in the gender hierarchy of West German society. Parttime employment integrated married women as “workers” into the West German labor market in sometimes new ways. This applied to both blue- and white-collar employees. It would not be particularly apt to speak of a “harmonious” integration into relations of production and “crisis-resistant protection, to quote the programmatic phrases of the labor ministry in the late 1950s. To be sure, there were frequent calls to make part-time jobs subject to social insurance, and to place them on an equal footing with full-time employment. The figures, however, show that an increasing number of positions were less than half-time (geringftigig) and thus outside the insurance system.

Nevertheless, an analysis of the data makes it crystal clear that in part-time employment, “modern” West German industrial society was, as official contemporary statements claimed, picking up where the “premodern” era had left off. This was true to the extent that under altered economic conditions, it again made paid employment the norm for married women. First, the new survey methods elevated the “sidelines” of “housewives” to the status of a statistically relevant, socially accepted and visible norm, while the employment statistics of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries had ignored them completely. Second, particularly in white-collar occupations, but also for wage workers, parttime work came to represent a regular employment relationship with shorter hours and social insurance coverage, which growing numbers of married women entered in order to stay in or re-enter the workforce. Third, however, in light of the many positions not covered by social insurance, we need to ask whether parttime employment as an institution did not help to perpetuate married women's and mothers’ “premodern” status within market-mediated structures. Well over half of women working part-time were directly incorporated into the state system of security and support; a good third, however, found themselves still protected

only indirectly in the West German society of employees, as a sort of modern helper in the family business. The figures cited in table 4.6 for part-time “family workers” support this thesis. Between October 1960 and April 1971, they fell from 628,000 to 305,000 women. This decline reflects the disappearance of small independent businesses, particularly family farms. During the same period, the number of women in dependent employment increased from 499,000 to 1,466,000. Certainly, one cannot claim that women who had previously worked in the family firm now appeared in the statistics as dependent part-time employees and directly contributed to this increase. The spread of part-time employment occurred in completely different sectors than those in which women had worked as family members. It is also likely that a generational shift took place. Nevertheless, one should look at the figures in context. Part-time employment also replaced women’s family-

integrated work® to the extent that it sanctioned a kind of “helping out” that

Part-Time Employment Becomes Normal | 99

corresponded to the altered type of economy but nevertheless remained particularly closely oriented toward family structures and did not afford women rights of their own. The fact that many married women and mothers who worked parttime lacked their own social insurance coverage indicates that they continued to assume an intermediate status in the strictly regulated West German working

world. They earned their own money, to be sure, but they remained bound within the “premodern” structures of the family principle.

Notes 1. See, in particular, the historical research on criminality in the early modern period, which in recent years has demonstrated quite convincingly that the construction of “male” and “female” criminality is also a result of the production of crime statistics, which ignored specific areas of deviant behavior in each case. For an overview, see Otto Ulbricht, ed., Von Huren und Rabenmiittern. Weibliche Kriminalitat in der Frithen Neuzeit (Cologne, 1995). For a critical analysis of the statistics on female employment, see in particular Robert Smuts, “The Female Labor Force: A Case Study in the Interpretation of Historical Statistics,” JASA 55 (1960): 71-79; Walter Miller et al., Strukturwandel der Frauenarbeit 1880-1980 (Frankfurt/M., 1983); Angelika Willms-Herget, Frauenarbeit. Zur Integration von Frauen in den Arbeitsmarkt (Frankfurt/ M., 1985), 70ff.; Susanne Rouette, Sozialpolitik als Geschlechterpolitik. Die Regulierung der Frauenarbeit nach dem Ersten Weltkrieg (Frankfurt/M., 1993), 55-59. 2. Martina Klein, Gewerkschaften und Teilzeitarbeit in Deutschland. Eine vergleichende Untersuchung des Einzelhandels und der Gebdaudereinigung (Baden-Baden, 1995), 83.

3. Anneliese Fuest et al., “Moglichkeit und Zweckmaigkeit der Einrichtung von Teilzeitarbeit fiir Frauen in verschiedenen Berufen. Gutachten des Forschungsinstituts ftir Sozial- und Verwaltungswissenschaften der Universtitat K6ln,” with a foreword by Gerhard Weisser. MS Cologne, 1954 (1956), 37. 4, Thus, e.g., the Siemens company stated that employees who worked fewer than twenty hours a week were not included in personnel statistics. “Jahresbericht der Zentral-Personalverwaltung 1958/59,” 6, Siemens-Archiv (SA), SAA 15/Li 81. 5. Elisabeth Pfeil, Die Berufstatigkeit von Miittern. Eine emprirische Erhebung an 900 Miittern aus vollstindigen Familien (Tubingen, 1961), 417.

6. Results of a 1958 survey conducted by the DGB’s department of women’s affairs on the burdens of job, household, and family on working women. “Geschiaftsbericht der Hauptabteilung Frauen im Bundesvorstand des DGB 1959-1961” (Diisseldorf, n.d. [1961]), 29. See also in Gewerkschaftliche Beitrdge zur Frauenarbeit, no. 3, Ergebnisse einer Befragung tiber die Belastung der erwerbstatigen Frauen durch Beruf, Haushalt und Familie (Dusseldorf, 1961), 25.

7. In some companies the proportion was as high as 25 percent. “Betriebliche Erfahrungen mit der Teilzeitbeschaftigung,” Der Arbeitgeber 14, no. 12 (1962): 363. 8. Erfahrungen mit der Teilzeitarbeit der Frauen. Im Auftrag des Rationalisierungskuratoriums der Deutschen Wirtschaft—RKW—erstellt vom Studienkreis fur betriebliche Personal- und Sozialpolitik e. V. ‘Der neue Betrieb’ (Essen, 1963), 26f.

9. “Der Mikrozensus als neues Instrument zur Erfassung sozialbkonomischer Tatbestande,” WS 9, no. 4 (1957): 209ff. “Der Umfang der Erwerbstatigkeit im Oktober 1957. Erste Ergebnisse des Mikrozensus,’ WS 11, no. 4 (1959): 173-84. 10. “Der Umfang der Erwerbstatigkeit im Oktober 1957,” 175.

100 | The Pleasure of a Surplus Income

11. Gerhard Fiirst et al., “Zur Statistik der Erwerbstatigkeit und der Beschaftigung,” WS 11, no. 2 (1959): 116. 12. The figures in detail:

1950: ca. 4,800,500 1956 (BAVAV): 5,802,600

1952 (BAVAV): 4,521,000 1957 (Mikro): 6,166,000 1953 (BAVAV): 4,766,000 1958 (Mikro): 6,345,800 1954 (BAVAV): 5,046,800 1959 (Mikro): 6,401,000 1955 (BAVAV): 5,375,800 1960 (Mikro): 6,585,000

The data are taken from Statistisches Jahrbuch fir die Bundesrepublik Deutschland, “Statistiken: Beschaftigte und Arbeitslose der Jahre 1951-1956”; and “Ergebnisse des Mikroszensus ftir die

Jahre 1957-1960,” volumes for 1952-62. 13. Hermann Schubnell, “Die Erwerbstitigkeit von Frauen und Miittern und die Betreuung ihrer Kinder,” WS 16, no. 8 (1964): 448. 14. “Der Umfang der Erwerbstatigkeit im Oktober 1957,” 178f. 15. Whether it is worth separately documenting the “special case” of part-time employment must be determined anew “from statistic to statistic.” Ftirst, “Zur Statistik der Erwerbstatigkeit,” 119. 16. Statistisches Bundesamt, unpublished figures from the microcensus, week under review 6-12 October 1957, compilation of the numbers of women employed fewer than 48 hours a week, by the number of hours worked in the week under review, the reasons for the shorter working hours, occupational status, and economic sector, in Francesca Schinzinger, “Die Auswirkungen der Arbeitszeitverkiirzung auf die Erwerbstatigkeit der Frau,” PhD diss., University of Mainz, 1960, 88-89, tables 8 and 9. 17. “Im Erwerbsleben tiberhaupt tatige Personen nach Wirtschaftbereichen sowie Stellung im Beruf— Oktober 1957—im Bundesgebiet ohne Saarland und Berlin (West),” WS 11 (1959): 178.

18. “Beschaftigte nach ihrer Stellung im Betrieb. Ergebnis einer Arbeitsstattenzahlung am 6.6.1961,” WS 15 (1963): 676-80, here 678f. 19. The average proportion of “family assistants” (mithelfende Familienangehérige) among women

working part-time was 23.5 percent, which caused the total proportion of part-time workers to skyrocket in all sectors except industrial manufacturing. Ibid., table 5. 20. The survey included only women who were employed outside the agricultural sector and had at least one child under the age of fourteen. For the results of the study, see Schubnell, “Erwerbstatigkeit,” 444-56. 21. “Die Erwerbstatigkeit der Miitter und die Betreuung ihrer Kinder. Ergebnis der MikrozensusZusatzbefragung 1969,” WS 23 (1971): 86-88; “Die Betreuung der Kinder erwerbstatiger und nichterwerbstatiger Miter. Ergebnis der Mikrozensus-Zusatzbefragung 1969,” Ibid., 161—65. 22. Deutscher Gewerkschaftsbund, Abt. Frauen, “Auswertung der vom statistischen Bundesamt aus der | percent Mikrozensus-Befragung vom Oktober 1962 erstellten Ergebnisse tiber die Teilzeitarbeit der Frauen,” prepared by Irmgard Schinke, MS, June 1964, DGB-Archiv, 24.18, Abt. Tarifpolitik. 24/6362, unpag. Excerpts published in Deutscher Gewerkschaftsbund, DGB Frauenarbeit. Geschaftsbericht der Abteilung Frauen im Vorstand des DGB 1962-1964 (Diisseldorf, 1964), 28-30. The unpublished version will be cited henceforth as DGB-Auswertung. 23. Proposal of 4 March 1963 from the DGB’s department of women’s affairs for the meeting of the Federal Women’s Commission (Bundesfrauenausschuf) on 6 March 1963, DGBArchiv, 24.11, Abt. Frauen, 24/4535, n.p. In 1962, the International Conference of Labor Statisticians passed a resolution recommending that statistics be kept on the working hours of part-time employees. Publications of the Federal Office of Statistics point in particular to this recommendation. Cf. “Teilzeitbeschaftigte Arbeiter, ihre Arbeitzeiten und Verdienste,” WS 21, no. 9 (1969): 529. 24. Schubnell, “Erwerbstatigkeit,” 456. 25. “Teilzeitbeschaftigte Arbeiter,” 529-32; “Teilzeitbeschaftigte Angestellte und ihre Verdienste,” WS 21, no. 11 (1969): 647-50.

Part-Time Employment Becomes Normal | 101

26. “Teilzeitbeschaftigte Arbeiter,” 529. 27. “Frauen mit Teilzeitarbeit. Ergebnisse des Mikrozensus,” WS 23 (1971): 416-18. 28. Deutscher Gewerkschaftsbund, DGB-Frauenarbeit, Geschaftsbericht der Abteilung Frauen im

Vorstand des DGB, 1962-1964, 28-30. , 29. DGB-Auswertung, 2. The Federal Office of Statistics, in contrast, still included family assistants in the rubric “working shorter hours by choice” in 1969. “Die Arbeitszeiten der Erwerbstatigen. Ergebnisse des Mikrozensus April 1968,” WS 21 (1969): 160f. 30. ‘The Federal Office of Statistics gave the total number of women employed part-time in 1962 as 685,000, because it included all positions with fewer than 45 hours a week. Cf. table 4.6 in

this chapter. |

31. “Comparative Study of Part-Time Employment,” in /nternational Labour Review 88, no. 4 (1963).

32. While among full-time women around 14 percent more blue-collar than white-collar workers were registered, 39 percent more blue-collar than white-collar employees worked part-time. DGB-Auswertung, 3. 33. DGB-Auswertung, 7. Among full-time female employees the ratio was more balanced: Here, too, Most women were wage workers, but at 55 percent their proportion was far closer to that of salaried employees at 42 percent. 34. Ibid. 35. On what follows, see ibid., 4—8. 36. Ibid. 37. Report of 9 July 1962 from AA Alfeld, NdsHStA, Nds. 1310, Acc. 136/82, no. 569, n.p.; report of 9 October 1964 from AA Hannover, ibid., no. 573, n.p. See also chapter 5, “A Delicate Balance: Company Interests, Job Placement, and Women’s Interests,” in this volume. 38. DGB-Auswertung, 12. 39. Ibid., 13. 40. In 1953, a total of 17,018 women worked part-time for the German postal service (Bundes-

post), a figure that had risen by 1959 to 32,093. Of these, only 2,920 were white-collar employees, and all the rest, blue-collar workers. Figures for 1953 in Fuest, Méglichkeit und Zweckmafsigkeit, 73; for 1959, communication of 25 April 1960 from the women’s secretariat of the German Postal Workers’ Union (Deutsche Postgewerkschaft) to the DGB department of women’s affairs, DGB-Archiv, 24.11, Abt. Frauen, 24/4373, n.p. 41. “Teilzeitbeschaftigte Arbeiter,” 529. 42. Ibid. 43. Ibid., 530. 44, Cf. Erfahrungen mit der Teilzeitarbeit der Frauen, 3\—32. 45. “Teilzeitbeschaftigte Arbeiter,” 530. 46. Ibid., 532. The exchange rate in 1966 was DM to £1: 11.09; DM to $1: 4.0; R. L. Bidwell, Currency Conversion Tables: A Hundred Years of Change (London, 1970), 22-24. 47. Martina Klein, Gewerkschaften und Teilzeitarbeit, 202. This development was the “result of a deliberate personnel policy.” Ibid., 134. 48. “Teilzeitbeschaftigte Angestellte,” 649, table 1. 49. Of part-time workers, 16.1 percent were under the age of 30, 44.8 percent were between 30 and 45, 23.6 percent were between 45 and 55, and 15.4 percent were older than 55. “Teilzeitbeschaftigte Arbeiter,” 531. 50. “Teilzeitbeschaftigte Angestellte,” 650. 51. Schubnell, “Erwerbstatigkeit,” 451. 52. Ibid., table 8, 451. 53. Ibid., table 10, 452. 54. Ibid., 451. 55. Ibid., 452. A tiny proportion of children (1 percent) were left completely alone while their mothers worked half days. 56. “Frauen mit Teilzeitarbeit. Ergebnisse des Mikrozensus,” WS 23 (1971): 416-18, here 416.

102 | The Pleasure of a Surplus Income

57. Angelika Willms, “Grundziige der Entwicklung der Frauenarbeit zwischen 1880-1980,” in Miiller et al., Strukturwandel der Frauenarbeit, 35. 58. “Frauen mit Teilzeitarbeit,” 418, table 6: “Entwicklung der Teilzeitarbeit der abhangig erwerbstatigen Frauen von 1967 bis 1970 nach Familienstand und Vorhandensein von Kindern” (Development of Part-Time Work among Women in Dependent Employment from 1967 to 1970 by Marital Status and Presence of Children). 59. Ibid., 416. 60. Only 30 percent of childless married women worked part-time. Ibid. 61. “Die Erwerbstatigkeit der Mutter und die Betreuung der Kinder,” 87, table 3: “Erwerbstatige Miitter mit Kindern unter 14/15 Jahren auferhalb der Land- und Forstwirtschaft nach geleisteten Arbeitsstunden ... und Stellung im Beruf” (Employed Mothers with Children under 14—15 Years outside of Agriculture and Forestry by Hours Worked . . . and Occupational Stratus). 62. See also “Aufnahme und Unterbrechung der Erwerbsbeteiligung der Frauen. Ergebnis des Mikrozensus April 1966,” WS 21, no. 1 (1969): 20ff. 63. “Frauen mit Teilzeitarbeit,” 418, table 7: “Erwerbstatigkeitsquoten der Frauen im Alter von 15 bis unter 65 Jahren nach Arbeitszeit, Familienstand, Vorhandensein von Kindern und Alter” (Employment Rates of Women Aged 15 to under 65 Years by Working Hours, Marital Status, Presence of Children, and Age).

64. On this, see in particular Angelika Willms, “Segregation auf Dauer? Zur Entwicklung des Verhaltnisses von Frauenarbeit und Mannerarbeit in Deutschland, 1882-1980,” in Miller et al., Strukturwandel der Frauenarbeit, 107-83, esp. 123f; and Ulla Knapp, Hausarbeit und geschlechtsspezifischer Arbeitsmarkt im deutschen Industrialisierungsprozef.. Frauenpolitik und proletarischer Frauenalltag zwischen 1800 und 1933 (Munich, 1984). 65. Christel Eckart reaches similar conclusions in “Halbtags durch das Wirtschaftswunder. Die Entwicklung der Teilzeitarbeit in den sechziger Jahren,” in Helgard Kramer et al., Grenzen der Frauenlohnarbeit. Frauenstrategien in Lohn- und Hausarbeit seit der Jabrhundertwende (Frankfurt/ M., 1986), 183f. She does not, however, distinguish between regular part-time employment and marginal employment beneath the minimum level for compulsory social insurance.

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