The family policy legacy of Germany is essentially a story of a strong male breadwinner-female caregiver regime to which progressive modifications are gradually made from the 1980s on wards, after which paradigmatic changes unfold in 2000s. In the fist three decades of the postwar era, it was overwhelmingly the responsibility in West Germany of the “non-working”mother to provide the necessary social services for family members.
Accordingly, the male breadwinner’s wage had to be high enough, in principle, to support the whole family above the subsistence level. In addition to a number of collective bargaining agreements(especially in the public sector), the state supported this approach through a system of joint taxation and child (tax) allowances.
If a mother had young children,employment outside the family or outside the family business was considered legitimate only if the woman was "forced" to work out of economic necessity.Based on these normative principles,the state largely refrained form providing social services in a setting where state childcare facilities were dismisses as potentially harmful to the personal development of children ,especially pre-school were expected to dedicate themselves to their role as mothers,it seemed all but impossible to significantly expand female labor force participation in the 1960s,even though Germany's booming economy was crying out for workers.At the time,importing immigrant labor was hence the preferred solution

德國的家庭政策傳統(tǒng)是男性掙錢養(yǎng)家，女性帶孩子。這種情形從20世紀(jì)80年代開始逐漸改變，21世紀(jì)時發(fā)生巨大的變化。在西德，戰(zhàn)后第一個30年，沒工作的女性必然要承擔(dān)起照看家庭的責(zé)任（奈德哈特cf.Neidhardt 1978）。
相應(yīng)的家庭政策是，男性的工資必須足夠高，至少要保證能維持全家的溫飽。除了很多集體協(xié)商的協(xié)議（尤其是在公共部門），同時，國家也通過一種系統(tǒng)貫徹本項政策，實現(xiàn)這一保證，即聯(lián)合征稅以及孩子補(bǔ)貼。
對于有嬰幼兒的女性來說，只有出于經(jīng)濟(jì)需求，“被迫”外出工作的情況下，才能從事家庭或家庭事物之外的工作。若兒童福利機(jī)構(gòu)對兒童個人的發(fā)展有礙，國家就不允許將兒童送往這些機(jī)構(gòu)，所以只能母親在家照顧孩子，尤其針對學(xué)齡前兒童（穆勒Moeller 1933,179），母親會把她們的所有精力全部投入到母親這一角色中，基于這些標(biāo)準(zhǔn)規(guī)范，在20世紀(jì)70年代大量擴(kuò)張女性勞動力似