Draft budget for 2027: Black and red cuts plans particularly affect women

The federal government is under pressure to consolidate - and women in Germany are at risk of being left behind. In the budget for next year, the Union and SPD factions want to make savings, especially in the social area. On Monday, the Dezernat Zukunft think tank, together with the German Women's Council, presented a study that shows how one-sidedly the planned cuts would affect women.

Specifically, the current budget draft for 2027 provides for savings in housing benefit, as well as in daycare financing, maintenance advances for single parents and children's sick days. Some things, such as the immediate supplement in the child supplement and the relief contribution for care level 1, may be eliminated completely next year.

The study shows that 60% of these savings affect women. And that is still a rather conservative estimate, as Philippa Sigl-Glöckner, director of the Future Department, said. Of the around 8.4 billion euros that are to be saved in the social sector, around 5 billion have so far gone to women.

The reason why the cuts hit women so much harder on average: they do the majority of unpaid care work in Germany, they work part-time more often and earn less on average. If support services for people in these life situations are no longer available, then women are affected more often.

This is not only unfair for around 51 percent of the German population, but also costs the state money itself. The authors of the study calculate that the lack of equality and the disadvantage of women in the labor market is already costing 14 billion euros in social benefits every year. The planned benefit cuts threatened to further increase these costs. An example: If daycare places are lost due to benefits being cut, this can prevent mothers from working. If the person affected receives basic security, it costs the state significantly more money than it earned through the cuts to daycare.

“What the state saves today, it simply shifts to later as follow-up costs,” says Jutta Allmendinger, professor of labor market research at the Humboldt University in Berlin. And Anja Weusthoff, deputy chairwoman of the German Women's Council, says: "It simply doesn't make economic sense to ignore the interests of women."

The study also shows that around 209,000 additional jobs could be created by 2031 through equality reforms such as the expansion of daycare centers, full-day and nursing care as well as further development of spouse splitting. This would probably mean a net reduction in the budget of up to 5 billion euros per year. According to Weusthoff, the federal government has so far ignored these findings. This clearly contradicts the federal government's guiding principle of gender mainstreaming, which is intended to promote equality between women and men.