Seeking the balance: the transformation of gender patterns as a response to the shifts in state family policy (a case of Germany)

There are multi-dimensional dynamic relationships between the public and the private space in the individual's life, and the family is the place of their collision. It is important to underline that family reacts sensitively to social changes. Following the developments in family behavior strategies can provide fruitful material for a researcher who aims to evaluate the progress and the consequences of the transformation of the society in its various dimensions. Nowadays, governments of all modern countries help families to some extent to cope with their daily concerns and challenges by conducting a family policy, which is a complex of legal, economic and social support for families in carrying out their social functions associated with birth and raise of children, as well as care for disabled family members. This article is an attempt to analyze the impact of different models of the family policy on the distribution of tasks in paid labor and family economy between men and women. The example of Germany which experienced multiple shifts in its policy direction in the recent decades provides rich material for cultural and historical comparison. After 1945, two opposite family and gender policies in the divided Germany were initialized. The GDR and the FRG institutionalized strong political and legal systems by declaring themselves as defenders of the interests of women, based on different perceptions of what women really need. The outcome was the formation of two contrasting models of family and labor relations: the two-earner family model in the GDR, in which a woman was expected to participate fully in the labor market along with the compulsory motherhood; and the conservative model of a male-breadwinner and a woman-housewife in the FRG, which is based on the idea of women's specific gender role: different to men's role in content, but equal in the value to the society. The analysis of the process and the results of German reunification with the apparent hegemony of the West German experience allows to identify positive trends as well as to reveal stresses arising in the course of such a non-equilibrium transit. Since the mid-2000s, there are significant changes in the labor market and in the private family relations in Germany. It is argued to be a respond to the new Scandinavian-like state policy, which can be characterized as egalitarian and gender-sensitive, targeted at achieving the equality of rights and duties of men and women in the public and the private spheres. The approach to the family policy is connected with the demand for sustainability, understood as the ability to respond flexibly both to the changing environment and to the personal demands of individuals looking for a work-life balance. A sustainable family policy should be designed as a flexible set of norms that reflect the dynamics of the social changes and recognize the diversity of an individual's configuration of a biographical way, family values and reproductive patterns.

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