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Marriage and Family in Germany
Like most other advanced countries in the postwar era, Germany recorded
fewer marriages, more divorces, and smaller families. In 1960 there were
690,000 marriages, compared with 516,000 in 1990. The total for 1993 amounted
to only 442,000, but most of this decline was caused by a drop of than
more 50 percent in the number of marriages in the new Länder between
1990 and 1993. Until 1990 the decline in marriages in East Germany had
been appreciably greater than in West Germany (from 215,000 in 1950 to
137,000 in 1989, compared with 536,000 and 399,000 in the same years in
West Germany), but not nearly as steep in the 1990-93 period. Just as
the dramatic social changes brought to the new Länder by unification
affected birth rates there, so they also affected marriages rates.
Another difference in marriage practices between the two Germanys had
been that easterners marrying for the first time did so at an earlier
age than westerners. Easterners did so, it is believed, because of their
desire to have children and hence qualify for low-cost child care and
housing benefits. Following unification this difference remained. In 1992
the average age at first marriage was 29.0 for men and 26.5 for women
in the old Länder, compared with 27.1 for men and 25.1 for women
in the new Länder. Since the mid-1970s, the average age at which
people marry has slowly risen for both genders in both parts of Germany.
As the number of marriages declined, the frequency of divorce increased
in both states. Between 1960 and 1990, the number of divorces in West
Germany more than doubled, increasing from 49,000 to 123,000 and yielding
a divorce rate of about 30 percent. Divorce was always more common in
East Germany than it was in West Germany. The number of divorces roughly
doubled between 1960 and 1988, going from 25,000 to 49,000. In 1986 there
was a record divorce rate of 46 percent. Although home to only 20 percent
of the total population, the new Länder accounted for 29 percent
of all divorces in 1990. After unification, however, the incidence of
divorce decreased greatly in the east, perhaps in response to the overall
uncertainty and insecurity of future prospects for single mothers in unified
Germany. In 1992 the number of divorces in the new Länder amounted
to only 10,000. In 1993, however, this number rose to 18,000, an increase
of 78 percent.
Despite the increasing likelihood of divorce, in 1990 about 89 percent
of all families consisted of married couples, and about 70 percent of
those of marriage age were married. In both east and west, however, the
failure of these families to produce the necessary number of children
for population replacement was striking. Of the 15 million married couples
in the former West Germany, about 57 percent had children. Forty-seven
percent of couples with children had one child, 38 percent had two children,
and 13 percent had three or more children. In 1950 the average number
of persons in German households was 3.0. By 1990 this figure had declined
to 2.3. In 1991 four-person households accounted for 13 percent of the
total number of households, three-person households for 16 percent, two-person
households for 31 percent, and single-person households for 35 percent.
In the early 1990s, only foreign families were regularly having two or
more children, with the Turkish subgroup being the largest in terms of
family size.
Like West Germany, East Germany had provided legislative protection for
the family and married couples, together with generous maternity leave
and pay provisions. In the east, however, it was assumed that the mother
would rejoin the workforce soon after maternity leave, and an elaborate
child-care system was put in place. Virtually all women could obtain excellent
care for their children if they wished. In the west, many mothers gave
up their careers or interrupted them for long periods following the birth
of a child because child care was generally unavailable. As a result,
in 1990 women of child-bearing age in the east had more children (1.67)
than women in the west (1.42). Supported by the state, eastern women had
long been accustomed to balancing child-rearing and a profession. After
unification, however, the new Länder experienced a precipitous decline
in births because of high unemployment, especially among women.
By the mid-1990s, the newest trend in household formation was what became
known as nonmarital living partnerships. Between 1972 and 1990, the number
of such households increased sevenfold, to 963,000, or 2.7 percent of
all households. Almost 90 percent of these were childless households.
Most young people were opting to live together before deciding to marry.
This factor pushed the average age at marriage higher.
Another sign of the movement away from the traditional concept of family
and of the manifestation of sexual freedom was the rising number of out-of-wedlock
births. In the late 1980s, about one in ten West German and three in ten
East German births were to unmarried women.
In the postwar period, it became clear that marriage had lost its former
position as the only legitimate locus for sexual activity. In the early
1990s, polls indicated that 60 percent of German sixteen-year-olds were
sexually active, compared with 15 percent in the 1950s.
In the past, when regional differences were acute, convention held that
marriages between a Prussian and a Bavarian, between a Catholic and a
Protestant, and definitely between a Christian and a Jew were "mixed"
marriages. In modern Germany, only unions between Germans and foreigners
are considered mixed. Of 516,000 marriages in 1990, about 6 percent were
between Germans and foreigners. Most often German women married Americans,
Italians, Turks, and Yugoslavs, and German men married Yugoslavs, Poles,
Filipinos, and Austrians. In 1974 legislation was passed conferring automatic
citizenship on children born of these unions.
- Population
- Immigration
- Women In Society
- Marriage
- Fertility
- Mortality
- Age-Gender Distribution
- Social Structure
- Religion
- Urbanization
- Geography (lands and
capitals, climate)
- Society (population, religion,
marriage, urbanization, social structure, immigration)
- Education (elementary,
junior, senior, vocational, higher)
- Economy (the Economic
Miracle, financial system, Bundesbank, business culture)
- Politics (government,
the Chancellor, the President, parties, Bundestag)
- Mass Media (newspapers,
radio and TV)
- Armed Forces (army,
navy, air forces, police)
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