Crisis-proof households? How social policy responses to the COVID-19 pandemic imagined work and care in Germany

Zagel, Hannah; Struffolino, Emanuela Article — Published Version Crisis-proof households? How social policy responses to the COVID-19 pandemic imagined work and care in Germany Journal of Social Policy Provided in Cooperation with: WZB Berlin Social Science Center Suggested Citation: Zagel, Hannah; Struffolino, Emanuela (2024) : Crisis-proof households? How social policy responses to the COVID-19 pandemic imagined work and care in Germany, Journal of Social Policy, ISSN 1469-7823, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, Iss. FirstView, pp. 1-22, https://doi.org/10.1017/S0047279424000278 This Version is available at: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/308953 Standard-Nutzungsbedingungen: Die Dokumente auf EconStor dürfen zu eigenen wissenschaftlichen Zwecken und zum Privatgebrauch gespeichert und kopiert werden. Sie dürfen die Dokumente nicht für öffentliche oder kommerzielle Zwecke vervielfältigen, öffentlich ausstellen, öffentlich zugänglich machen, vertreiben oder anderweitig nutzen. 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How social policy responses to the COVID-19 pandemic imagined work and care in Germany Hannah Zagel1and Emanuela Struffolino2 1Wissenschaftszentrum Berlin fur Sozialforschung gGmbH, Berlin, Germany and 2Department of Social and Political Sciences, University of Milan, Milano, Italy Corresponding author: Hannah Zagel; Email: [email protected] (Received 3 April 2023; revised 30 July 2024; accepted 13 August 2024) Abstract Social policies convey normative assumptions about how households should make ends meet and organise care, but how do these ideals withstand crises such as the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic? Previous research shows continuity of welfare state models in the crisis, but mostly looked at single policy fields and produced mixed findings regarding the role of pre-crisis reform trajectories. This paper contributes a detailed analysis of assumptions about the ‘standard productive household’in terms of three dimensions: labour market participation, coverage of economic needs and coverage of care needs. Drawing on original policy documents enacted in 2020 in Germany –which had dismantled many of its institutional strongholds for the male-breadwinner model before the crisis –we provide two novel insights. First, social policy responses to the pandemic were relatively coherent regarding assumptions about labour market participation, but expectations towards households’abilities to make ends meet and parents’care involvement were less coherent. In addition to relaxing conditions on stable employment and income, policy responses normalised patchwork incomes and relied on parents to compress paid and unpaid work. Second, we propose that crises may slow down reform processes that are already underway by reverting to ideas that were dominant in the past. Keywords: COVID-19 pandemic; social policy responses; ideal-type household; Germany Introduction The economic consequences of the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic sparked strong social policy reactions in countries across the world. These reactions appear to have been mostly in line with general approaches to providing welfare (Börner and Seeleib-Kaiser, 2023), but the normative expectations about welfare production that were inscribed in social policies during the crisis have received less attention. How were households assumed to make ends meet? Who was held responsible for economic maintenance and unpaid care? And what were © The Author(s), 2024. Published by Cambridge University Press. This is an Open Access article, distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution licence (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted re-use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. Journal of Social Policy (2024), page 1 of 22 doi:10.1017/S0047279424000278 https://doi.org/10.1017/S0047279424000278 Published online by Cambridge University Press the images of productive and reproductive citizens inscribed in policy responses? These are important questions because policies contribute to ideas of what is possible and what is ‘normal’; they constitute categories of people of whom specific behaviours are expected, such as different types of workers or parents (Bacchi, 2017). Illuminating the categories of people and expectations inscribed in crisis policies is crucial to addressing and potentially reconsidering such categories in the future. The COVID-19 pandemic affected all life domains. It created stress for the welfare state –initially to its healthcare systems but then also more broadly –and shifted the logics of social protection to crisis mode (Börner and Seeleib-Kaiser, 2023). Government containment measures restricted social life and work, with direct consequences for people whose jobs could not be shifted to telework (because they entailed contact with costumers) or whose jobs stopped because customer traffic was constrained. In contrast, some occupations were deemed ‘essential’ because they were required to keep infrastructures running, with little regard for risks of infection. Meanwhile, due to the closure of schools and childcare facilities, many working parents either combined telework and childcare or left their jobs, permanently or temporarily. Governments attuned their social policy measures to buffer social and economic effects for households and ultimately prevent a major recession. In this study, we look at Germany as an exemplary case. In Germany, the dismantling of the institutionalised male-breadwinner model has long been proclaimed (Mätzke and Ostner, 2010), but crisis response policies were publicly criticised for insufficiently countering the re-traditionalisation of gender roles invoked by the crisis.1Understanding the normative frame underpinning crisis policies in relation to pre-crisis institutional reform trajectories can inform theorising about the persistence of ideas in welfare state models. We make two main contributions to the literature on social policy responses to crises. First, we consider social policy responses as packages rather than single policy fields. Comparative research has shown that overall, structural responses to the COVID pandemic were consistent with the welfare state model in social security (Béland et al., 2023; Seemann et al., 2021) and in care-related policies (Daly and Ryu, 2023; Dobroti´c and Blum, 2023). In our study, we consider these policies jointly, enabling a comprehensive analysis of assumptions of how individuals and households were supposed to deal with material and care needs. Analysing a set of policies helps in understanding their joint contribution to normalise a particular form of household production. Second, our study builds towards a refining of expectations regarding the relationships between crisis responses, prior reform trajectories and gendered ideas about work and care. While some studies have suggested that social policy responses to crises are aligned with the progression of institutional reform trajectories (Cantillon et al., 2021), others point to the reliance on ‘old’ideas in moments of emergency (Eggers et al., 2023). We use the historical instance of Germany’s social policy response package to the COVID-19 pandemic to take a more in-depth look at these links, and generate a hypothesis regarding the stickiness of norms in institutional reform trajectories. From the 1990s up to the moment the pandemic hit Europe, welfare states (including in Germany) had increasingly tended to address citizens in their own 2 Hannah Zagel and Emanuela Struffolino https://doi.org/10.1017/S0047279424000278 Published online by Cambridge University Press right, and less as members of family-household units with mutual obligations, as they had previously (Ostner, 2004). In the 2010–2020s, support for the ‘adultworker model’was arguably provided regardless of gender or parental status, contributing to what has been considered ‘formal’gender equality (Chanfreau, 2022). In this model, social policies normalise the ideal of full-time employed workers, whose social protection is conditional on their labour market participation. The pandemic radically changed the conditions under which the adult worker model had found support. The possibility of practicing and maintaining full-time employment became much more selective (Brugiavini et al., 2021); this was among the key drivers of social policy responses. However, policymakers always opt for specific normative frames among a range of alternatives, and their choices in crises can reveal underpinning ideas about gender and work (Daly, 2021; Eggers et al., 2023). In this paper, we look at policies in the initial phase of the COVID-19 pandemic between March and December 2020 in Germany. This was when crisis politics played out clearest, while later policies were often amendments to initial policies (Daly, 2022). Drawing on original policy documents and government reports, we consider policies that directly intervened in people’s household maintenance in terms of paid and unpaid work: short-time work schemes, social security transfers, parental leave rights and payments, family allowances and school services. We compare these crisis policies against assumptions about ‘productive households’ inscribed in pre-crisis policies, also considering what alternative responses there might have been. The analysis gives a nuanced picture of a social policy response package, leading us to hypothesise regarding policymakers’reluctance to pursue gender-equality-oriented crisis policies –which future research should investigate. Social policy in the pandemic In the COVID-19 pandemic, the conditions under which productive households operated changed dramatically for most people. Governments issued containment measures restricting social life and work in the labour market. This had immediate consequences for employees in businesses that rely on customer contact; these jobs could not be shifted to telework, and many businesses had to close (at least temporarily). In this context, some of the main logics of employment-centred welfare states, such as the principle of activation, were no longer viable. The health crisis and its containment measures meant that, to keep infrastructures running, some occupations were deemed ‘essential’. Employees in these occupations, such as healthcare, public transport and electricity, were expected to keep working; these jobs were relatively secure. The possibility of practicing and maintaining full-time employment and a stable income during this period of the pandemic became much more selective than before (Brugiavini et al., 2021). At the same time, containment measures affected the way households relied on family relationships for resources and support (Daly and Ryu, 2023). Closures of schools and childcare facilities meant that, in households with children, adults’care responsibilities intensified, and children were largely reliant on the resources of their families (ibid.). Employed parents who did not qualify for the emergency childcare Journal of Social Policy 3 https://doi.org/10.1017/S0047279424000278 Published online by Cambridge University Press measures reserved for ‘essential workers’either shifted to telework to care for dependent children at home when possible, or were forced to take leave or quit their jobs (Eggers et al., 2023). This environment radically changed the context of household production, altering the playing field for the welfare state. Welfare state logics of social protection shifted to a crisis mode, and emergency measures addressing acute needs were overwhelmingly temporary in nature. Social policy responses aimed to buffer social and economic effects for households, not least to prevent a major recession (Börner and Seeleib-Kaiser, 2023). Governments’ interventions were extensive, and included the expansion of programmes that were already in place as well as the instalment of new measures. In Europe, about 40 per cent of all policy responses were amendments to existing policies, while the remainder were new measures (Weber et al., 2020). Over 30 per cent of policy responses across European countries in 2020 focused on keeping businesses afloat; income protection measures (19 per cent) and employment protection measures (13 per cent) were the other main domains (ibid.). There were notable differences in crisis responses across countries, which comparative research has attempted to explain. A number of studies have shown that country-specific social policy responses to the pandemic mostly reflected existing policy legacies (Béland et al., 2021; Béland et al., 2023; Eggers et al., 2023). The setup of targeted and universal benefits was maintained in welfare states’crisis responses, and there was stability in the instruments used, such as regarding wage subsidies versus temporary unemployment benefits. Comparative research has also suggested, however, that the links between welfare state systems and policy responses to crises are not deterministic. Cantillon et al. (2021) examined social security measures and showed that, among Bismarckian welfare states, the nature of the policy response varied depending on the country’s progress in dualism in social protection when the pandemic hit. Eggers et al. (2023) examined childcare policies and found that, where the institutional structures would have allowed for a focus on either family care or extrafamilial care, cultural ideas shaped welfare states’crisis response pathways. Research shows that crisis responses were underpinned by gendered ideas of who would take on the emerging care responsibilities (Daly 2021) and who would be expected to do the breadwinning. Our study country, Germany, is a good case to examine such normative expectations. The institutional reform trajectory from the male-breadwinner towards a Sweden-type adult-worker model had been going on for over a decade when the crisis hit. However, previous studies have provided mixed evidence for what the main normative frame in the crisis was. Evaluating differences in policy responses between countries, Bariola and Collins (2021) point to longer school closures in Germany compared with other countries to conclude that the malebreadwinner legacy must still have had a strong influence in the crisis. Eggers et al. (2023) make a similar argument based on analyses of childcare-related policies in the crisis. Looking at short-time work schemes during the beginning of the pandemic, Cook and Grimshaw (2021) show that, in Germany, the scheme disregarded the different positions of men and women in the labour market by paying the same replacement rate for all workers and excluding mini-jobs.By contrast, the scheme was considered sensitive to women’s employment patterns in 4 Hannah Zagel and Emanuela Struffolino https://doi.org/10.1017/S0047279424000278 Published online by Cambridge University Press that it allowed for a reduction in work hours and provided more generous shorttime work benefits for households with children (Cook and Grimshaw 2020). In summary, the literature provides fragmented evidence regarding our research question on who is held responsible for the economic maintenance and unpaid care in crisis-facing households. To examine the expectations towards productive households in the crisis, we have to consider a more comprehensive policy package. Digging deeper into the case of Germany will also grant insights into the resilience of a pre-crisis reform trajectory that had been described as ‘substantive institutional change’(Palier, 2010) in times of crisis. Conceptual framework How social policies constitute productive households This paper builds on the assumption that policies contribute to shaping ideas of what is considered ‘normal’, and this extends to situations of emergency. Policies convey assumptions and prescriptions about individual behaviours beyond setting (economic) incentives, and in addition to their material consequences. More broadly, policies transport context-specific perceptions of need and formalise ideas about work and care (Daly 2022). This view is widely shared in the social policy literature (e.g. van Oorschot et al., 2008), and is in line with a sociological neoinstitutionalist understanding of policies to operate both on a regulative as well as a cultural-cognitive dimension that provides frames of meaning for behaviour (Hall and Taylor, 1996). The links between policies and normative ideas are complex; in this paper we focus on the perspective that policies institutionalise ideas of how households should arrange their maintenance. Concepts such as the ‘male-breadwinner model’(Lewis, 1992) and the ‘adultworker model’(Lewis, 2001) describe how states structure household production. The male-breadwinner model implies welfare states’support for a gendered division of paid and unpaid labour, with women assumed to do most of the care and domestic work. By contrast, the adult-worker (also ‘dual-earner’) model implies that both women and men are assumed to be active in the labour market, although it is conceptually unclear how the load of unpaid work is redistributed between women and men (Daly 2011). Our study country, Germany, has been described as a typical case of a male-breadwinner model that has gradually adapted towards a dual-worker model since the late 1990s (Mätzke and Ostner, 2010). The breadwinner concepts are mostly used to describe the regulative dimension of the institutional setting (Pfau-Effinger, 1998) and how social policies structure material conditions. Although the breadwinner concepts also assume that policies have an ideological foundation, this remains more implicit (Daly, 2011). We build on the approach introduced by Bacchi (2017) and applied by Chanfreau (2022) in this journal to consider how policies themselves, rather than their material consequences, constitute their subjects. Rooted in a Foucauldian conception of policy as discourse, Bacchi’s approach views policy output as knowledge, and therefore as markers of what is accepted as truth. By defining claimant groups, eligibility criteria and thresholds, policies create categories of people, setting the boundaries of what is possible to say and to be. Bacchi (2017) Journal of Social Policy 5 https://doi.org/10.1017/S0047279424000278 Published online by Cambridge University Press suggests that, besides their effect on people and on people’s lives, policies ought to be understood as contributing to who people are. Bacchi’s focus is on policies as ‘gendering practices’: how policies encourage gendered behaviour in paid and unpaid work. We consider this gendering too, but looking at the case of social policy responses to the pandemic, we investigate assumptions on the nature of households’ economic maintenance and unpaid care in a more general way. We assume that social policies, including those introduced as a response to the COVID-19 pandemic, constitute what is a ‘standard productive household’. This is defined as the arrangement of household members’labour market participation, coverage of economic needs and care involvement. We consider the standard productive household to be constituted by assumptions inscribed in social policies about who is employed, on what terms they are employed, on what level of income they will be able to maintain their household and how care responsibilities will be fulfilled. For example, by restricting eligibility to short-time work to permanently employed workers, the policy defines such work contracts as the norm; thresholds for income replacement payments reflect assumptions about capacities for economic maintenance, and temporal limits to paid care leave normalise what is accepted in terms of labour market breaks. Considering that even formally genderneutral policies can maintain existing inequalities, it is also important to pay attention to what policies do not say (Chanfreau, 2022). For example, providing protection to specific categories of workers employed in typically male-dominated labour market segments or assigning ‘gender neutral’parental leave rights to ‘parents’in a context where paid and unpaid work are shared unequally among mothers and fathers likely perpetuates inequalities. The ‘standard productive household’frame To analyse how social-policy responses to the pandemic constituted the productive household in the crisis, we first set out what was the normative frame of the ‘standard productive household’before the crisis as an analytical grid to compare policy output during the crisis. As defined above, the normative frame refers to assumptions on three dimensions: (a) labour market participation, (b) the ability to cope with household’s economic needs and (c) the ability to fulfil care responsibilities. Table 1defines assumptions inscribed in social policy (in Germany before the pandemic) on the three dimensions. Within this normative frame, the state expects adults of working age to participate in the labour market and hold a position that guarantees not just stable dependent employment on a permanent contract but also employment with an employer that is able to counterbalance negative economic cycles (e.g. start-ups in the short run, see Gries and Naudé, 2021). In the case of unemployment, the normative frame implies that adult household members will not become permanently inactive; they will return to the labour market within a limited period of time. Having labour market participation as the primary source for covering households’economic needs builds on several assumptions that are important for our later focus on crises. First, part of the labour market income should be saved to cope with possible future income losses. Second, in the case of unemployment, workers should actively seek to re-enter employment as soon as possible (within 6 Hannah Zagel and Emanuela Struffolino https://doi.org/10.1017/S0047279424000278 Published online by Cambridge University Press Table 1. Normative frame of ‘standard productive households’in Germany before the pandemic Dimension Assumptions about ‘standard productive households’ (a) Participating in the labour market Adults in working age ideally: (i) hold a permanent contract, (ii) work in a sector/company that is able to distribute economic risks across economic cycles and (iii) do not leave the labour market without looking for a job. (b) Ability to cope with household’s economic needs Workers are able to cope with temporary income losses thanks to previous savings. If workers experience periods of unemployment, they will actively seek work and return to the labour market within a year to maintain their income levels. Workers in longer periods of unemployment are required to actively seek to return to employment to secure sufficient income levels. Coping with income loss is more challenging for low-income households, which are likely to host low-wage workers – especially if there are dependent children in the household. Nonstandard employment may be used to bridge difficult periods for a limited time. Pensioners can top up their income with a restricted amount per year. In general, children are a cost factor in the household for which the state partially compensates with, e.g., child benefits. (c) Ability to manage childcare Working parents often temporarily leave their dependent permanent employment to care for their children; for longer periods off work they are supposed to be able to cover their income loss or foregone earnings. Working parents supervise their young children outside of school times and childcare hours. Journal of Social Policy 7 https://doi.org/10.1017/S0047279424000278 Published online by Cambridge University Press twelve months) with a salary that secures an adequate income level for their household. Third, marginal employment is not considered a long-term solution to unemployment or temporary income losses, so contracts such as so-called minijobs2are limited to a short period of time during the year; the expectation is that adult members of the ‘standard productive household’will find more stable and better-paid employment. Fourth, pensioners in under-resourced households can top up their low pension with (marginal) employment. Finally, the state partially compensates for the costs of children with direct transfers and services. For households with children, the ‘standard productive household’frame expects adults to manage childcare responsibilities next to their labour market participation. On the one hand, after the birth of a child, parents are expected to interrupt their employment to care for their child for a limited period of time, and if they decide to prolong their time out of work, be able to cover the (potential) income loss themselves. On the other hand, parents are expected to supervise their young children out of school hours and beyond the time covered by formal out-of-school care. These policies account for gender inequalities in employment and care to a limited degree in reserving two extra months of leave to the second parent taking leave (usually the father). Blanket measures for family care without explicit targeting of mothers/fathers tend to assume a traditional gender division of labour (Daly 2022), and so the weakened male-breadwinner model was effectively a one-and-ahalf-breadwinner model. Using this classification as an analytical grid, we organised the data collected for this research (see next section) to identify: (1) the ‘pre-crisis frame’(which categories did the German welfare state define as worthy of protection along these dimensions before the onset of the pandemic?) (2) the ‘crisis frame’(how did the German welfare state change or extend the categories of the pre-crisis frame in the pandemic?). This comparative approach allowed us to tease out the main focus of crisis policies, their ‘gendering’practices and how consistent the assumptions underlying the policy package were. To make the normative frame followed in the crisis more tangible, we also considered what alternative responses could have been made in each dimension of the crisis frame (following the approach of Daly, 2022). Analytical design Case description In the 2000–2010s, Germany’s welfare state underwent changes commonly evaluated as a departure from the conservative welfare state model (Fleckenstein, 2008) and a trend towards individualisation of social provision (Ostner, 2004). The previously strong orientation towards status preservation through social-insurancebased entitlements and a male-breadwinner model was weakened in several respects in the early 2000s. In the domain of minimum income and unemployment policy, the ‘Hartz IV reforms’installed a strong work-first agenda. They were aimed at reducing unemployment by increasing working-hour flexibility, job matching and work incentives. The integration of long-term unemployment benefits (Arbeitslosenhilfe) and social assistance (Sozialhilfe) schemes strengthened workers’ individual responsibility by increasing the conditionality of social assistance benefits 8 Hannah Zagel and Emanuela Struffolino https://doi.org/10.1017/S0047279424000278 Published online by Cambridge University Press to supervise their children throughout the day. Alternative responses more in line with the adult-worker frame would have left schools and childcare facilities open (for all working parents). Conclusions Welfare state responses to the COVID-19 pandemic were strong across Europe, with the aim of mitigating negative economic consequences for businesses and households. The types of response policies varied. Although a majority focused on protecting employment and cushioning the loss of income, countries differed in emphasising particular policies. Previous studies have shown that social policy responses to the pandemic were mostly in line with countries’respective welfare state models (Béland et al., 2023). However, two factors have been considered in less depth. First, by focusing on single fields of social policy, comparative studies have provided limited insights into the range of instruments that jointly addressed households in the pandemic. Second, countries’progression of pre-pandemic reform trajectories for policy responses to the crisis have been primarily considered in relation to labour market dualism, while the strong institutional changes to the support of a gendered division of household labour have been largely omitted. In this paper, we addressed both issues by employing a within-case analysis of the normative frame underpinning social policy responses to the pandemic in Germany. We contribute to the literature on normative assumptions conveyed by social policies about how households should make ends meet and organise care (what we defined as the ‘standard productive household’) and analyse the normative frame underpinning crisis policies in relation to pre-crisis institutional reform trajectories. Our study builds on earlier work showing that welfare state support of the ‘malebreadwinner model’has declined, as well as on recent theorising of policies as ‘gendering practices’(Bacchi, 2017). We look at Germany as a case where the precrisis welfare state reform trajectory departed from upholding a strongly gendered model of work and care, though crisis responses were publicly criticised for failing to prevent re-traditionalisation (endnote i). In contrast to previous research that compared countries in single policy fields, our case-study approach allows for a more in-depth consideration of policy packages and how they jointly shaped assumptions of productive households. To analyse the normative frame of crisis policies, we compared crisis responses to pre-crisis social policy in Germany focusing on three dimensions: labour market participation, income maintenance and care. Our focus was on normative frames of initial crisis responses, so our data covered the early phase of the pandemic, March– December 2020; this means that we do not account for possible stability of the measures over time or beyond the crisis. In line with previous literature, we show how the overwhelmingly temporary measures were attuned to the severe crisis, but kept with many of the previously held social protection logics (Béland et al., 2023). Intuitively, assumptions about active labour market participation were consistently relaxed, and access to state contributions to household incomes was extended. Social policies reflected a recognition that the crisis substantively altered the conditions for stable employment and for workers to maintain their income levels. The increased Journal of Social Policy 15 https://doi.org/10.1017/S0047279424000278 Published online by Cambridge University Press generosity in duration and levels of benefits illustrate this point. However, especially low-income households were assumed to rely on patchwork incomes, including marginal employment. Social policies also factored in that, owing to containment measures, households were more central as the site of production, for example, in granting low-income households support with their actual expenses for heating and housing. As before, assumptions about the care arrangements of ‘standard productive households’in response policies were strongly tied to parents’employment status – with the exception of the child bonus. The tendency was to allow some more flexibility for the length and sequencing of care interruptions (e.g., Lohnfortzahlung, Elterngeld), but with a clear emphasis on care being done at home. Care-related policies seemed oriented towards reducing the potential negative future effects of more discontinuous employment careers, rather than towards immediate relief in a situation where parents and children were tied to the household. School closures, which went beyond social policy responses, strongly conditioned the (im) possibilities for parents of prioritising employment and market income, leading to a compressed arrangement of paid and unpaid work in these households. Looking across the three dimensions, gendering was particularly noticeable where categories of workers and parents were defined. Our findings can inform thinking about the role of crisis in welfare state reform trajectories. The analysis of the German case supports the hypothesis that welfare states do not use crises to push forward on pre-crisis reform trajectories. Rather, we found indications for crisis responses to support a model that was believed to belong to the past. Policymakers in Germany missed the opportunity to use the crisis to implement the normative frame of the adult-worker model that they had been pursuing in several reforms throughout the 2000s–2010s. Despite the rare occasion created by the lockdown measures of harmonising many of the conditions under which men and women work in segmented labour markets (by tying them to the home), policymakers introduced blanket measures of parental leave and transfers to families rather than addressing gendered care practices. These care-related measures were flanked by social security policies that constituted women as secondary earners. Adding to evidence showing that crises rarely unleash a potential for institutional change, we suggest that crises may instead contribute to slowing down reform processes already under way. Supplementary material. To view supplementary material for this article, please visit https://doi.org/10. 1017/S0047279424000278. Acknowledgments. This research was funded by the Support Network for Interdisciplinary Social Policy Research (FIS) by the German Federal Ministry of Social and Labour Affairs (BMAS) as part of the research project ‘Household structures and economic risks during the COVID-19 pandemic in East and West Germany: Compensation or accumulation? (KOMPAKK)’(2020–2021) at Humboldt University of Berlin; PIs: Anette Fasang, Emanuela Struffolino and Hannah Zagel. We thank Martin Gädecke and Jonas Braun for excellent research assistance, and the editor as well as two anonymous reviewers for their helpful comments. Competing interests. The authors declare none. 16 Hannah Zagel and Emanuela Struffolino https://doi.org/10.1017/S0047279424000278 Published online by Cambridge University Press Note 1Allmendinger, J. (2020). Familie in der Corona-Krise: Die Frauen verlieren ihre Würde. Die Zeit. Retrieved from https://www.zeit.de/gesellschaft/zeitgeschehen/2020-05/familie-corona-krise-frauen-rolle nverteilung-rueckentwicklung. Müller, A.-K., & Hassenkamp, M. (2020). Coronakrise als Verstärker: Das Jahr der Ungleichstellung. Der Spiegel. Retrieved from https://www.spiegel.de/politik/deutschland/franziska-giffey-und-gleichberechtigu ng-in-deutschland-das-jahr-der-ungleichstellung-a-38f1704a-7975-45cc-9643-2a1857729f05. Vorsamer, B. (2020). Corona und Familien –Mutti macht das schon. Süddeutsche.de. 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Appendix Table A1: Detailed policy measures implemented in response to the Covid-19 Pandemic Policy Change under Covid-19 Source Short-time work Target population (workers) Extended to temporary and agency workers included A/B Target population (companies) * 10% of company’s workforce negatively affected by economic shock A/B * all remaining hours on workers’working-time accounts have to be depleted Duration of the allowance The maximum duration of the allowance extended from 12 to 24 months for businesses that applied for it prior to 31 December 2020. C Generosity of the allowance * Until 4 months of short-time work A/B/D (o) 60% of net income for all hours not worked (o) 67% of net income for all hours not worked if having children * After 4 months of short-time work (o) 70% of net income for all hours not worked (o) 77% of net income for all hours not worked if having children * After 7 months of short-time work (o) 80% of net income for all hours not worked (o) 87% of net income for all hours not worked if having children Possibility to accumulate additional earnings next to short-time work Granted A/B Social security benefits Basic income support (Arbeitslosengeld II-ALGII, SGB II) * Inclusion of solo self-employed workers A/B * Temporary suspension of wealth consideration * Temporary recognition of actual expenditures for shelter and heating * Provisional approval and later means-testing of basic income support application (Continued) Journal of Social Policy 19 https://doi.org/10.1017/S0047279424000278 Published online by Cambridge University Press Table A1: (Continued ) Policy Change under Covid-19 Source Social assistance benefit (Sozialhilfe, SGB XII) * Inclusion of solo self-employed workers A/B * Temporary suspension of wealth consideration * Temporary recognition of actual expenditures for shelter and heating * Provisional approval and later means-testing of basic income support application Duration of unemployment benefit (Arbeitslosengeld I-ALGI, SGB III) Extension of 3 months for unemployed individuals whose claim to ALG I expires between 01.05 - 31.12 of the standard 12 months A Target population for unemployment benefit (Arbeitslosengeld I-ALGI, SGB III) Self-employed persons and freelancers: compensation for loss of earnings based on profits established in the tax declaration of the previous calendar year A Obligation to job search/ activation principles Eased for contribution-based unemployment insurance benefits and the tax-based basic income support A Target population for paid sick leave Extended to self-employed in quarantine and employees who are infected and in isolation or caring for a sick family member A/B Parental leave Access to paid parental leave (Elterngeld) * Number of hours worked is irrelevant E * COVID-related income compensations do not affect amount of parental allowances * Parents who cannot stay at home during COVID can postpone their parental allowance months until the child’s 14th month Access to extra months of paid parental leave (ElterngeldPlus) Working parents are entitled to extra months of paid parental leave even if the agreed parallel part-time (max. 32 hours/week) arrangement is altered E Paid family leave (Kinderkrankengeld) * The regular entitlement to child sickness benefit increases from 10 to 15 working days per child (from 20 to 30 for single parents) for parents with children at home due to school or childcare closures F * For more than 1 child under the age of twelve, the total entitlement increases from 25 to 35 working days in 2020, and for single-parent from 50 to 70 working days Transfers to families Compensation of income losses (Lohnfortzahlung für Eltern) for parents affected by lockdown of schools * 67% of net income up to max. 2,016 Euros for all hours doing childcare for 10 weeks per parent A/B * 67% of net income for all hours doing childcare for 20 weeks for single parent (Continued) 20 Hannah Zagel and Emanuela Struffolino https://doi.org/10.1017/S0047279424000278 Published online by Cambridge University Press Table A1: (Continued ) Policy Change under Covid-19 Source Access to emergency child supplement (Notfal Kinderzuschlag) Eases: assessment on the basis of parental income over the last 1 month (instead of 6), 300 Euros per child (600 for single parents) A/B Child bonus (Kinderbonus) 300 Euros G School services Access to schools and childcare services During lockdowns, (some) schools and childcare facilities remained open for children of parents working in essential occupations H Job contract regulations Duration of contract for marginally employed workers (mini-jobs) Extended to 5 months/115 work days of marginal employment (instead of 3 months/70 days of contract for mini-jobs) A Allowed wages from employment for pensioners Additional earning of 44,590 Euros allowed (instead of 6,300 Euros) A Notes: full references of the original policy documents –the sources (last column) –are reported in Table A2 Table A2: Original policy documents ID source Reference AGesetz für den erleichterten Zugang zu sozialer Sicherung und zum Einsatz und zur Absicherung sozialer Dienstleister aufgrund des Coronavirus SARS-CoV-2 (Sozialschutz-Paket). Bundesgesetzblatt Jahrgang 2020 Teil I Nr. 14 BGesetz zu sozialen Maßnahmen zur Bekämpfung der Corona-Pandemie (SozialschutzPaket II) G. v. 20.05.2020 BGBl. I S. 1055 (Nr. 24) CEntwurf eines Gesetzes zur Beschäftigungssicherung infolge der COVID-19-Pandemie (Beschäftigungssicherungsgesetz –BeschSiG), Drucksache 19/23480 DBundesgesetzblatt Jahrgang Teil I 2020 Ausgegeben zu Bonn am 14. März 2020 Nr. 12, Gesetz zur befristeten krisenbedingten Verbesserung der Regelungen für das Kurzarbeitergeld EBundesgesetzblatt Jahrgang 2020 Teil I Nr. 24, ausgegeben zu Bonn am 28. Mai 2020, Gesetz für Maßnahme im Elterngeld aus Anlass der Covid-19-Pandemie FAbsatz 2a in den Paragrafen 45 des SGB V “§ 45 Krankengeld bei Erkrankung des Kindes” GBundesgesetzblatt Jahrgang 2020 Teil I Nr. 31, ausgegeben zu Bonn am 30. Juni 2020, Zweites Gesetz zur Umsetzung steuerlicher Hilfsmaßnahmen zur Bewältigung der Corona-Krise (Zweites Corona-Steuerhilfegesetz H Each federal state in Germany promulgated a separate law indicating different timing and length of school closures (because education is a federal matter), and a statespecific list of essential occupations. For the few differences in the definition of essential occupations across federal states, see: Gädecke M., Struffolino E., Zagel H., Fasang A.F. (2021), KOMPAKK - Essential occupations in Germany during the COVID19 pandemic. Version 1.0.0. SowiDataNet|datorium. Dataset - https://doi.org/10.7802/ 2283. For the timing and the duration of school closure across federal states see https://en.unesco.org/file/unesco-data-school-closures-february-2020-june-2022csv-zip Journal of Social Policy 21 https://doi.org/10.1017/S0047279424000278 Published online by Cambridge University Press Table A3: Material for cross-checking policy documents Data Source Reference COVID Analysis and Mapping of Policies (AMP) - Enabling and Relief Measures AMP. 2022a. “COVID Analysis and Mapping of Policies (AMP) - Enabling and Relief Measures.” COVID Analysis and Mapping of Policies (AMP) - Social Distancing 2022b. “COVID Analysis and Mapping of Policies (AMP) - Social Distancing.” Oxford Supertracker - The Global Directory for COVID Policy Trackers and Surveys Daly, Mary, B. Ebbinghaus, L. Lehner, M. Naczyk, and T. Vlandas. 2020. “Oxford Supertracker: The Global Directory for COVID Policy Trackers and Surveys.”Department of Social Policy and Intervention. https://supertracker.spi.ox.ac.uk/. IZA COVID-19 Crisis Response Monitoring – Germany Eichhorst, Werner, and Ulf Rinne. 2020. “IZA COVID19 Crisis Response Monitoring - Germany.” Job Retention Schemes during the COVID19 Lockdown and Beyond OECD. 2020a. “Job Retention Schemes during the COVID-19 Lockdown and Beyond.” Paid Sick Leave to Protect Income, Health and Jobs through the COVID-19 Crisis 2020b. “Paid Sick Leave to Protect Income, Health and Jobs through the COVID-19 Crisis.” Green Recovery Database 2022. “Green Recovery Database.”OECD. https:// www.oecd.org/coronavirus/en/themes/green-reco very#Green-recovery-database%20database. Cite this article: Zagel, H. and Struffolino, E. (2024) Crisis-proof households? How social policy responses to the COVID-19 pandemic imagined work and care in Germany. Journal of Social Policy.https://doi.org/ 10.1017/S0047279424000278 22 Hannah Zagel and Emanuela Struffolino https://doi.org/10.1017/S0047279424000278 Published online by Cambridge University Press