Germany Considers Family Leave for Grandparents

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http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/0,1518,824060,00.html


Children wash their hands at the Kinderland preschool in the eastern German city of Halle.

The playground at Forckenbeckplatz square in Berlin's eastern district of Friedrichshain is full of activity on this sunny Saturday afternoon in March. Balls whiz about, young children line up for the slide and older ones perform somersaults on the monkey bars. Flieder, age two, is building a sandcastle with help from her mother Jutta, and grandmother Irene, who lives in Stuttgart but has been in Berlin for the last week looking after Flieder. "It's handy for me to have my mother's support," says Jutta, who works full time and often has to travel for work.

It's a common scenario in Germany, where over one-third of families rely on grandparents for childcare support, according to a recent German government report. Now, Family Minister Kristina Schröder wants to make it easier for working grandparents to take time off to look after their grandchildren.

"The idea is to give families the freedom to choose," Katja Laubinger, a Family Ministry spokesperson, told SPIEGEL ONLINE. "We want families to be able to divide their time in a way that suits them."

The plan, known as Grosselternzeit, or grandparents' leave, would mirror the current support offered to parents, who are entitled to take off any three years between the birth of their child and its eighth birthday, and receive financial support from the state for part of that time. While there are currently no plans to reimburse grandparents for looking after their grandkids, the state would guarantee their right to return to their olds jobs after a sabbatical.