By Boris Dombrowski
Corona quarantine, school closed, daycare closed – last year parents in Berlin took almost twice as many children’s sick leave days as the year before!
This is shown by a current analysis by Barmer. In the first corona pandemic year 2020, the health insurance company in the capital had approved 30,900 child sickness benefit days. In 2021 there were almost twice as many at 68,000!
Around a third (32%) of child sick pay days were due to the corona pandemic. For example, because parents had to look after their children at home due to school closures. Parents were able to use this pandemic-related money for the first time in 2021.
“Children’s sick pay has proven to be a relief for families when parents have to look after their children at home due to illness or pandemic-related closures,” comments Gabriela Leyh (57), head of Barmer Berlin-Brandenburg, on the increased numbers.
The Barmer analysis also shows the massive imbalance in childcare in Berlin’s families. Last year, mothers claimed 47,600 days (70%) of child sickness benefit, while fathers claimed only 20,400 days (30%).
“Fathers are reluctant to take on childcare,” says Leyh. “It’s still the mothers who stay at home to take care of the children.”
One reason for this could be that men are usually still the main breadwinners in the family. And that’s why women are more likely to apply for child sickness benefit so as not to put too much strain on the household budget. Because the children’s sick pay is a maximum of 90 percent of the lost net wages, but no more than 112.88 euros per day.
Incidentally, the results in Berlin are right in line with the national trend. Because with a total of 1.3 million child sickness benefit days, Barmer approved almost twice as many as in 2020 (566,000 days) across Germany.
The difference, however, is that the national average even fewer fathers (27 percent) applied for child sickness benefit than in Berlin.