In the fight against poverty among women in old age, Federal Family Minister Lisa Paus is calling for a reform of the tax system. A gender-fair tax system needs a redesign of tax classes III/V, Paus told the newspapers of the Funke media group. “Because this means that the wage tax burden is distributed more fairly between spouses.” This strengthens economic equality and social security for women, said the minister.
Green party leader Katharina Dröge, in turn, demanded fair pay for women. “Women are still paid less than men for the same work. That’s not acceptable,” she said. However, the biggest differences between men and women are in age. Because lower income and shorter periods in the job had a strong impact on pensions.
“As a result, women only receive about half the pensions of men on average. Poverty in old age is often female,” said Dröge. Higher employment among women and better pay are the key to fighting poverty in old age.
Green Party leader Ricarda Lang announced greater transparency in the pay of men and women on Tuesday’s “Equal Pay Day”. “Until today, women have worked for free if you compare their salaries with those of men,” Lang told the editorial network Germany (RND) in view of the still existing differences in earnings between women and men. These are “around 66 days of unpaid work”.
In addition, women sometimes faced the hurdles of reconciling family and work. According to Lang, this sends “completely wrong signals”. “In order to change that, we are working on improving pay transparency,” said the Greens leader. In this way, women “should be better able to enforce their right to equal pay for work of equal value in the future”.
There is only justice with equal pay, emphasized Lang. “We also want to increase collective bargaining coverage, which is very low, especially in occupations that are often practiced by women.” This is particularly true in eastern Germany.
