In Germany, attendance in early childhood education and care (ECEC) centers has soared in the last twenty years, making them a key context in which children learn. For children from migrant backgrounds who speak a foreign language at home, participation in ECEC has the potential of providing...

Private household expenditures on child care in centers have significantly risen: from an average of 98 euros per month in 2005 to just under 171 euros in 2015 for a child under three and for children three and older (“Kindergarten”1 age group), from 71 to 97 euros in the period between 1996...

In the last decade the available labor force has expanded in Germany-despite the decline in the working-age population. The reason: labor market participation has increased, for women in particular and older people in general. Also noticeable was a rise in qualification level because...

In spring 2013, youth unemployment in the EU peaked and then declined sharply. Yet at least one in every six members of the economically active population between age 15 and 24 in the EU is still unemployed, and the unemployment rate among young persons is still 2.5 times higher than that of...

For many years, only better-paid workers benefited from Germany’s real wage increases. In contrast, dependent employees with lower hourly wages suffered substantial losses, while the low-wage sector expanded. Around 2010, these trends came to an end. Now all wage groups benefit from wage...

The demographic change is posing many challenges for government budgets. In the face of a shrinking work force, keeping the number of workers and thus pension contributors at the highest possible level is a key economic policy goal. This could be achieved if people retire from the work force...