Is Germany being unreasonable? Childfree adults paying more for elder care

[Fauxlein]

"Childfree adults to pay more in elder care contributions — report
According to a report from German media group RND, federal Health Minister Nina Warken has prepared a draft bill that would have adults without children pay a higher percentage of taxes towards publicly-funded elder care.
The bill would have contributions from childfree adults increase by 0.7% over a period of years, meaning they would pay 2.5% of their income each month. Their employer will be expected to pay 1.8%. For adults with children the rates will remain the same: 1.8% for people with one child, 1.55% for people with two children, and 1.3% for people with three or more children.
Under the proposal, all adults over the age of 23 who are working full-time would be affected.
It is unclear when Warken, a member of Chancellor Friedrich Merz's center-right Christian Democrats (CDU), will submit the draft to the cabinet. Her ministry had originally said it would present a proposal for elder care reform in mid-May. With a long-stagnating birthrate mildly buoyed by immigration, Germany needs to act fast to make sure older generations can be taken care of without placing an undue burden on young people."

YABU - German Health Minister is being unreasonable, it's not kids responsibility to look after elderly parents and is unfair to penalise child free people
YANBU - this seems like a fair counterbalance to increasing costs to the state of elder care

A lot of my disposable income is being used to pay the debt I got into paying for multiple rounds of IVF. I spent over 50k over 6 years trying to have children. Didn’t work. So because I had multiple miscarriages instead of live births I should pay more tax?

That would be a massive thing for some people. I really don't think they can justify extra taxation on top.

Adult children who earn over 100 000€ gross per year (individually, not a couple earning 50 000€ each) can now be held liable for a share of elder care.

People would revolt over that here

Thank you so much to the German contributors to this thread, it's been so interesting to hear about how this proposal fits into the wider scheme. In a way the UK does recoup some money from some children to pay for their parents care due to costs being found from sale of property which diminishes inheritance. But it's interesting that there is a greater expectation of intergenerational funding for care in Germany than here.

It also ignores all the things we fund that we will never access (schools, childcare) thus leaving more money available for parents.

Well, unless you were privately educated from the get go, you also benefitted from the common purse of education.

So - should you pay it back?

That is so sinister.
Far better to increase the tax reliefs for working households.

I can't have children but would like them. To people who say it's a good idea. Like others have said, I currently have absolutely no qualms about paying for maternity care, the cost of pregnancy to the NHS, all childhood illnesses, childhood vaccinations, IVF, discounted allowances for children/pregnant women, education, child benefit, discounted nursery places and the multitude of other costs associated with children. In fact I'm happy to. I think it's very reasonable. If I was penalised for not having kids, I'd probably change my mind.

It’s not going to make people who don’t want to have children suddenly decide to have children .

Why should wOmen be forced to have children against their will?

We also have to have ID cards and register where we live with the local autorities. Bit different to the UK!

And now you receive benefits childless people don’t. Keep your feet still.

The problem with your YABU ("its not the kids responsibility...etc) is though, that in Germany it IS legally the kids responsibility to pay for care. At the moment the children can be legally asked to contribute to the care home fees, and this is enforced.

That gives more context to why this bill is getting any airtime, thanks.

You don't have to have children. You can pay the extra tax which is in any case much cheaper than a child.

In 2025, nearly 250k mainly 16-35 year olds left the UK. It's not surprising. The answer is not to tax more though.

And it will continue to rise as we aren’t offering young people much

Many people really don’t understand the implications of an ageing population and the gingival ramifications of that.

Thank you for this much needed clarification!

I'm happily child free but also making sure I have enough money for a (UK) care home as I won't move in with family (abroad). If I were guaranteed good care for a small amount a month without the stress of planning it myself, it'd be worth it. Kids cost a lot more than €30 a month.

As the poster above has suggested - not every person HAS children but every single person WAS a child.

We want a society that provides support if, and where, needed at each stage of a persons life. This includes childhood and old age. If we have a system that provides support in childhood (schooling, say) you can’t opt out of funding it because you’re an adult now. The fact that you personally don’t have children is irrelevant - the system supports societies children, of which you were one.

I would also have the basics assumption that child free people can support their parents more.

But yeah, my parents fit into your category. They expect us to help my brother out when we live locally to him, with a toddler. But the thing is, he has no mortgage, a reasonable income and financial support from them too.

We've used the same financial support to hire lots of trades to do jobs on our house. (We spent less than 10% of what we were gifted to get six different trades in).

We expect to support ourselves, fund our care and pay for care when we need it. We don't even tell them we have a weekly cleaner because they'd consider it outrageous - but they live in a dirty house even though they have the means not to.

I think it's not 'penalising' childfree adults ... it's acknowledging they have less dependents at home. Whereas adults with dependents (children) get a tiny percentage discount for each one. And countries need to find a way to pay for care for an aging population.

Maybe that's just my way of looking at it.

It sounds fair on paper, but the German system has a massive loophole. Wealthy parents often gift their property to their kids early, often tax free. 10 years after the gift was given, the state can't touch the house to pay for their care. The parents appear 'penniless' on paper, so the state has to pay for their care home.

Even crazier: Germany has a law saying kids don't have to contribute to their parents' care unless the kids earn over €100k a year. It doesn't matter if the kids just inherited a €2 million house, if their salary is under €100k, they pay nothing. So this new tax increase on childfree people is effectively forcing people with no kids (and often no inheritance) to subsidize and protect the inheritance of wealthy families.

Yes I do remember many years ago when my then partner’s grandmother (German) needed to go into a home all of her children were assessed to see how much they could pay towards the fees. They were all pensioners themselves by then so the answer was ‘not much’. The state made up the balance. It follows then that if you have no children for whatever reason there is no one to share the cost and the state must bear it all. Seems reasonable in those circumstances to me.

I think on the face of it at least, its awful - misogynistic, homophobic and nonsensical

In France, children are expected to pay for the care of their parents if said parents can’t fund it themselves.
Yes it means the burden can fall onto the grandchildren if the parent dies before.
Yes it can mean children out into care due to neglect/abuse from said parents can be asked to pay.
Yes it also applies if you’ve gone NC.

There are ways of not paying (eg if you’ve were in care etc….) but as anything to do with French administration, it’s very heavy, complex etc…..

So if I was to compare the German proposal to the French system…. it would feel pretty fair tbh

Even though I have children, I would rather have the option to pay the higher contributions too, if it meant there wasn’t some sort of inevitable expectation that they care for me in my older years. I cared for my mum for ten years when she had Alzheimer’s and, honestly, it nearly finished me off. I loved her, but I wish I hadn’t felt obliged to break myself in order to keep her out of a nursing home. Despite being unable to remember what day of the week it was and frequently thinking she was late for school, she always managed to tell social services very clearly and coherently that she wanted to remain in her own home. They, of course, were delighted because muggins here was on their radar as the person to facilitate it. My children were young and I was piggy in the middle. I genuinely believe I’m suffering from trauma as a result of the stress. I frequently burst into tears just thinking about it. I don’t want that for my children. And I know my lovely mum wouldn’t have wanted it for me, had she been in her right mind.

Not true. What benefits? You mean towards the cost of the children? Like your parents received for you? So thats the same as you then. Children are people even if some arseholes on Mumsnet prefer to see them as possessions or a 'lifestyle choice'