206 WINFRIED SÜß
reforms never questioned the core idea of social security as had been
the case in Anglo-Saxon democracies. For the politicians of both major
political parties, social security was a key sociopolitical value that no one
wanted to relinquish, especially in times of economic crisis, because of
the poignant experiences with insecurity in the fi rst half of the twentieth
century. Indeed, the welfare state was seen as a bulwark against politi-
cal extremism and social unrest. Consequently, the political and social
upheavals during the period leading up to 1945 were more signifi cant
for the development of the West German welfare state than they were for
what was happening on the other side of the Berlin Wall.
Ultimately, the reforms did not manage to decrease the fi nancial depen-
dency of the welfare state on the eroding model of normal employment.
The lack of progress in adapting to shifting sociocultural and sociostruc-
tural circumstances continued to be problematic for West German social
policy. The need for new social policies to deal with changing lifestyles
and the demographic aging of the population was intensely discussed, but
these debates resulted in political action in only a few isolated instances
before 1989, such as in the introduction of a child-raising allowance and
the parental leave clauses in the state pension scheme in 1986.^36 Reforms
that were made therefore tended to underscore problematic structural
particularities of the West German welfare state rather than modifying
them to better address the changing social context, even though they did
achieve a measure of fi nancial consolidation.
Family and housing issues dominated social policy in the GDR in the
1970s and 1980s. In order to counteract the declining birth rate and
overcome the continual labor shortage problem, policies directed at the
situation of women and the family during the Honecker era not only
sought to tap into the potential of the female workforce, but also reem-
phasized the generative function of the family. Alongside the expansion
of the childcare system, the SED regime introduced preferential housing
for young families and the so-called “baby year” in order to encourage
childbearing. Although these policies put a drain on resources, their ef-
fects were rather ambiguous. In 1977, for example, about 80 percent of
the women entitled to paid maternal leave took advantage of this policy,
and women’s employment climbed to over 90 percent (1989), which was
quite high in international comparison. Yet, these policies made little
progress when it came to women’s equality in the workplace. Women
were still overly represented in poorly paid professions such as in the
health care sector, but underrepresented in management positions.
Moreover, the persistence of the gendered division of labor at home
subjected working women to a double burden. That said, the birth rate
did increase more strongly than in West Germany, but not as much as