- Social security failures coupled with structural gender inequality leave many people in Germany mired in poverty, especially single-parent families and older women.
- Major gaps remain in the world’s third richest country between the amount of social security support received and the poverty risk threshold.
- The parties in coalition talks should prioritize strengthening social security protections and addressing longstanding structural barriers to gender equality.
(Berlin, March 24, 2025) – Social security failures coupled with structural gender inequality leave many people in Germany mired in poverty in ways that violate their human rights, Human Rights Watch said in a report released today. Tackling the issue should be a priority for the political parties negotiating to form the next governing coalition.
The 81-page report, “‘It Tears You Apart’: Poverty and Gender in Germany’s Social Security System”, documents increasing poverty and the failure of the German social security system to ensure the right to an adequate standard of living for many people. In particular, the lack of adequate support affects single mothers raising young children and older women living alone on low incomes.
“Germany has a poverty problem, and a women’s poverty problem in particular, even though it has the world’s third richest economy,” said Kartik Raj, senior Europe and Central Asia researcher at Human Rights Watch. “The parties in coalition talks should prioritize strengthening social security protections and addressing longstanding structural barriers to gender equality.”
Human Rights Watch interviewed 62 people with experience of life on a low income across Germany, held group discussions with single parents, and spoke with more than 20 nongovernmental groups, community organizations, and food bank workers, across 10 of Germany’s states. Human Rights Watch also analyzed official data, and incorporated work from several studies by domestic groups.
The latest official statistics show that 14.4 percent of Germany’s population (12.1 million people) live in poverty based on their income. The government considers two in five of Germany’s households with a lone parent raising children to be “at risk of poverty or social exclusion,” and a broader European Union-wide definition of poverty that also includes worklessness and material deprivation.
Over 18 percent of people 65 and older are also at risk of poverty or social exclusion, with older women at greater risk. One reason is that childrearing years are unpaid and not equally counted as work in pension calculations. Women also make up two-thirds of the 3.8 million people in marginal low-wage employment,reducing their pension contributions. Even basic pension supplements fail to lift them above the poverty threshold.
Many people interviewed reported difficulties affording adequate food, and paying for utilities, housing, essential household repairs, and health and education-related costs. Sharp inflation for energy and many staple foods in 2022 and 2023 exacerbated these problems.
A 71-year-old woman who lives alone in a city in the Ruhr Valley in North-Rhine Westphalia, said: “I’m a pensioner, and the support from the government simply isn’t enough. Life is expensive. At home I stay under a blanket and drink tea, coffee or soup to stay warm. There’s not much else to do.”
To its credit, when the former governing coalition took office in late 2021, it recognized the shortcomings of the unemployment benefit introduced in 2005, as well as the limitations of the existing universal child benefit in reducing poverty. In response, it introduced a new Citizen’s Income, which offered some improvements.
But it rolled back a moratorium on withholding benefits (bar housing and heating components) from people deemed noncompliant and a bonus payment for jobseekers who took part in work training, almost as soon as they had begun. Its proposals for a universal child basic income stalled due to disagreement between coalition partners and the eventual fall of the government in late 2024.
Meanwhile, the former government made only limited progress in addressing deep structural factors affecting the gap in women’s participation and earnings in the work force and the gender pension gap. It also did not take periods of limited employment due to care obligations fairly into account in calculating pension contributions.
A 42-year-old single working mother of three living in rural Saxony said: “I can’t afford to properly feed my children. It’s a bitter feeling when all we have at the end of the month is bread and butter … it tears you apart.”
Human Rights Watch found that, after accounting for housing costs, major gaps remain between the amount of Citizen’s Income received and the poverty risk threshold. For example, a single-parent household with two children receives €1,198 in social security benefits, while the poverty threshold is €1,626, a 26 percent gap. The gap for a single adult living alone is 51 percent.
The German government is legally obliged to ensure the human rights to social security and to an adequate standard of living contained in international treaties it has promised to uphold. Related treaties, standards, and guidance on social security, from UN and European human rights bodies, set out requirements for social security benefits to be adequate.
Germany’s Constitutional Court has developed jurisprudence on the minimum subsistence level required to live in dignity. This requires the state to ensure that people are left with at least enough of their earnings to cover their necessary living expenses, and to guarantee a minimum level of participation in social, cultural, and political life. Human Rights Watch concluded that social security payment levels are insufficient to meet Germany’s international rights obligations or the constitutional principle. The new government should address this as a matter of urgency.
Human Rights Watch has shared its research findings with the relevant government ministries, and their responses are summarized in the report.
Indications from the first round of coalition talks are that the parties likely to form the next government have agreed in principle to ease the “debt brake” principle to allow increase spending, but prioritize spending on defense and infrastructure while cutting back on social security.
“The human right to social security is set out in international treaties the German government has signed up to, and the social welfare state and the minimum subsistence level are key German constitutional principles,” Raj said. “The new government should recognize that strong social security that supports everyone in society is integral to Germany’s security.”
