German Gender Regime in Transition?

Germany’s 2021 general election produced a novel ‘traffic-light’ coalition (formed of Social Democrats, Greens and Liberals) that promised to ‘dare more progress,’ including a cross-departmental push for gender equality. This article assesses whether that promise translated into a shift of Germany’s traditional ‘modified male-breadwinner’ gender regime towards a more egalitarian, ‘individual adult’ regime. To this end, we compare the coalition agreements’ gender policy aims with enacted laws and governmental programmes (adopted during the coalition’s time in office, December 2021 to March 2025), coding across six dimensions of gender policy: paid work, care work, income, health/body, time and voice/representation. Our qualitative content analysis shows a marked gap between ambition and implementation. While the coalition broadened the political discourse on gender policy and passed some notable reforms – among them the Self-Determination Act, some progressive changes in the regulation of abortion, a national Violence Assistance Act and various programmes strengthening gender research and visibility – many of the initially planned reforms with most potential for regime transformation either stalled, were diluted, or even reinforced status-quo incentives for gendered role distribution in work and care environments. The implemented package thus mixes isolated progressive steps with predominant continuity, leaving core male breadwinner logics largely intact.