Text from the Indicator Report 2022
The indicators show the proportion of children for whom daily childcare of more than seven hours has been arranged, which may deviate from the actual time spent in childcare. Contractually agreed childcare provision of seven hours and less, which can also improve the compatibility of work and family life, and other types of care, e.g. day care in private homes, are not included. Furthermore, information on childcare services aimed at children aged 6 years and older is also relevant to this topic. Such supplementary information is included, for example, in the data of the Standing Conference of the Ministers of Education and Cultural Affairs of the Länder in the Federal Republic of Germany (see the last paragraph).
The information of the indicator is provided by the annual statistics on children cared for and persons employed in day care centres, which is compiled by the Federal Statistical Office. In 2022, all-day care in day care centres was arranged for 47.0 % of the 3 to 5-year-old children (kindergarten age). For children under 3 years of age (nursery age) this figure was 16.8 %. As a result, the share of children in all-day care below the age of 3 almost tripled and have more than doubled for the 3 to 5-year-olds since 2006. However, the increase for both indicators is significantly reducing since 2014 and, furthermore, the share of children for both age groups in all-day care is diminishing since 2020.
The total number of children below the age of six receiving all-day care in day care centres in 2022 was 1.61 million. Another 67,416 children below six years of age were receiving publicly subsidised childminder care; like those five-year-old children who are already at school, they are not covered by the indicator. In addition, in 2022 some 1.46 million children were receiving part-time care of seven hours or less.
Both age groups reported stagnating or declining total number of children in population until 2014, but the increased migration of refugees significantly increased the number of children since 2015. However, the growing number of refugees had no effect on the number of children in all-day care from 2015 until the pandemic and, hence, the growth of the indicators was weakened.
In 2020, more than a quarter of the children under six years cared for in day care centres or by publicly supported childminding services had a migrant background, meaning that at least one of the parents was of foreign origin. 51 % of these children were in day care, compared with 71 % of the children without a migrant background.
With regard to the availability of all-day care provided by facilities, there is a clear gap between the Länder in the east and the Länder in the west of Germany. The highest percentages of 0 to 2-year-olds in all-day care are recorded in the eastern Länder and in Berlin. The values range from 50.7 % in Thuringia to 9.5 % in Baden-Württemberg. For 3 to 5-year-olds, the percentage was also highest in Thuringia at 91.6 % and lowest in Baden-Württemberg at 24.1 % (each 2022).
When it comes to opportunities of care for pupils, pre and after-school care programmes and all-day schools also play a significant role. In 2021, 18,967 children between 5 and 13 years of age were looked after on an all-day basis in care programmes and 486,408 children part-time (lessons are not regarded as childcare). The percentage of pupils attending all-day schools of all pupils in schools of general education was 47.2 % in the 2020/2021 school year. However, this figure includes pupils from all school types and hence includes also pupils who are older than 13 years. In primary schools, 46.5 % of children received all-day care in that school year. In comparison to 2006, the number of all-day school pupils has increased considerably in 2021, from almost 1.5 million to 3.4 million (in all schools of general education) and from 0.4 million to 1.3 million in the primary schools.
