Jobcenter-Angebote für erziehende Leistungsberechtigte im Kontext von § 10 SGB II: Eine Bestandsaufnahme

"Recipients of Germany’s basic income support scheme are obliged to actively contribute to ending their welfare dependency by demonstrating job search efforts, by participating in integration support measures, and by accepting job offers. According to Section 10 (1) no. 3 Social Code II, however, welfare recipients with children cannot reasonably be expected to take up employment or participate in a support measure if this would endanger the child's upbringing. This exemption is predominantly invoked by mothers of children under the age of three. Job centers are, nevertheless, requested to provide counseling and support to those welfare recipients, whereby, due to the limited duty to cooperate, their take-up is mostly voluntary. Based on a semi-standardized online survey of all job centers that are run jointly by the Federal Employment Agency and a local municipality, this research report examines what job centers do to meet the special (support) needs of parents of children under the age of three and how job centers experience their work with the target group. The survey shows that 57 per cent of the job centers offer services specifically for parents with children under the age of three. Target-group specific services are most often reported by job centers in urban areas. They are less frequent in rural areas with few female welfare recipients with small children as well as in metropolitan regions with a comparatively large target group. Most of the services for parents with small children encompass individual counseling services, far fewer are support measures with a direct labor market relevance. Job centers report positive experiences especially with those services that aim to stabilize the life situations of parents. Job centers identify numerous structural factors such as limited childcare during job center services or limited mobility in rural areas. Such factors hinder the continuous implementation of target-group specific services and can lead to selective participation possibilities. The jobcenters assess the limited options to enforce cooperation within the legal context of Section 10 (Social Code II) differently: Some see the regulation as an obstacle to engaging clients; others consider it as an opportunity to break new ground and overcome structural barriers based on innovative concepts. The latter assess their work with parents of young children most positively. For the purpose of this research report, we arranged the variety of reported counseling services and support measures for the target group by means of a heuristic stage model. The survey shows that almost 25 per cent of all participant job centers combine different conceptual elements thereby providing a varied and process-oriented repertoire for the target group. Job centers who do so report consistently positive experiences." (Author's abstract, IAB-Doku) ((en))