A fascinating article in the New York Times this week discusses the lack of women in positions of influence in the German workforce and the chronic problem getting German mothers to return to work, despite recent legislation meant to encourage exactly this. It says that only 14% of women with one child go back to work fulltime and only 6% of women with two. The article’s author, Katrin Bennhold, speaks on this subject in the video above in a lecture entitled “No Country for Young Women.”

What is your experience? Did you have a child here? Did you find it easy or difficult to return to work? Did you experience pressure to stay home? Prejudice in the workplace?

One comment from an American husband of a German woman on the Times Motherlode blog said that multi-tasking is not considered a virtue in Germany and therefore it is considered impossible to do two things well simultaneously (ie, motherhood and career). What do you think?

We think many things are interesting about this problem. One is that although higher education is free in this country, women choose to squander it once they have children–is this the downside of the social state? Would they feel so free to drop out of the work force so if they (or their parents) had had to pay for university as they do in the United States and even in England? Another obvious obstacle is half-day school. However, there was a proposal to make all schools all-day schools and it was women–overwhelmingly–who voted against it. What’s up with the German Hausfrau Complex–is it peer pressure? Old-fashioned values? Do they simply lack ambition? And if so–why? We’d love to hear your thoughts.Katrin Bennhold on Women in Germany