FAZ guest article by Jan Boskamp

In February of this year, our Director Collective Impact Jan Boskamp published a guest article in the FAZ newspaper on the topic of “Ways out of dependency on citizen’s income”.
Here he addressed the topic that a small change in the 2nd German Social Code could have a major impact for children and young mothers in Germany.
The text criticized the exclusion of young mothers who receive citizen’s allowance from entering the workforce.
So far, the legislator has defined taking up work and thus also participating in a measure as unreasonable if mothers receiving citizen’s allowance have a child who is not yet of school age.
This logic creates incentives neither for job centers nor for mothers to take the path towards work.
By reversing the logic, young mothers could make a responsible, informed decision as to whether they want to pursue a career in the near future and receive support from the job center and suitable measures.
This is an issue that concerns us all, because in addition to the shortage of skilled workers, which could be counteracted in a certain group in this way, it also addresses the participation of women in the workforce.
At JOBLINGE, we started a pilot project with wellcome gGmbH back in 2019 to support young mothers receiving citizen’s allowance by offering flexible part-time work (placement rate 75%) – thanks to our collaboration with the Auridis Foundation.
Since then, Raphael Karrasch has continued the project at our location in Essen, mainly through private funding.