Does the German Gender Regime Support the Dual Earner Model? Policy Fragmentation as a Bridging Concept in Institutional Analysis of Gender Regime Change

It is undeniable that the formerly conservative German gender regime has seen seminal change through the reforms in German family and equal opportunity policies over the last two decades. However, a transition to a new gender model, the adult-worker, or a dual care-giver-model, is yet not to be seen. Rather, new conflicting incentives are being institutionalized, which represent different normative and causal, sometimes contradictory assumptions and which can be ascribed to totally different gender models. The German gender regime is a good example to demonstrate that its fragmentation is a typical and maybe unavoidable side-effect of institutional change. Basing on the concept of gender regime (as longtime debated in feminist welfare state research), the concept of fragmentation highlights the idea that in order to adequately assess institutional change, we need two axes, a horizontal and a vertical axis of analysis: While horizontal fragmentation denominates inadequate coordination between policy fields and results in inconsistent institutional regimes, vertical fragmentation point out the consequence of tensions between institutional regulation and actual social (gendered) practices. As such, fragmentation indicates a current phenomenon in institutional social policy change. In a more favorable version, fragmentation occurs when dominating gender models lose their ground and become less predominating within a society, allowing for more diverse social practices. In a more skeptical version, it indicates that a gender regime is ‘stuck’ between competing policy paradigms, a situation where inequality might be replicated along new dividing lines. Conceptually, my paper aims at contributing to the debate on paradigmatic institutional change and the evolution of gender regimes. Empirically, my arguments are based on a comprehensive analysis and interpretation of the present German gender regime and show that indeed the more recent changes in the German policy regime have irreversibly contributed to changing gender roles and therewith initiated fundamental social change.