In Germany, the grand coalition of CDU/CSU and SPD has agreed on the introduction of a statutory minimum wage of EUR 8.50. Following respective decisions in the German Bundestag and the German Bundesrat in July 2014, the new law to improve collective bargaining rights – “Gesetz zur Stärkung der Tarifautonomie” – will come into force on 1 January 2015. It regulates a step-by-step introduction of a statutory minimum wage which keeps some already existing collective agreements valid until 31. December 2016. However, some groups of employees, such as trainees, young people under the age of 18 without training qualification, people who are doing internships up to six weeks, long-term unemployed and volunteers have been excluded from the statutory minimum wage.
In the run-up to the introduction, the employment effects a minimum wage has caused severe controversies. Critics have argued that this might lead to job losses for women, East Germans and low qualified persons. Contrary to this, advocates of the minimum wage have shown that the already existing sector-specific minimum wages had no negative impact on the employment situation and that instead the statutory minimum wage might be an important instrument to limit a further expansion of the low-wage sector and thereby prevent employees from poverty.
Against the background of this debate, the paper compares first the employment situation of women in selected European countries in which a statutory minimum wage has already been introduced with the German situation. It will secondly reflect on the impact of wage regulations on the German gender regime.
