Abstract
Debates about child poverty have gained significant importance during recent years in Germany - in scientific analyses, public media and welfare state action. Despite the increased attention, children in Germany have, for years, formed the population group that is affected the most by poverty. Due to the contradiction that, on the one hand, child poverty is high and rising and, on the other hand, that the German Federal Government has been propagating its intention to fight child poverty for more than a decade, an analysis of government action is attempted here. Due to the significantly higher child poverty rate in the newly-formed German states (former East Germany) compared to the old federal states (former West Germany), I intend to focus my analysis on this particular difference. The leading assumption is that the higher child poverty rate of East German children is not a coincidence, but the result of a discrepancy between the Federal Government's actions against child poverty on the one hand and family structures and labour market conditions on the other hand, whereby this discrepancy is higher in East than in West Germany. With this analysis I intend to show the limits of the current Federal Government's action to fight child poverty in Germany and to emphasize the need for an alternative solution on a federal policy level. (Author).
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