Nancy Faeser visits the FReDA team

In the summer, Federal Minister of the Interior Nancy Faeser took over the patronage of the FReDA research project. She has now visited the Federal Institute for Population Research (BiB) in person to find out about the work at the institute - and, of course, about FReDA. "I am delighted to be visiting the Federal Institute for Population Research today and to be the patron of a flagship project in population research," said Faeser during her visit to Wiesbaden.

The Minister emphasized the importance of the research project: "The long-term FReDA study provides us with important information about the reality of family life. The data shows where the compatibility of family and career needs to be improved, especially for mothers. Not only is there often a huge gap between desire and reality, but there is also a great deal of potential for highly trained women being lost despite the shortage of skilled workers. The long-term study FReDA is an example of the important work of the Federal Institute for Population Research. The BiB's data is of great value both for science and for political action."

FReDA analyses are highly relevant

The evaluation of the FReDA survey data recently showed that the gap between mothers' desired and actual working hours is growing - especially as soon as the youngest child starts school. The actual working time of mothers whose youngest child is 8 years old is around 23 hours per week, whereas the ideal in the population up to the age of 50 is 30 hours per week. This difference of around seven hours is also evident for mothers with older schoolchildren. "Closing this gap would free up an enormous potential of skilled workers. FReDA analyses enable us to understand families and the difference between desired and actual working hours and are therefore highly relevant to society," explains Prof. Dr. Martin Bujard, Research Director at BiB and co-responsible for the FReDA study.

Bujard was also referring to one of the central tasks of FReDA: policy advice. With the data collected, the current analyses and findings, the project provides an important basis for current political decisions.

A task for which the entire Federal Institute for Population Research (BiB) is very happy to take responsibility: "The BiB tries to provide answers to the diverse and complex questions of our time from different perspectives. This includes aspects of family formation and migration as well as scientific findings on ageing, education and the labor market," said the Director of the BiB, Prof. Dr. C. Katharina Spieß. "We are therefore very pleased that the Minister is patronizing the FReDA project and that she is interested in the demographic research findings of our institute."