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SPECIAL REPORT     Why Merkel Is Not Enough
	Germany may have its first woman chancellor, but hold the cheers. if the economy is to grow, the new government needs to do much more to ensure that women can combine the worlds of family and work
	By ANDREW PURVIS / Berlin

Posted Sunday, January 22, 2006; 10.33GMT
Germany's relations with the U.S. suffered a cold snap after the Iraq war. The last time a German Chancellor came to Washington, George W. Bush only managed to free up 20 frigid minutes for his visitor. But when Angela Merkel dropped by earlier this month, the President spent more than twice that time locked in private conversation with her. He later revealed they'd discussed her upbringing in communist East Germany. It's "uplifting to talk to somebody who knows the difference between just talking about tyranny and living in freedom," he said. But Merkel's birthplace is not the only biographical detail drawing attention as she takes her place on the international stage. Inevitably, as the first-ever woman to occupy Germany's Chancellery, she will be judged not only according to what she achieves but by the ways in which she leads the world's third largest economy. Her diplomatic skills have already been credited with bringing European Union leaders closer; a few days after her White House debut, she visited the Kremlin, and again impressed her hosts with deft criticisms of policies delivered in a spirit of cordiality. Back home, the economy is picking up, and Germans are starting to shed the gloom that enveloped the country in the months surrounding its messy election.

Watching Merkel, 51, and the five women — all experienced in state or federal government — she has installed in her new Cabinet, it's tempting to conclude that Germany, like its Scandinavian neighbors to the north, is enjoying the blessings of years of struggle for gender equality. Not so. The hard-won achievements of German women are limited, to a startling degree, to the world of politics. And even within government, females encounter hostility from traditionalists who expect them to be at home rather than in the corridors of power. In most other fields, German women lag behind their counterparts elsewhere in Europe. They tend to be paid less, lose their jobs faster and stay out of work longer — and in all economic measures, they fare far worse than German men (earning 12% less on average, according to the Institute for Labor Market and Professional Research). In a survey of women's presence in the workforce sponsored by the World Economic Forum last year, Germany placed 20th out of 58 developed and developing countries. The same survey ranked German women 28th in job opportunities and 34th in educational attainment. Fewer women were elected to the Bundestag last year than in 2002. Only 21% of the top jobs in the German corporate world and in public service are filled by women, and female CEOs are rarer than hen's teeth. Will Germany's first first lady make a difference?

She has ample reasons to try. No rapidly aging society — and Germany is one — can afford to waste the economic potential of half its population. But if Germany is to get the most out of its women, it needs to provide them with adequate opportunities to work. At present, it doesn't do so. Indeed, the country risks being trapped in a vicious cycle; those women who are wooed into the workplace find it so difficult to combine family and work that, increasingly, they choose not to have children. That just exacerbates the demographic challenge.

Of German women aged 34-40, 30% are childless, twice as many as in France. Among academics and top managers, the percentage is higher still. If birthrates continue to decline, the country will one day have a workforce too small to support the social and medical programs that its elderly will need. Previous governments have sounded the alarm about this scenario — and then done little or nothing about it. Child-care provision remains poor, and there are few incentives to help women go back into work once they have started families. If Merkel uses her leadership to find ways in which women can be better integrated into the economy, she will go down in history for a lot more than her gender.

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