Pregnant and self-employed: Where is the maternity protection?

The coalition agreement includes maternity protection for self-employed women. However, the draft reform of parental leave benefits omits this topic. The "Maternity Protection for All!" alliance is planning actions in Berlin on October 6th to raise awareness of the issue. Interview with master carpenter Johanna Röh.

While employed women in Germany are legally protected before and after childbirth, self-employed female craftspeople, lawyers, or actresses still largely bear the financial risk of pregnancy alone. Rent for their workshop, salon, or office, insurance costs, and staff expenses continue, but their income disappears. In 2022, master carpenter Johanna Röh , together with other women, founded the association "Maternity Protection for All!" They are demanding reliable maternity protection regulations for female entrepreneurs, freelancers, and the self-employed. The association has numerous supporters across all political and business factions.

A key milestone for the initiative was the inclusion of maternity leave for the self-employed in the coalition agreement between the CDU/CSU and the SPD . However, concrete regulations are still lacking. The current draft bill for parental leave reform does not address the issue. Therefore, the initiative is planning a "Future Summit" in Berlin on Tuesday, October 6th. In the morning, around 30 self-employed women will share their diverse experiences in front of the Reichstag building. Among them are Johanna Röh, professional athlete Fabienne Königstein, general practitioner Dr. Friederike Kugler, and actress Caro Cult. In the evening, the Future Summit, titled "Self-Employment & Family – Why Work-Life Balance is Economic Policy," will focus on potential solutions and their implementation. Participants include Mareike Lotte Wulf, Parliamentary State Secretary at the Federal Ministry for Family Affairs.

Interview with Johanna Röh: 

German Crafts Journal (DHB): Maternity protection for the self-employed is included in the coalition agreement, but not in the current draft bill for parental allowance reform. Do you get the impression that the special situation of female entrepreneurs and solo self-employed individuals is still not sufficiently understood?
Johanna RöhI actually don't believe that the primary reason for this is still a lack of understanding of the problem. We now have a great deal of data, concrete solutions, and political support across party lines. It's quite clear that pregnancy can pose a health and economic risk for self-employed people because income is lost while business costs continue.

Photo: © private

What's still missing is the step from awareness of the problem to concrete regulations. The fact that maternity leave for the self-employed was agreed upon in the coalition agreement was important. The fact that the current draft bill for parental allowance reform doesn't contain a corresponding provision doesn't mean the project is off the table. But of course, the question now arises as to which legal avenue and timeline will be used for its implementation.

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Therefore, we do not want to withdraw in disappointment, but see it as our task to further advance the exchange between practice, science and politics, so that the fundamental agreement now becomes a concrete regulation.

DHB: What would a fair solution look like so that it works for very different industries, and how should it be financed?
Johanna RöhThere is no single, universally applicable form of self-employment. A doctor with their own practice has different business structures than a solo self-employed person, a craftswoman, or a freelance actress. Therefore, we must be honest: we will not create the perfect solution for every industry and every form of self-employment in the first step. That would simply be unrealistic – and should not be the goal that ultimately causes any regulation to fail.

In my view, the first realistic and important step is to regulate personal income protection during pregnancy and around the time of childbirth. The next step is to examine how we can also protect businesses if the owner is unable to work – for example, to cover ongoing operating costs or when a replacement is needed. The Maternity Protection Act dates back to 1952. We therefore have considerable catching up to do when it comes to protecting the self-employed, and we won't achieve perfect results everywhere with this first step. That makes it all the more important to start now, evaluating the impact of any regulations and developing them further step by step.

Several financing models and concrete calculations exist, such as a levy or tax revenue. I prefer that we create a pragmatic solution now that we can evaluate and improve, rather than waiting several more years for the theoretically perfect solution for every conceivable scenario.

DHB: You have had a huge number of supporters since the beginning of your initiative – including in top-level politics – and yet there are still problems. What do you think is the reason for this? 
Johanna RöhThe issue lies at the intersection of several policy areas and systems: family policy, economic policy, health, and social security. At the same time, the self-employed still represent a comparatively small group within many of these systems. Self-employed women are an even smaller group – and pregnancy and childbirth in the context of self-employment have long been a genuine blind spot.

This might also explain why the issue has been politically sidelined for so long. At the same time, the question is far broader than the number of women who are currently self-employed and pregnant. It's about the conditions under which women – half the population – can start businesses, take over companies and practices, and assume entrepreneurial responsibility. Especially when we're talking about skills shortages and business succession, we can't afford for women to continue having to pit self-employment against starting a family.

We've come quite far in a relatively short time. But at some point, the complexity of the issue can no longer be the reason why nothing happens. From my perspective, it's now primarily about taking political responsibility, choosing a path, and implementing it.

DHB: How do you personally feel about it? 
Johanna RöhOf course, this long political process has also had an impact on me personally. For example, the question of having a second child arose for us – and with it, the fact that, as a self-employed person, there is still no reliable insurance coverage for me during pregnancy and around the time of birth. We have since chosen a different path for our second child and taken in a foster child, and that was exactly the right thing for us.

What increasingly frustrates me is the imbalance: We quite rightly discuss rising energy prices, operating costs, skilled labor shortages, and other burdens for the self-employed. All of this affects self-employed women just as much. But for them, pregnancy adds an additional financial risk that, to this day, largely falls on them personally – and can jeopardize their livelihood within just a few weeks. This dimension is still missing from many economic policy debates.

I explicitly do not want to point the finger at any particular party or individual. For years, I have witnessed people from various democratic parties and associations taking this issue very seriously. The difficulties often arise where there is little connection to the realities of self-employed people's lives or where existing systemic logics need to be abandoned.

Maternity protection is still largely conceived from the perspective of employment: with employers, employment bans, and traditional occupational safety regulations. We need to think differently about the self-employed. It's about providing women with protection and security while simultaneously trusting them to decide for themselves how to continue running their businesses during pregnancy. And perhaps that's why I'm now grappling with a question that extends beyond maternity protection: How much can we achieve from the outside – and at what point do people with these experiences and perspectives need to be more actively involved in political structures? It was absolutely right to found "Maternity Protection for All!" and later build the alliance. This allowed us to raise the profile of an issue that was previously barely visible within just a few years. But I'm now also wondering whether we shouldn't represent our perspectives even more strongly where political decisions are ultimately made.

DHB: What do you hope to achieve with your day of action on October 6th?
Johanna RöhOn October 6th, we want to bring together two things: visibility and concrete solutions. Our slogan is: "Maternity protection for the self-employed – work-life balance is economic policy." Because those who start a business and take on responsibility also need reliable framework conditions during pregnancy.

In the morning, we will meet with around 30 self-employed women from a wide variety of sectors in front of the Reichstag. Our aim is to give a face to the people behind the issue and to show how diverse self-employment is: craftswomen, doctors, creatives, entrepreneurs, and many others who bear economic responsibility.

This evening at the Future Summit, we will deliberately take things a step further. We are bringing together self-employed individuals, politicians, associations, social security representatives, and experts. The discussion will focus specifically on the "how": What needs to be insured? Which models are feasible? Where are there commonalities, where are there still open questions – and what political decisions are needed now?

My wish is that after October 6th we will not only have more attention for the issue, but also be a step closer to implementation. We want to translate visibility in the morning into concrete work in the evening – and thus make the next political step possible.

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