The Federal Constitutional Court has declared it unconstitutional that the number of children is not taken into account in the contributions to long-term care insurance.

The legislator must now stagger the contributions according to the number of children by July 31 of the coming year.

With the decision announced on Wednesday, the First Senate partially upheld two constitutional complaints.

However, the plaintiffs were unsuccessful in their claim that the number of children should also lead to lower contributions in the pension and health insurance system.

Currently, childless people pay higher contributions to long-term care insurance than parents;

the number of children has not yet been taken into account.

This has now been objected to by the First Senate of the Federal Constitutional Court.

Because that would put "parents with more children at a disadvantage compared to those with fewer children, because the additional child-raising effort that increases with the number of children is not taken into account in the current contribution law," says the justification.

However, this does not mean that people without children and with only one child will inevitably have to pay higher contributions in the future in order to relieve families with many children.

"The legislature can also decide to finance the tax," the court said.

According to the Basic Law, it is neither permitted nor forbidden to partially finance statutory social insurance from tax revenue.

In the pension insurance and health insurance, on the other hand, the educational effort is sufficiently compensated, according to the decision.

In health insurance, all children are insured free of charge.

In the pension insurance, the parent bringing up the child receives up to three additional pension points for each child.

(AZ: 1 BvL 3/18, 1 BvR 717/16 and others).

Childless people pay a surcharge

Several mothers and fathers had moved to Karlsruhe.

In addition, the Freiburg Social Court submitted the question to the Federal Constitutional Court.

As early as 2001, the judges in Karlsruhe had decided in the so-called care judgment that parents must be relieved of the childless person's contributions to care insurance.

Childless people have therefore been paying a supplement since 2005, which was increased again in 2022.

The managing director of the German Family Association, Sebastian Heimann, was pleased with the decision.

"Partial success for the family associations," he explained.

The family association and the family association of the Catholics had supported the constitutional complaints.