Women and men should have equal opportunities in the labor market.

Getting closer to this goal is a question of justice - and can also help to alleviate the growing shortage of skilled workers: If women in this country worked to the same extent as men, there would be almost 700,000 more workers, according to the Institute for Labor Market and Occupational Research .

However, the question remains as to how equal opportunities and success can best be achieved.

Dietrich Creutzburg

Business correspondent in Berlin.

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The Confederation of German Employers' Associations (BDA) is now speaking up with its own initiative: a ten-point plan for equal opportunities on the labor market.

The recommendations range from more encouragement for women interested in technology to further steps to reconcile family and work to the courageous removal of negative employment incentives in tax and social law - also with such controversial proposals as limiting the non-contributory co-insurance of relatives with the health insurance company.

Only with such a wide-ranging approach "could differences in pensions and wages be sustainably reduced and the labor force potential in Germany fully exploited," according to the paper available to the FAZ.

Business leaders often get defensive when policy debates focus on stricter legal quotas for women and equal pay rules.

In this respect, the concept is intended to show that employers do not see themselves as putting the brakes on equal opportunities, but rather have a high level of self-interest in real progress.

Some points of the concept are politically explosive

"It's time that we set all the levers in motion," said employer president Rainer Dulger, explaining the initiative and citing that the search for personnel for companies nowadays often resembles a treasure hunt.

Unfortunately, however, the following still applies: “Women work part-time more often, choose technical professions less often and are less present in the management floors.” Effective combating of the causes is now all the more important: “We have to start with the causes of the different opportunities and do not try afterwards to correct differences through regulation," Dulger told the FAZ

Some points of the concept are politically explosive; they aim to reduce negative employment incentives for mothers in tax and duty law.

Because it not only recommends a readjustment when splitting spouses;

this is intended to mitigate the often high tax deductions on the income of the partner with the lower earnings (usually the partner).

The BDA also warns: "Further false incentives come from the non-contributory co-insurance of spouses and life partners in the statutory health and long-term care insurance, which should be abolished."