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University of Paderborn: Prize for family-friendly working conditions!
The University of Paderborn was recognized for its family-friendly conditions. The honor took place on June 17, 2025 in Berlin.
University of Paderborn: Prize for family-friendly working conditions!
The University of Paderborn was honored on June 17, 2025 at the Federal Ministry for Family Affairs in Berlin for its outstanding achievements in creating family-friendly working and study conditions. As part of the 27th certificate awarding ceremony by berufundfamilie Service GmbH, the university was confirmed as a “family-friendly university audit”. This award recognizes the university's long-standing commitment to the compatibility of family and work, which is particularly important for employees and students with care responsibilities. The University of Paderborn reports that It has been the first university in North Rhine-Westphalia to receive this award since 2005.
Through the dialogue process, the university continuously works to maintain its high level of development in terms of family-friendly conditions and to identify potential for optimization. Future measures by the university aim to support the care of relatives and promote awareness of care work as a leadership skill. Over the last 20 years, the university has developed a comprehensive range of advice and services for expectant parents and carers in order to take their needs into account.
Certificate awarding and highlights of the event
The ceremony took place at the ddb forum Berlin, where a total of 306 organizations, including 103 universities, were certified for their family-friendly measures. Berufsundfamilie.de reports that The certificates were presented by prominent personalities such as Mareike Wulf, Parliamentary State Secretary in the BMBFSFJ. Federal Minister for Family Affairs Karin Prien acts as patron of the audits, during which the annual motto “#agematters – age-consciously attractive” was also presented.
An important part of the event was a keynote by Prof. Dr. Enzo Weber, who spoke about the aspect of age in the world of work. In addition, 18 organizations were recognized for expanding their auditing in the area of diversity. The discussions between representatives of the award-winning organizations aimed to exchange approaches to promoting an age-appropriate working environment. Boussa Thiam led the program while an innovation theater entertained the guests.
The challenges of balancing work and family
Despite such progress, many employees still face major challenges when it comes to balancing work and family life. This is also shown by the DGB Good Work Index 2017, according to which 41% of employees are often exhausted. In many cases, traditional gender roles are responsible for the distribution of tasks within families. The equality portal highlights that 60% of parents with children under the age of three want equal division of responsibilities, but this is only achieved in one in six families.
The impact of these challenges is significant: While 61% of mothers of two- to three-year-olds were employed in 2018, the average weekly working hours of working mothers increased to 26.7 hours. Fathers' participation in parental allowance is also growing, which indicates a positive trend towards more partnership-based care responsibility. These developments are crucial in order to meet the targets of family policy and improve the income situation of mothers by 2030.
In summary, it can be seen that the University of Paderborn not only sets an example with its award for family-friendly university offerings, but also acts as a role model in actively addressing the constant demands for the compatibility of work and family in Germany.