- I moved from the US to Germany 12 years ago and gave birth to my three kids here.
- Germany has a more generous paid parental leave, which allows up to two years of leave.
- Work relationships are more hierarchical which comes with more boundaries.
I grew up in the US and moved to Germany over a decade ago, where I've been a working mom has made me realize some notable amount of differences between work-life balance in the US and Germany.
Some of the differences vary due to cultural, policy, or geographical reasons, but it's certainly fascinating to view the contrast between the two locations.
I've had more PTO in Germany from the start
German employers must give their full and part time employees between 20 and 30 days a year of paid vacation, depending on how many days a week the employees put in.
In terms of preventing burnout and optimizing productivity, taking vacation days has been proven to be helpful. It also can make life easier for working parents like myself, with school-aged children who have many weeks of school vacation every year.
In contrast, the average amount of annual paid vacation days in the US is 11 days, but employers aren't legally obligated to grant PTO to their employees. As a result, nearly a third of American employees do not get paid vacation days at all, according to Forbes.
I had a generous parental leave
Germany offers fairly generous parental leave — fathers can also theoretically take nearly all of the parental leave — with several fully paid weeks before and after birth and up to about two years of reduced-pay leave. This contrasts with the US, where parents, especially mothers, often only have a few months or weeks off from work after birth, and generally, it is unpaid.
I found that having longer, paid parental leave was very helpful for me. I had enough time to recover from birth and not be as concerned about how my babies were going to be fed.
My work relationships are more formal in Germany
In many American workplaces, the hierarchy levels can be blurry at times, with a lot of emphasis on collaboration and creativity. I see that many of my American friends spend a fair amount of time outside work with their colleagues.
Work relationships in Germany, unlike the US, tend to be more formal and hierarchical. Although this can have its cons, one benefit I see of work-life balance in Germany that comes out of this cultural aspect is that there can be greater respect for boundaries. I generally don't feel pressured, for instance, to look at my work emails when I'm on vacation or off the clock.
I commute by bike and get a workout while at it
While both Germans and Americans log into fairly long commutes to work, the means of transportation to work does differ greatly between the two.
For Germans, about 32% of them commute either by public transport, biking or walking. That leaves about 68% who commute by car to work.
For quality of life in the work commute, this does make a significant difference. Over a third of Germans don't sit in traffic on their work commute. Biking and walking to work promote exercise and fresh air, and those who commute on public transit can opt to listen to music or simply relax while someone else does the driving.
For me, this means that my commute is more pleasant and refreshing, especially since I don't have to sit in traffic like many Americans do every morning. It also allows me to build in more exercise organically into a necessary commute.
