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TU-Clausthal Equal Opportunity

Parental allowance and parental leave: two different family benefits

Parental leave

Parental leave is an unpaid break from working life for mothers and fathers who are looking after and raising their child themselves. Each parent is entitled to up to three years of parental leave from their employer. You can take your parental leave before your child's 3rd birthday. You can also take part of it between your child's 3rd and 8th birthday.

Parents do not have to work during parental leave. If they are not working, they will not receive a salary. To compensate for this, you can apply for parental allowance, for example. However, parents can work part-time during parental leave if they wish. If they take parental leave at the same time, they can work a total of 64 hours per week (32 + 32).

The employment relationship remains in place during the entire parental leave period. Once it has expired, you are entitled to return to your previous working hours. As the employment relationship is merely suspended during parental leave and is fully resumed at the end of parental leave, the employee must be employed in accordance with the agreements made in the employment contract. There is special protection against dismissal during the entire period of parental leave.

Parental leave must be notified at least seven weeks before it begins (before the birth of the child, the calculated date of birth counts as the start date). Please use the form for applying for parental leave at Clausthal University of Technology.

Special conditions apply to the extension of fixed-term contracts of academic staff:

If the contract is in accordance with Academic Fixed-Term Contract Act (WissZeitVG) the "total permissible fixed-term period according to sentences 1 and 2 is extended by two years per child if one or more children under the age of 18 are being cared for" in accordance with Section 2 (1) sentence 3.

In the case of third-party funded projects, the contract between the third-party funder and Clausthal University of Technology applies. It must be checked whether the contract term can be extended. This is usually written down in the respective contract.

Parental allowance

Parental allowance is a benefit for parents of infants and young children. It is intended to enable parents to raise and care for their child.

Parental allowance provides compensation if parents have less income because they temporarily work less or not at all after the birth. In this way, parental allowance helps to secure the financial livelihood of families. Parental allowance is also available for parents who had no income at all before the birth.

There are three types of parental allowance: Basic Parental Allowance, Parental Allowance Plus and Partnership Bonus.

You can combine these variants. You can try this out in advance using the parental allowance calculator.

Parental allowance can be applied for digitally at the parental allowance office in the district of Goslar.

 

Further information:

You are also welcome to pick up a printed version of the brochure on parental leave and parental allowance from the Family Service.