Parents with Turkish-sounding names are less likely to receive replies when seeking a daycare place in Germany and are offered a place less often. Macit Karaahmetoglu, a Social Democratic Party (SPD) member of the Bundestag and chair of the German-Turkish Society, said the findings of a new study point to a serious failure of equal opportunity. He said it was unacceptable for children to face disadvantages linked to their families’ backgrounds before their education had even begun.
The study was conducted by the ifo Institute, the Technical University of Munich (TUM), the Halle Institute for Economic Research (IWH) and the German Centre for Higher Education Research and Science Studies (DZHW). Researchers sent identical emails to more than 18,000 daycare centres across Germany, changing only the names of the parents. Around 71 percent of inquiries bearing German-sounding names received a response, compared with 66 percent for those with Turkish-sounding names.
Parents with Turkish-sounding names were also around 20 percent less likely to receive a concrete offer of a childcare place. Their replies were shorter and less helpful on average. Stating that the parents had a university degree did not remove the disadvantage identified in the experiment.
Karaahmetoglu called it a scandal that families in Germany could be disadvantaged in their search for childcare solely because of their surnames. He noted that people of Turkish origin have been an integral part of German society for more than half a century and said discrimination against children at the very beginning of their lives was unacceptable.
The lawmaker recalled that a similar pattern had been identified in 2014 in applications for vocational training. At the time, 20.2 percent of applicants with German-sounding names were invited to an interview, compared with 14.6 percent of applicants with Turkish-sounding names. The fact that comparable patterns were now emerging at the daycare stage showed, he said, that progress had been insufficient.
Karaahmetoglu also highlighted unequal access to early childhood education. According to the 2023 figures cited in his statement, 44.5 percent of children under three without a migration background attended daycare, compared with 22.3 percent of children with a migration background. Among children aged three to six, the respective rates were 99.3 and 76.8 percent. He cautioned that discrimination could not explain the entire gap, but said the new study showed that unequal treatment could also occur during the application process.
Around 85 percent of more than 400 daycare managers surveyed said they made admission decisions themselves. Karaahmetoglu called for transparent and auditable admission criteria, effective investigation of discrimination complaints and standardised application procedures. “A child’s surname should not determine which doors are open to them,” he said.
