German's pay a lot of taxes. Living costs and rent are sky high in cities. In the past, I reduced my hours to 28 hours a week because the difference was negligible in taxes paid. I even got money from the government to pay rent because my wage was lower.
There is a real problem where between salary band's, the money after taxes does not change significantly even if you're paid more. Working half a day only is incredibly popular for these reasons (among others). It's gone so far that politicans from all sides are publicly thinking about erasing the possibility for halftime work.
I met many engineers who would be completely willing to work more hours, but it makes very little sense as you are working the additional hours for far lower wages.
The idea of banning lower work times is new to me, but seems in line with the German government approach to invent an anti-solution to the problem with severe potential downsides (e.g. for parents).
This is a manifold problem. Low post-tax wages (except for some government workers), high stress due to few colleagues and tons of work, extremely late age of entry for pensions.
[1]: https://www.businessinsider.de/wirtschaft/faktencheck-robert...
[2]: https://www.tagesspiegel.de/politik/recht-auf-teilzeit-als-f...
[3]: https://www.fr.de/politik/cdu-michael-kretschmer-sachsen-rec...
[5]: https://www.sueddeutsche.de/bayern/bayern-lehrer-soeder-teil...
"Far" lower wages? Progressive income tax is constant at 42% for essentially the whole salary range that is relevant for an engineer (66-278k).
As a concrete example, total tax burden at:
- 70k is ~40% (42k net)
- 100k with ~44% (56k net)
- 200k with ~46% (107k net)
I'd seriously question the judgement of any engineer that chooses e.g. the part time job that gives you 42k net over the full time job that gives you 56k net (= significant difference of possible living conditions/disposable income) _purely_ on the basis that you earn "far" less per additional Euro. (I think it would be very understandable to choose the less work hours just for having more free time to spend on other things.)
I feel like there is almost an inverse effect once you hit the limit on social contributions (~90k), where it becomes more motivating to earn more, as from that point "only" your income tax increases and health insurance etc. stays steady.
Of course not just because of that. They look at the money they earn, the money they need to live and see that if they reduce their expenses a bit, they can easily do with less hours. The 66k really is interesting, because starting wages are below that (my first job was 55k), but with experience you can easily get into that range. If that happens your income before taxes significantly increase, but your hourly compensation after taxes not as much and so you obviously have to ask yourself whether the additional hours are worth it or whether you can make do with less.
Additionally it makes employers where you generally work less hours (e.g. VW) more attractive. But obviously this has an effect on productivity per person.
If lower income means you qualify for subsidized housing, subsidized childcare, etc then that can be a big incentive.
I have two sisters with very similar lifestyles despite grossly different incomes. My low-income sister gets her housing, groceries, utilities, childcare and even phone paid for by government programs. My other sister (near median income) lives in an apartment of similar size and quality, buys similar groceries, etc but pays for all of it from her wages.
My low-income sister has no real incentive to increase her official income (although she does value informal economy "hustles" and side-gigs which directly give her disposable income).
However that was not at all what OP argued with engineering salaries and progressive income tax leading to "far less" net income per additional hour worked. The issue you brought up has much more to do with hard subsidy cliffs and high cost of living eating up the disposable income for low income households.