Head of household

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Head of household (also head of household ) is a legal term from public administration in German-speaking countries . It designates the member of the private household who makes the greatest financial contribution to household income . In more recent sources, the synonymous term main income earner is used, which was used in the GDR for a long time. In official censuses, each household reported the HEB, whose characteristics such as age and gender were used to group the data.

Concept and application

The term “head of household” originally referred to the family man and came about at a time when traditional roles in families were still the norm. The socio-economic structure of private households was conventionally recorded statistically with the help of the head of the household.

For a long time, the term head of household was of great importance in social welfare law. According to the ordinance in force in the Federal Republic of Germany at the time to implement Section 22 of the Federal Social Welfare Act , the head of the household received 100% of the standard rate and the household members only 80%. According to the established case law of the Federal Administrative Court , the head of the household was the person who bore the costs of the household, and household members were the people who worked together with the head of the household. It did not matter whether there was a joint venture between spouses and their unmarried minor children or a household community between relatives. Such joint economic management could also be assumed for total strangers, for example in the case of a marriage-like cohabitation and even between residents of an assisted living group .

This changed with the transfer of the Federal Social Welfare Act to SGB ​​XII in 2005 and the simultaneous introduction of unemployment benefit II . Although the content of the old regulation was adopted largely unchanged as a standard rate regulation in the system of SGB XII, unemployment benefit II does not provide for a head of the household, so there were contradictions in valuation. Here the Federal Social Court ruled that the previous classification of persons as head of the household and household members within the framework of SGB XII violates the principle of equal treatment according to Article 3, Paragraph 1 of the Basic Law , because it discriminates recipients of social assistance compared to recipients of unemployment benefit II for no objective reason. The Federal Social Court ruled that a household member could only be considered a household member if he and the head of the household formed a community of needs within the meaning of SGB ​​II or an employment community within the meaning of SGB XII.

Another problem arose with so-called mixed benefit communities between married couples, where one couple was entitled to benefits under SGB II and the other according to SGB XII. SGB ​​II provides a standard rate of 90% for both household members, while SGB XII provides 100% for the head of the household and 80% for the household member. Problems arose here because the couple then received either 190% or 170% of the standard rate, depending on who was considered to be the head of the household. This loophole was closed with an amendment to the Standard Rate Ordinance in 2007, in which the provisions of SGB II for married couples were incorporated into SGB XII, and the Federal Social Court decided that this provision should also be applied retrospectively to older periods.

In 2011, the Standard Rate Ordinance was replaced by the Standard Requirements Investigation Act. Although the term of the head of the household was eliminated from the law and replaced by so-called standard requirement levels, the old situation was in fact restored, according to which people who did not run their own household received only 80% of the standard rate, which in turn resulted in unequal treatment between recipients of social assistance and Unemployment benefit II represented. This mainly affected disabled adult children who lived with their parents. In 2014, the Federal Social Court ruled in three cases that this regulation constituted discrimination on the basis of disability and was therefore unlawful.

The status as head of the household or household member is still queried when applying for social assistance and is also recorded in the official statistics according to § 122 SGB ​​XII, but it is only significant in terms of benefits in very few cases. For example, in the case of health insurance for social assistance recipients according to Section 264 (3) SGB ​​V, the head of the household exercises the right to choose health insurance for himself and all family members in need, analogous to the regulations for family insurance.

literature

  • Uwe Tillmann: The socio-economic development of households with a female head of household in the 20th century , Münster 1990

See also

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Household ( memento of the original from October 7, 2015 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. in the glossary of the Federal Ministry of Labor and Social Affairs @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.bmas.de
  2. ↑ Glossary ( Memento of the original from March 5, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. of the Federal Statistical Office @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.destatis.de
  3. ↑ Monetary income in the GDR from 1995 to the beginning of the achizier years . Duncker & Humblot,, pp. 214-.
  4. ↑ F. Pokora Lifestyles Without Women. The construction of ›gender‹ as a constitutive moment of lifestyle In: Jens S. Dangschat (Ed.) Lifestyles in the cities: Concepts and methods Wiesbaden 2013, p. 169 f.
  5. ↑ BVerwG, decision of December 30, 1965, Az.VB 152.65, full text .
  6. ↑ BVerwG, judgment of February 27, 1963, Az.VC 105.61, full text .
  7. ↑ VGH Bayern , decision of May 4, 2000, Az. 12 ZB 99.3780.
  8. ↑ BSG, judgment of May 19, 2009, Az. B 8 SO 8/08 R, full text .
  9. ↑ BSG, judgment of October 16, 2007, Az. B 8 / 9b SO 2/06 R, full text .
  10. ↑ Federal Social Court overturns the general classification of the standard requirement level