In an interview for the daily Sudwest Presse newspaper, Germany's Health minister Jens Spahn made a controversial statement saying that people without children should be paying more for the pension scheme, reported Deutsche Welle.
He appealed for a fundamental rethink of the system saying its a question of 'fairness'.
Labour minister Hubertus Heil dismissed the proposal, as a 'weird' idea aimed to punish childless people, especially since childlessness is not voluntary in many cases.
Labor minister Heil, on the other hand, said that the support for the families can come from elsewhere, liek for imstance, taxing the rich more.
Currently, childless people between the ages of 23 and 64 already pay 0.25 per cent more towards long-term care insurance than insured individuals with children.
Spahn supports it and hopes the amount could be more. "Parents raise future contributors and secure the system for the future", the minister wrote.
He also asked: "How (can) we remain a human society, how (can) we maintain our social institutions, if every third person in Germany is over 60 years old — and less than a fifth are younger than 20?"
Germany's ageing population and the retirement of post-war baby boomers (a person born in the years following the Second World War, when there was a temporary marked increase in the birth rate) has led to a mounting burden on health and social systems.