GERMANY

Germany and the crisis

Even if the social consequences of the financial crisis are milder in Germany than in other European countries, the consequences to be seen in transformations of the social composition are enormous. But it is not that easy to identify whether the consequences are directly resulting from the financial crisis that started in 2008 only, or if they also are connected to effects of former reforms in the labour market, changes in the social security system or the tax system which had increased the privileges for high incomes. There are also considerable effects from general transformations in society, such as the growing numbers of single households, single parent families, an increased female labour force participation, often through part time work, and general changes in the employment system, providing fewer and fewer jobs for low qualified manual workers. With the crisis, social problems of precarious labour, long term unemployment, spatially different social inequality with locally high unemployment and poverty rates, depopulating areas, close relations between joblessness and educational poverty as well as endangered biographical passages into and out of the active employment age are strengthening and hardening in Germany. Income inequality in general has risen (Eurostat data); partly caused by a rise in richer incomes. But also a shrinking of the middle classes from 65% in 1997 to 58% in 2012 can be identified. That means that 5.5 million have lost their status as middle class while half a million of Germans became top wage earners. One out of four middle class members complains about a loss of social status and of a downward social mobility. Fewer people than before succeed to move into upward positions (Bertelsmann Stiftung 2012) and class borders are seen to be harder to cross (Groh-Samberg 2008).

Academic findings on resilience

Resilience is considered an important but somewhat still enigmatic concept in Germany. Households and families are seen as the key units for the development of resilience. Nevertheless, it is mainly psychology which uses resilience as a prominent concept (Sydow et al. 2007). But also in social work, families and social microsystems are considered as resources for evolving resilience (Cohen 2011; Hosemann and Geiling 2013), thus the term comes into social policy here. This so-called resource oriented approach shows analogies to research on biographic resources, social and cultural capital to cope with wider social transformations like post-1989, (Hoerning 1995), or research on coping with a job crisis (Herlyn 2007) or unemployment (Rogge 2013). Research in Germany demonstrates that supportive social networks (family, friends) are a central element for resilience. But besides this, other elements (like a specific knowledge and abilities) are also of relevance and might be useful for a further more in-depth analysis of resilience.

The Team

  • Marie Boost
    Marie Boost
  • Andreas Hirseland
    Andreas Hirseland
  • Frank Sowa
    Frank Sowa
  • Lars Meier
    Lars Meier
  • Markus Promberger
    Markus Promberger

Deutschland und die ökonomische Krise

Auch wenn die sozialen Konsequenzen der Finanzkrise in Deutschland schwächer ausgeprägt sind als in anderen europäischen Ländern, lassen sich bemerkenswerte Veränderungen in der Sozialstruktur feststellen. Allerdings ist es schwer zu bestimmen ob diese Veränderungen eine direkte Folge der Finanzkrise sind oder ob diese in Zusammenhang stehen mit den Arbeitsmarktreformen, den Umgestaltungen des Wohlfahrtsstaates oder den Veränderungen in den Steuererhebungen, die hohe Einkommen privilegiert haben. Darüber hinaus hat auch der allgemeine soziale Wandel Einfluss auf die Sozialstruktur. Zu nennen sind hier eine wachsende Zahl von Einpersonenhaushalten mit und ohne Kindern, der Anstieg der Lohnarbeitsquote von Frauen, die besonders häufig in Teilzeit arbeiten und ein allgemeiner Wandel des Arbeitsmarktes mit einem verringerten Bedarf an formal niedrigqualifizierten Personen. Im Zuge der Krise haben sich soziale Problemen wie prekäre Beschäftigungsformen, Langzeitarbeitslosigkeit, schrumpfende Regionen, sozial-räumliche Ungleichheiten und die enge Verbindung von Arbeitslosigkeit und Bildungsarmut weiter manifestiert und eher verschärft. Es kam zu einem deutlichen Wachstum der Einkommensungleichheit, zu einem Anstieg der hohen Einkommen und einem Schrumpfen der Mittelklasse von 65% im Jahr 1997 auf 58% der Gesamtbevölkerung im Jahr 2012. Damit haben 5.5 Millionen Menschen ihren Status als Mittelklasse verloren, während eine halbe Million der Deutschen zu Topverdienern wurden. Jedes vierte Mitglied der Mittelklasse beklagt einen Verlust des sozialen Status und weniger Menschen als zuvor können sozial aufsteigen (Bertelsmann Stiftung 2012; Groh-Samberg 2008).

Resilienzforschung

In der sozialwissenschaftlichen Forschung zu Resilienz wird besonders die Einbindung in Haushalt und Familie als mögliche Quelle resilienter Praktiken betrachtet. Das Konzept der Resilienz wird hauptsächlich in der Psychologie verwendet. Aber auch in der Sozialen Arbeit werden Familien und soziale Netzwerke als Ressourcen zur Entwicklung von Resilienz behandelt. Ein solcher ressourcenorientierter Ansatz steht in enger Verbindung zu soziologischen Forschungen zu biographischen Ressourcen und zum sozialen und kulturellen Kapital, das es ermöglicht sozio-ökonomische Transformationen aber auch Arbeitslosigkeit leichter zu bewältigen.

Marie Boost

Marie Boost, Dipl. Sociologist, is a qualitative social researcher at the Institute for Employment Research (IAB) of the Federal Employment Agency (BA), Nuremberg, Germany. In her diploma thesis she did a qualitative research on jobless women in eastern Germany. She won also the award for the best diploma thesis at the Faculty of Arts, Humanities and Social Science at the Technische Universität Dresden. After finishing her degree in 2013 she started to work in RESCuE. In her doctoral thesis she is comparing the different dimensions and causes of resilience between Spain and Germany.

List of publications

Andreas Hirseland

Andreas Hirseland, Dr. rer. pol. in sociology, economics and social psychology. Since 2005 senior researcher and vice-head of the IAB research unit “Joblessness and Social Inclusion” and lecturer at Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität, Munich. His research interests include qualitative methodology, social policy and the welfare state, poverty and unemployment, sociology of couples and families. Hirseland is head of the IAB qualitative longitudinal study on German welfare recipients. His recent publications include “Hunger and nutritional poverty in Germany. Quantitative and qualitative empirical insights”.

List of publications

Frank Sowa

Frank Sowa, M.A. in sociology, is qualitative social researcher at the Institute for Employment Research (IAB) of the Federal Employment Agency (BA), Nuremberg, Germany. His main research interests include labour market policies, social exclusion, cultural sociology and ethnography. From 2001 until 2004 he was fellow of the Graduate College “Cultural hermeneutics: Perspectives on Difference and Transdifference” supported by the German Research Foundation (Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft, DFG). In his PhD-thesis he analysed conflicts over nature in Greenland and Japan where he interviewed hunters and whalers. From 2004 till 2007 he worked as a researcher at the University of Erlangen-Nuremberg. He is currently engaged in an evaluation study, using ethnographic methods to find out how organisations and unemployed persons interact in job placement services.

List of publications

Lars Meier

Lars Meier, Dr. phil, sociologist (M.A.) and geographer (Diplom). Since 2014 he is a senior researcher and lead the local team in the RESCuE project at the IAB. Meier had held positions as researcher or lecturer at the Department of Sociology at the Technical University of Berlin, the University of Bremen, the University of Munich and the Technical University of Darmstadt and was visiting academic at the University of Oxford. He was a senior researcher at the IAB and had led the local team for the EU FP 7 project SPHERE. His work focuses on social inequality and diversity, cultural studies, work, migration, urban studies and qualitative methods. Recent publications include an edited book on Migrant Professionals in the City – Local Encounters, Identities, and Inequalities (Routledge, 2014) and an edited special issue on Absence.

List of publications

Markus Promberger

M.A. and Dr. phil. in sociology, political science and history in Erlangen, Dr. habil. and venia legendi (PD) for general sociology in 2011. Promberger is the Co-ordinator of RESCuE and head of the German team. Since 2005 he has been the head of the IAB Research Department “Joblessness and Social Inclusion”, which has been evaluated “very good” by the German Science Council in 2007. His current studies focus on the changing interrelations between labour, unemployment and poverty in historical and comparative perspectives, from microsocial practices and habits to organisational and societal developments. Promberger has been involved in various international research projects, including FP 5 to 7 and EUROFOUND. He acts as a counsellor to the German Parliament, the German Ministry of Labour, the German Trade Unions Federation (DGB) and the Bavarian State Government. Promberger’s teaching assignments include a visiting full professorship of Sociology at the University of Munich (LMU) in 2011 and an ongoing readership in Sociology at the University of Erlangen. He is (co-) author of seven books and more than 80 book chapters, reports and journal articles, addressing not only the scientific community but also a broader public.

List of publications