Article

Cohort Changes in the Level and Dispersion of Gender Ideology after German Reunification: Results from a Natural Experiment

April 2020
European Sociological Review

Authors:

Technische Universität Braunschweig

Modernization theorists’ ‘rising tide hypothesis’ predicted the continuous spread of egalitarian gender ideologies across the globe. We revisit this assumption by studying reunified Germany, a country that did not follow a strict modernization pathway. The socialist German Democratic Republic (GDR) actively fostered female employment and systematically promoted egalitarian ideologies before reunification with West Germany and the resulting incorporation into a conservative welfare state and market economy. Based on nationally representative, pooled cross-sectional data from the German General Social Survey (ALLBUS) from 1991 to 2016, we apply variance function regression to examine the impact of German reunification—akin to a natural experiment—on the average levels and dispersion of gender ideology. The results show: (i) East German cohorts socialized after reunification hold less egalitarian ideologies than cohorts socialized in the GDR, disrupting the rising tide. (ii) East German cohorts hold more egalitarian ideologies than West German cohorts, but the East-West gap is less pronounced for post-reunification cohorts. (iii) Cohorts in East Germany show higher conformity with gender ideology than their counterparts in West Germany; yet conformity did not change after reunification. (iv) Younger cohorts in West Germany show higher conformity with gender ideology than older cohorts.

Young adults' gendered trajectories of routine housework time when leaving home

Article

Full-text available

Nov 2024
J MARRIAGE FAM

Objective To examine young adult women's and men's time use for routine housework when moving out of the parental household. Background From a life‐course perspective, establishing an own household is one of the key markers of the transition to adulthood. Leaving home is associated with new responsibilities concerning the organization of everyday life, including routine housework, and provides a new context for gendered behavior. Methods Hours for routine housework were estimated with longitudinal fixed effects regression models, using data from the German Socio‐Economic Panel Study (1991–2020) on 911 women and 721 men, aged 18–32, who moved to an own couple or non‐couple household. Results During the transition to an own household, young adult women increased their time for routine housework by 18 min per day. Young adult men's increase was larger with 21 min per day. The gender gap in routine housework hours widened when young adults moved into couple households but showed a converging pattern when they moved into non‐couple households. Conclusion Women continue to do more routine housework than men in early adulthood, although moving into non‐couple settings tends to decrease gender inequality on average.

Norms about parental employment in Eastern and Western Germany: Results of a factorial survey experiment

Article

Full-text available

Oct 2024

Objective: This study analyzes norms in Germany toward mothers’ and fathers’ work hours, with a focus on differences between Eastern and Western Germany. Background: Maternal labor force participation has increased in many Western countries, and norms toward parents’ division of paid work and care have changed over the past decades. Most literature, however, focuses on maternal labor force participation without considering paternal work hours, based on the dichotomy of a traditional male-breadwinner model versus a model with two adults working full time and comprehensive institutionalized childcare, leaving out other potential arrangements. This focus limits the understanding of differences between Eastern and Western Germany. Method: This study investigates normative judgments regarding both mothers’ and fathers’ employment in a factorial survey experiment implemented in the German Family Panel pairfam in 2019/2020 (N=6,285). Results: The analysis reveals that in Western compared to Eastern Germany shorter working hours are indicated for both fathers and mothers, and judgments regarding working hours vary more and are more affected by job-related variables (relative incomes, career prospects, and family-friendliness of employer). Conclusion: These results imply that in Western Germany, normative judgments of both parents’ work hours are mainly based on the individual level, taking the family’s specific situation into account, whereas in Eastern Germany, judgements are more strongly influenced by a general norm that both parents should work (near to) full-time.

Attitudes of young people in Germany towards parental involvement in paid work: evidence of intergenerational transmission

Article

Jan 2023

This article examines young people’s attitudes towards parental involvement in paid work and their association with two channels of intergenerational transmission – parents’ employment arrangements and gender ideologies – the relative importance of these channels and if young people’s gender moderates the association. The data came from a German two-wave panel study of 609 adolescents (aged 15–21) surveyed in 2018 and their mothers in 2013–15. Analyses show that young people’s preferred weekly working hours for mothers were positively related to their parents’ employment arrangements and gender ideologies four years earlier. In contrast, the more progressive their mother’s gender ideology was, the fewer working hours young people preferred for fathers. The two transmission channels were nearly equally important and their impact did not differ between female and male adolescents. Our findings suggest that the intergenerational transmission of gender roles might be one of multiple factors contributing to stalling trends in gender equality.

Gender roles and selection mechanisms across contexts: a comparative analysis of the relationship between unemployment, self‐perceived health and gender

Article

Full-text available

Feb 2022

Health literature shows that unemployment has a gendered effect on health. However, whether men or women are more affected and why remains unclear. We assume that unemployment harms women less than men because of two mechanisms: social roles theories and health selection. First, the availability and centrality in individuals’ lives of roles other than employment may reduce the detrimental effect of unemployment for women. Second, the gendered impact of unemployment on health results from the different ways selection mechanisms operate across genders. Moreover, these two mechanisms may operate differently in different contexts – for example, across different gender regimes. We investigate this by pursuing a three‐step comparative approach. The analysis relies on EU‐SILC data covering Italy and Sweden for 2004 to 2015 and SOEP data for Germany (1995–2017) and applies correlated dynamic random‐effects probit models. While we find weak support for the role of health selection in shaping the relations between unemployment, health, and gender, our empirical results are in line with the hypothesis of a larger gendered effect in older (vs younger) cohorts, western (vs eastern) Germany and Italy (vs. Sweden). Future empirical research needs to directly address the role of gender regimes in moderating such complex relationships.

Thirty Years after the Fall of the Berlin Wall—Do East and West Germans Still Differ in Their Attitudes to Female Employment and the Division of Housework?

Article

Full-text available

Feb 2021

Gundula Zoch

Previous cross-sectional studies highlight persistent East–West differences in gender ideologies after German reunification. This study examines the extent to which gender ideologies in the East and West have converged and whether differences are still relevant for younger cohorts who experienced childhood around the time of reunification, or after 1989. Using data from the German Family Panel pairfam (2008–2019) and differences in regime-specific socialization for three cohorts born before and after reunification, results reveal that different dimensions of gender ideologies have only partly converged 30 years after reunification. Attitudes towards housework and female employment converged particularly, yet, in all cohorts, views on maternal employment remain substantially different between East and West. Observed convergence occurred only partly due to contrasting trends of modernization in West Germany and re-traditionalization in East Germany. Moreover, the results highlight smaller attitude changes with increasing age, particularly for the younger cohorts, contributing to further variations in East–West differences. Overall, the findings confirm the existence of long-lasting ideology differences due to regime-specific socialization, and a persistently altered composition of society in East and West Germany. At the same time, they point towards slow convergence among younger cohorts due to a more similar institutional and socialization context following reunification.

Does Fixed-Term Employment Have Spillover Effects on the Well-Being of Partners? A Panel Data Analysis for East and West Germany

Article

Full-text available

Oct 2021

This paper answers three research questions: What is the impact of fixed-term employment on the well-being of partners? How do these spillover effects differ by gender, and do gender differences depend on socialization in East or West Germany? Do individual well-being, perceived job insecurity, and financial worries mediate the spillover effects? We use longitudinal data from the SocioEconomic Panel (SOEP), 1995-2017, and a sample of heterosexual couples living together, to estimate fixed-effects panel regression models. In contrast to previous studies, we consider asymmetric effects of entering and leaving fixed-term contracts by focusing on transitions from unemployment into fixed-term and fixed-term into permanent jobs. Confirming previous research on spillover effects of unemployment , we find that fixed-term re-employment increases partners' well-being and that these effects are larger in case of re-employment by men and partners' socialization in West Ger-many. We also show that transitions from fixed-term to permanent jobs do not substantially increase the well-being of partners with little differences by gender and place of socialization. While the spillover effect of re-employment is mediated by changes in the well-being of the individual re-entering the labor market, changes in job insecurity and financial worries due to transitions from fixed-term to permanent jobs are too small to produce meaningful effects on well-being. Although fixed-term contracts have been referred to as a new source of inequality, our results show that they cause little difference in the well-being of individuals and their partners and that finding a job matters more than the type of contract.

Seven Decades of Gender Differences in German Voting Behavior

Article

Full-text available

Jul 2023
KOLNER Z SOZIOL SOZ

Ansgar Hudde

This article describes long-term changes in gender differences in voting behavior in Germany, using a globally unique data source: information from real ballots. Compared with self-reports in available surveys, actual votes counted by gender and age groups have three advantages: neither representativeness issues nor social desirability bias, a huge sample, and coverage of seven decades, beginning in 1953. Besides party-specific voting patterns, I analyze summary measures for gender dissimilarities, both overall and separated by age groups. The modern gender gap—women voting more left-wing than men—first appeared in Germany in the 2017 election, surprisingly late compared with previous international research. The speed and structure with which the modern gender gap grew suggest that it is due to period effects rather than cohort effects. The modern gender gap differs by age group and, in post-World War II Germany, women and men have never been as divided about politics as the youngest voters in 2021. These findings partly contrast with previous survey-based results. To explore whether this contrast stems from the smaller sample sizes of previous studies or gendered survey bias (e.g., more social desirability bias among women), I compare results from real ballots with estimates from two survey data sources. Findings suggest that large surveys might provide reasonable estimates at the aggregate level but might overestimate the gender gap for more radical parties such as the AfD (Alternative for Germany).

Spouses' division of labor and marital stability: Applying the multiple-equilibrium theory to cohort trends of divorce in East and West Germany

Article

Full-text available

Feb 2023

Objective: In comparing East and West Germany, we investigate task specialization and its association with marital stability twofold: (1) Has the association between women's employment and divorce risk changed across marriage cohorts? (2) Are men's levels of engagement in domestic tasks associated with divorce risk? Background: While older theories assumed that women's employment destabilized marriages, newer theories suggest that men can re-stabilize marriages by changing their behavior and engaging in housework. Method: We analyze data from the SOEP using discrete-time event history models in a historical and a dyadic perspective. Results: Our results show that the associations between women's employment and the risk of divorce have been changing across marriage cohorts, and that this trend began earlier in East Germany. Husbands' relative contribution to division of housework is not found to stabilize marriages in East and West Germany, but we find differences between marriage cohorts in West Germany. Conclusion: Our findings confirm that the traditional male breadwinner model is no longer associated with a stable equilibrium in marriage in Germany. It appears that either the German society is still in the transitional stage, as men's contributions to housework are shown to be irrelevant for marital stability; or that gender equality is not associated with the new stable equilibrium in marriages.

Large-scale Attitude Changes toward Immigrants and Refugees: The Roles of Cohort Affiliation and Threat Perceptions

Thesis

Nov 2022

Katja Schmidt

Diese Dissertation untersucht die Determinanten für Veränderungen in der öffentlichen Meinung zu Zugewanderten und Geflüchteten. Im Mittelpunkt steht die ungeplante Zuwanderung Geflüchteter in den Jahren 2015/16. Die Untersuchung konzentriert sich auf Deutschland, erforscht aber auch den breiteren europäischen Kontext. Erkenntnisse aus Mehrebenenanalysen, Längsschnittdaten und exklusiv erhobenen Geodaten tragen zur bisherigen Forschung bei und helfen, Schlussfolgerungen zu ziehen, wie Zuwanderung in Aufnahmegesellschaften besser gesteuert werden kann. Das erste empirische Kapitel zeigt, dass der Prozess der Generationenablösung in Deutschland nicht zu einem stetig toleranteren und offeneren Meinungsklima gegenüber Zugewanderten führt. Vielmehr ist ein Generationenverlauf zu beobachten, der nicht linear verläuft, sondern schwankend. Außerdem führen die gegenwärtigen Veränderungen der makroökonomischen Bedingungen zu keinen wesentlichen Veränderungen in den Einstellungen einer Generation. Ein Anstieg an Schutzsuchenden in Deutschland führt jedoch zu einer etwas restriktiveren Haltung zu Zugewanderten. Das zweite empirische Kapitel zeigt, dass die Zunahme der Zuwanderung aus verschiedenen Herkunftsländern unterschiedliche Reaktionen in den westlichen EU-Gesellschaften hervorruft. Während der Anstieg der Einwanderungsraten von EU-Bürgern keine signifikante Rolle bei der Veränderung der Einstellung der Einheimischen spielt, erweist sich die zunehmende Einwanderung aus Ländern des globalen Südens und von Geflüchteten als stabiler Prädiktor für eine ablehnendere Haltung der Kohorten. Das dritte empirische Kapitel liefert kaum Belege dafür, dass eine Geflüchtetenunterkunft in unmittelbarer Nähe mit den Einstellungen oder Verhaltensweisen der Einheimischen verbunden ist. Weder aktuelle Bedrohungswahrnehmungen noch erhöhte Kontaktmöglichkeiten durch die Anwesenheit einer Unterkunft in der Nähe haben einen nachhaltigen Effekt auf die Einstellungen der lokalen Bevölkerung.

The dynamics of attitudes toward immigrants: Cohort analyses for Western EU member states

Article

Full-text available

Oct 2021

Katja Schmidt

Public opinion climates on immigrants are subject to certain dynamics. This study examines two mechanisms for such dynamics in Western EU member states for the 2002–2018 period. First, the impact of cohort replacement and, second, the impact of periodic threat perceptions, namely, changing macroeconomic conditions and shifts in immigration rates. To date, empirical research on anti-immigrant sentiments rarely combines these two concepts simultaneously to disentangle the interplay of period and cohort effects and determine the factors for long- and short-term attitude changes in societies. Motivated by this gap in the literature, I conduct multiple linear regression analyses of pooled data from all waves of the European Social Survey to show that the process of cohort replacement has led to a substantially more positive opinion climate toward immigrants since the 2000s. However, results indicate that in the future, this positive development is likely to come to a halt since younger cohorts no longer hold significantly more immigrant-friendly attitudes than their immediate predecessors. Furthermore, we observe different period effects to impact cohorts’ attitudes. Fixed-effects panel analyses show that the effect of changing macroeconomic conditions on cohorts’ attitudes is low. Changes in immigration rates, however, lead to significantly more dismissive attitudes when immigrants originate from the Global South as opposed to when they enter from EU countries. These insights suggest that it is less economic or cultural threat perceptions, but ethnic prejudice that plays a key role for natives to oppose immigration. Overall, findings suggest that it is not either cohort or period effects driving large-scale attitude changes, but rather we observe an interplay of both.

Kohorte und Generation

Chapter

Feb 2024

Dieser Handbuchartikel analysiert das Verhältnis zwischen generationalen und kohortenanalytischen Ansätzen in der Sozialstrukturanalyse unter Einbeziehung qualitativer und quantitativer Methoden. Ausgehend von Karl Mannheims Konzept des „Generationenzusammenhangs“ wird eine Synthese von biografieorientierten und kohortenanalytischen Perspektiven vorgenommen. Es erfolgt eine theoretische Einordnung der beiden Konzepte Generation und Kohorte, gefolgt von einer methodischen Erörterung zur Herausforderung der Auflösung der Verschränkung von Lebenszeit, Gesellschaftszeit und historischer Zeit. In Form von Beispielanalysen werden sowohl die generationale Identität in biografischen Erzählungen als auch der Wandel der politischen Beteiligung im Zeitverlauf aufgezeigt. Ergänzend werden mit quantitativen Kohortenanalysen von Zeitreihendaten das Wahlverhalten, politisches Interesse und Parteipräferenzen über Geburtskohorten hinweg analysiert, um kohorten- bzw. generationengetragene Muster zu identifizieren. Der Artikel schließt mit der Empfehlung eines Mixed-Methods-Ansatzes, um ein umfassendes Verständnis für das Zusammenspiel von qualitativen und quantitativen Erkenntnissen zum jeweiligen Forschungsgegenstand zu gewinnen.

A Generalized Ordered Logit Model to Accommodate Multiple Rating Scales

Article

Full-text available

Aug 2023

Markus Gangl

Rating scales are ubiquitous in the social sciences, yet may present practical difficulties when response formats change over time or vary across surveys. To allow researchers to pool rating data across alternative question formats, the article provides a generalization of the ordered logit model that accommodates multiple scale formats in the measurement of a single rating construct. The resulting multiscale ordered logit model shares the interpretation as well as the proportional odds (or parallel lines) assumption with the standard ordered logit model. A further extension to relax the proportional odds assumption in the multiscale context is proposed, and the substitution of the logit with other convenient link functions is equally straightforward. The utility of the model is illustrated from an empirical analysis of the determinants of respondents’ confidence in democratic institutions that combines data from the European Social Survey, the General Social Survey, and the European and World Values Survey series.

Hausarbeit und Kinderbetreuung

Chapter

May 2023

Complexities and Nuances in Radical Right Voters’ (Anti)Feminism

Article

Full-text available

Apr 2023

Gefjon Off

While radical right parties commonly advance conservative gender positions, research on radical right voters’ gender attitudes remains inconclusive. To understand radical right voters’ gender attitudes, I first analyze previous research for frames that antifeminist actors commonly use to advance their arguments. I then draw on interviews with eastern German radical right voters to analyze whether and how these voters apply antifeminist frames to argue about feminist policy. I demonstrate that they use antifeminist frames to oppose mostly third-wave and recently salient feminist issues, but also support certain feminist policies, sometimes for instrumental reasons. Further, voters include particularities of their context in their arguments. Eastern Germany constitutes an atypical context, allowing for insights into voters’ (anti)feminism in a post-socialist context marked by atheism and relatively advanced gender norms. The study contributes to understanding complexities and nuances in radical right voters’ gender attitudes, and thereby to understanding cultural grievances beyond anti-immigration attitudes.

Gendered life courses and cognitive functioning in later life: the role of context-specific gender norms and lifetime employment

Article

Full-text available

Mar 2023
EUR J AGEING

With increasing life expectancy, dementia poses an epidemiological challenge. As a cure has not been developed, the investigation into preventive factors becomes pivotal. Previous research emphasizes the cognitively stimulating and socio-emotional benefits of lifetime employment, but research on heterogeneous patterns across social groups and societal contexts remains sparse. Sociological approaches have a promising potential to provide insights into health inequalities and can contribute to the study of this major societal challenge. We investigate the influence of previous employment biographies on cognitive functioning for men and women aged 50 to 75 in 19 European countries, using longitudinal and retrospective information from the Survey of Health, Ageing and Retirement in Europe. We link individual information on employment biographies and cognitive functioning to contextual measures of gender norms, using aggregated agreement rates to both men’s and women’s role in employment and family. We find that previous employment affects cognitive functioning men and women differently. Part-time employment is beneficial for women’s cognitive functioning, but not for men’s. Traditional gender norms are associated with lower levels of cognitive functioning for both genders and moderate the linkage between previous employment and cognitive functioning. In contexts with more traditional gender norms, men’s part-time employment is associated with lower and women’s part-time employment with higher cognitive functioning. We conclude that employment and non-employment participation can, depending on characteristics of individuals and contexts, benefit or hinder the life-course accumulation of cognitive reserve, and those with norm-deviating behaviour are disadvantaged.

(In)Stability of Gender Attitudes in Times of Family Policy Change—A Latent Class Analysis of Germany, Austria, and Sweden

Article

Sep 2022

Assuming a long-term feedback loop between attitudes about gender divisions of labor and family policy, we examine such attitudes in Germany, Austria, and Sweden, between 1994 and 2012. Using a longitudinal, case study approach, we argue that attitudes on the gender division of labor need to be put in relation to both recent family policy changes and a country’s gender regime. Employing latent class analysis, we examine the prevalence of different views on gender division of labor over time and test for measurement invariance to assess whether characteristics of attitudinal groups change across years. Results show increasing support for maternal employment within traditional groups in eastern and western Germany, potentially reflecting shifting policy within a changing gender regime. Simultaneously, intensive mothering and traditional attitudes remain more prevalent in Austria and western Germany than in eastern Germany and Sweden, indicating a persistent maternalist ideal among segments of these historically domestic gender regimes.

Care and Careers: Gender Differences in the Reconciliation of Work and Family

Thesis

May 2022

Claire Samtleben

Die Vereinbarkeit von Beruf und Familie ist eine der größten Herausforderungen und gleichzeitig Gelingensbedingung für Geschlechtergerechtigkeit auf dem Arbeitsmarkt und im familiären Bereich. Die vorliegende Dissertation verdeutlicht in drei empirischen Papieren die Relevanz von Sorgearbeit für die Arbeitsmarktpartizipation von Frauen und Männern, sowie die Rolle von Unternehmen für das Unterfangen, berufliche und familiäre Aufgaben zu vereinbaren. Im ersten Papier fragt diese Dissertation nach der Rolle von Haus- und Sorgearbeit sowie ihrer Verteilung im Paar für die Arbeitsmarktpartizipation von Frauen und Männern. Für die Analyse werden Daten des Sozio-oekonomischen Panels (SOEP) der Jahre 2001-2017 herangezogen. Um sich bestmöglich einer kausalen Identifikation anzunähern, werden First- Difference Instrumentalvariablen-Regressionen (FD-IV) geschätzt. Das zweite Papier betrachtet die Gründe von Vätern gegen eine (längere) Elternzeitnahme. Anhand eines Mixed-Methods Forschungsdesigns wird untersucht, welche betrieblichen Determinanten eine (längere) Elternzeitnutzung erklären. Darüber hinaus wird analysiert, ob und in welchem Unternehmenskontext Männer und Frauen Karriereeinbußen nach Elternzeitnutzung erfahren. Die Datenbasis sind qualitative und quantitative Daten einer Zusatzbefragung zum AID:A II Survey. Das dritte Papier untersucht die Frage nach dem Zusammenhang von Homeoffice-Nutzung und Work-Family Conflicts. Konkret wird analysiert, ob es Unterschiede nach Unternehmenskultur gibt. Auf Grundlage des LPP-ADIAB werden Multilevel-Regressionen mit fixen Effekten für Berufe separat für Männer und Frauen geschätzt. Zusammengefasst belegt die Dissertation geschlechtsspezifische Unterschiede in der Herausforderung, Erwerbstätigkeit und private Verpflichtungen in Einklang zu bringen. Darüber hinaus wird die Notwendigkeit von politischen Reformen und der Handlungsbedarf, aber auch die Gestaltungsmöglichkeiten von Unternehmen verdeutlicht.

Why do some occupations offer more part-time work than others? Reciprocal dynamics in occupational gender segregation and occupational part-time work in West Germany, 1976–2010

Article

Dec 2021
SOC SCI RES

This paper analyzes the reciprocal relationship between occupational gender segregation and occupational part-time work in West Germany over time. Based on a unique occupational panel dataset covering 254 occupations between 1976 and 2010, we apply static, dynamic, and Arellano-Bond panel models to account for reverse causality and endogeneity. Results indicate that trends in occupational part-time rates and gender ratios mutually reinforce each other but not in the same manner. Part-time work in occupations increases once more women start working in these occupations. Occupational part-time ratios are mainly driven by married women and mothers; women's education level only plays a minor role. Vice versa, the gender composition of occupations is likewise affected by changing working-time arrangements, at least in the short run, but it is mainly driven by previous levels of occupational gender segregation.

Women's employment transitions: The influence of her, his, and joint gender ideologies

Article

Full-text available

Jul 2021
DEMOGR RES

Background: Research suggests that women's employment decisions are influenced by not only their own gender ideologies but also their partners'. This paper is the first study examining the role of a couple's joint gender ideology on the female partner's employment transitions, specifically her work hours and employment breaks. Objective: The authors seek to advance research on the effects of gender ideologies on paid work transitions conceptually, arguing that a couple's (dis)agreement on gender ideologies may be important. Methods: The authors use data from the German panel study Labour Market and Social Security (PASS) and logistic regression models estimating the probability of reducing work hours or taking an employment break between two successive panel waves. Results: Women's gender ideologies impact their likelihood of reducing work hours and taking an employment break. The more egalitarian women are, the less likely they are to reduce their labor market participation. The male partner's gender ideology initially appears irrelevant. However, when considering the couple as a unit, the authors find a couple effect of joint ideology: Women are more likely to reduce their work hours when both partners believe in gender essentialism as opposed to other couple-ideology constellations. For women's employment breaks, findings also point to a couple-ideology effect, though with less statistical certainty. Conclusions: The couple perspective shows that his gender ideology matters only in relation to hers. Contribution: Introducing the couple perspective reveals that individual ideology measures provide a skewed picture of how gender ideologies actually work in couples to influence the gender division of paid work.

Mothers', Fathers' and Siblings' Housework Time Within Family Households

Article

Full-text available

Jun 2021

Florian Schulz

Objective To investigate time use of housework for all members of family households, especially focusing on how time allocation varied by siblings' gender composition. Background Three knowledge gaps were addressed: the allocation of housework time between all family members; children's contributions to housework, focusing on the relevance of sibling structure; and the differences in time allocation of housework by parental education within family households. The study contributes to the understanding of the family as the primary socialization environment and the foundations of gender inequality of unpaid work time in the life course and in society. Methods 478 four‐person households were sampled from the German Time Use Study from 2001/2002 and 2012/2013. Using information from 3,743 time diaries, absolute and relative time use for total housework on Mondays through Fridays was analyzed according to siblings' gender composition, applying linear regression. Results Mothers and daughters spent more time on housework in shared family households than fathers and sons. Total housework time was lowest in households with two sons and highest in households with two daughters. Older daughters spent more time on housework than younger daughters, and sons with a sister spent more time on housework than sons with a brother, regardless of the birth order. Parents' education had no impact on the time allocation in this sample. Conclusion Children's gender plays a role in their interaction with their parents, and both gender identity at the individual level and the dyadic gender compositions of families must be considered when explaining the household allocation of housework.

May your wealth be easily divisible by two: Marital dissolution and personal wealth of German men and women over the life course

Thesis

Full-text available

Nov 2020

Nicole Kapelle

Amid a rising importance of private wealth and historically high divorce rates, this thesis investigates the association between marital dissolution and personal wealth of men and women in Germany. To address shortcomings in previous research, I build on the life course framework and apply state-of-the-art statistical methods using longitudinal personal-level wealth data from the German Socio-Economic Panel (SOEP). Results highlight substantial immediate dissolution-related wealth penalties for men but particularly women with lasting economic repercussions for the majority of divorcees. This can have flow-on effects on divorcees’ and, by implication, their children’s social participation, welfare reliance, or social network.

Gender roles and selection mechanisms across contexts: A comparative analysis of the relationship between unemployment, self-perceived health, and gender

Preprint

Full-text available

Nov 2020

Health literature shows that unemployment has a negative and gendered effect on health. However, who is more affected between men and women and why is still unclear. We assume that women suffer less than men from unemployment because of two mechanisms. The first mechanism is linked to social roles theories: the availability and centrality in individuals’ lives of roles other than employment may reduce the detrimental effect of unemployment. The second mechanism is health selection: the gendered impact of unemployment on health is the result of the different way selection mechanisms operate across genders. Yet, the way these two mechanisms operate may vary according to the roles that men and women have in the society—i.e. across traditional and egalitarian gender regimes. We pursue a three-steps comparative perspective. The analysis relies on EU-SILC data for the period 2004-2015 for Italy and Sweden and SOEP data for Germany (1992-2016). We address the different selection mechanisms applying correlated dynamic random-effects probit models. Empirical results support our hypothesis of a larger gendered effect in traditional contexts with respect to egalitarian ones. We find weak support for the role of health selection in shaping the relations between unemployment, health and gender.

Attitudes towards sharing housework in couple context: An empirical, factorial survey approach

Article

Full-text available

Oct 2020

Florian Schulz

Objective: This study measured and compared the attitudes of German women and men towards sharing total housework, routine housework and non-routine housework in couples. Background: Although attitudes towards gender roles and the notion of separate spheres are important for understanding many aspects of family life, knowledge about situational variations of women’s and men’s attitudes towards housework sharing is limited. Method: Original data from a factorial survey of 1,120 German women and men from 2016 were used to describe variations in the attitudes of women and men towards three sets of housework using multilevel regression models. Results: Women and men expressed their attitudes towards equal sharing of total and routine housework, but non-routine housework was assigned to male partners in couples. Attitudes differed widely according to the context of the couple: In couples with similar economic resources, respondents favored equal sharing of housework, and in couples with unequal arrangements, the partner with fewer resources was tied to more housework and vice versa. Conclusion: When evaluating housework responsibilities, women and men in this study seemed to follow the principles of equity and balanced exchange.

Consistent Egalitarianism or Heterogeneous Belief Patterns? Gender Ideologies in Contemporary East and West Germany

Article

Full-text available

Nov 2024
Z SOZIOL

Leonie Kleinschrot

Studying gender ideologies is crucial for understanding the work and family related behaviors of women and men. This paper analyzes the gender ideologies of respondents living in East and West Germany, and whether these belief patterns differ by socio-demographic characteristics. To this end, latent class analysis is applied to eight gender role items from the FReDA 2021 survey. The results show the presence of a consistent and widespread egalitarian gender ideology in both regions, as well as a less prevalent traditional one in the West. Additionally, heterogeneous gender ideologies are to be found with egalitarian essentialism present in both regions, and intensive parenting only in the West. Respondents with a lower level of education and males have higher chances of holding non-egalitarian ideologies. The findings align with the literature on persisting East-West differences in gender ideology, and with research on the diversification of gender ideology.

Parenthood premium but fatherhood super-premium in academic productivity? A matter of partner's employment

Article

Oct 2024

40 Jahre ALLBUS – Die deutsche Gesellschaft im Wandel (Einleitung)

Chapter

Oct 2024

Family inequality: On the changing educational gradient of family patterns in Western Germany

Article

Apr 2023
DEMOGR RES

Does the (socio-political) socialization context matter for paternal involvement?

Article

May 2024
J EUR SOC POLICY

Previous literature on paternal involvement emphasizes the influence of fathers’ socialization contexts, considering either welfare policies (Hipp and Leuze, 2015) or experiences with their own fathers (Brown et al., 2018; Parke, 1995). In this study, we combine those two branches of research and examine how fathers’ and their fathers’ (grandfathers’) socialization experiences (parental leave regulations in their early adulthood as an example of (de-)familization policies (Lohmann and Zagel, 2016)) predict paternal involvement today. To measure paternal involvement, we create an indicator for involvement that covers Lamb et al. (1985) three aspects of direct interaction, responsibility, and availability and the fact that a father has taken paternal leave for at least one of his children or not. We use the fact that a substantial proportion of the fathers in the German, national survey AID:A 2019 (Kuger et al., 2020) were socialized in another welfare state regime (6.3% of fathers have a direct and another 13.5% have an indirect migration background (their fathers were born in another country) covering birth cohorts from the 1970s to the 1990s; total N = 1053). We then add context-related information on their (fathers’ and grandfathers’) countries of origin from the OECD family database and estimate an SEM model to test potential direct and indirect effects. We find that more educated fathers who experienced extended parental leave regulations are more involved fathers today. Our results support, thus, that welfare state conditions influence individuals’ behaviour while education is a relevant moderator in this relationship.

Varieties of egalitarianism: gender ideologies in the late socialism of the German Democratic Republic

Article

Oct 2023

Change in Personal Culture over the Life Course

Article

Mar 2023

Philipp M. Lersch

Prior literature finds stability in personal culture, such as attitudes and values, in individuals’ life courses using short-running panel data. This work has concluded that lasting change in personal culture is rare after formative early years. This conclusion conflicts with a growing body of evidence for changes in personal culture after significant life course transitions, drawing on long-running panel data. To integrate these conflicting findings, the current study develops and applies a life course adaption model of personal culture, accounting for early imprinting and the continued possibility for change. Drawing on rich data from six long-running panel studies from five countries (BHPS, HILDA, PSID, SHP, SOEP, UKHLS) and 428 measures of personal culture, I test the theoretical expectations using mixed-effects modeling and an individual participant data meta-analysis. Results support the life course adaption model. Although lasting, non-transitory, within-individual changes in personal culture are relatively small compared to stable between-individual differences, I find strong support for the proposition that individuals change persistently in their personal culture as they move through the life course. These changes are partly dependent on prior biographical experiences. Finally, personal culture fluctuates substantially from year to year. Change in personal culture is increasingly varied for younger birth cohorts.

Is Employment during Motherhood a ‘Value Changing Experience’?

Article

Feb 2023
Adv Life Course Res

Mosaic of beliefs: Comparing gender ideology in China across generation, geography, and gender

Article

Jan 2023

Rujun Yang

Modernization accounts of cultural change hold that economic development drives liberalization of social values, including gender beliefs. Some comparative gender scholarship suggests that societal affluence is often accompanied by the growth of gender-essentialist beliefs, and that these beliefs coexist comfortably alongside gender-egalitarian values. The multidimensional conceptualization of gender ideology that is required to assess these competing claims has been applied so far mostly to Western societies. China is an obvious case for extending knowledge of these relationships, given its rapid economic growth and its recent history of state-imposed gender-egalitarian discourses. Applying latent class analysis to the Chinese General Social Survey (2010–2017), this study links different tenets of gender ideology in China to temporally and spatially specific histories and gendered interests. The results show that the relative importance of modernization and gender accounts depends on the generational, regional, and gendered identities being examined. Unlike in the West, moreover, egalitarian and essentialist beliefs do not always coincide in contemporary China. The friction between these beliefs reflects the resilience of male-primacy ideology.

A job is good, but is a good job healthier?

Thesis

Jul 2022

Giulia Tattarini

What are the consequences of unemployment and precarious employment for individuals' health in Europe? What are the moderating factors that may offset (or increase) the health consequences of labor-market risks? How do the effects of these risks vary across different contexts, which differ in their institutional and cultural settings? Does gender, regarded as a social structure, play a role, and how? To answer these questions is the aim of my cumulative thesis. This study aims to advance our knowledge about the health consequences that unemployment and precariousness cause over the life course. In particular, I investigate how several moderating factors, such as gender, the family, and the broader cultural and institutional context, may offset or increase the impact of employment instability and insecurity on individual health. In my first paper, 'The buffering role of the family in the relationship between job loss and self-perceived health: Longitudinal results from Europe, 2004-2011', I and my co-authors measure the causal effect of job loss on health and the role of the family and welfare states (regimes) as moderating factors. Using EU-SILC longitudinal data (2004-2011), we estimate the probability of experiencing 'bad health' following a transition to unemployment by applying linear probability models and undertake separate analyses for men and women. Firstly, we measure whether changes in the independent variable 'job loss' lead to changes in the dependent variable 'self-rated health' for men and women separately. Then, by adding into the model different interaction terms, we measure the moderating effect of the family, both in terms of emotional and economic support, and how much it varies across different welfare regimes. As an identification strategy, we first implement static fixed-effect panel models, which control for time-varying observables and indirect health selection—i.e., constant unobserved heterogeneity. Secondly, to control for reverse causality and path dependency, we implement dynamic fixed-effect panel models, adding a lagged dependent variable to the model. We explore the role of the family by focusing on close ties within households: we consider the presence of a stable partner and his/her working status as a source of social and economic support. According to previous literature, having a partner should reduce the stress from adverse events, thanks to the symbolic and emotional dimensions that such a relationship entails, regardless of any economic benefits. Our results, however, suggest that benefits linked to the presence of a (female) partner also come from the financial stability that (s)he can provide in terms of a second income. Furthermore, we find partners' employment to be at least as important as the mere presence of the partner in reducing the negative effect of job loss on the individual's health by maintaining the household's standard of living and decreasing economic strain on the family. Our results are in line with previous research, which has highlighted that some people cope better than others with adverse life circumstances, and the support provided by the family is a crucial resource in that regard. We also reported an important interaction between the family and the welfare state in moderating the health consequences of unemployment, showing how the compensation effect of the family varies across welfare regimes. The family plays a decisive role in cushioning the adverse consequences of labor market risks in Southern and Eastern welfare states, characterized by less developed social protection systems and –especially the Southern – high level of familialism. The first paper also found important gender differences concerning job loss, family and welfare effects. Of particular interest is the evidence suggesting that health selection works differently for men and women, playing a more prominent role for women than for men in explaining the relationship between job loss and self-perceived health. The second paper, 'Gender roles and selection mechanisms across contexts: A comparative analysis of the relationship between unemployment, self-perceived health, and gender.' investigates more in-depth the gender differential in health driven by unemployment. Being a highly contested issue in literature, we aim to study whether men are more penalized than women or the other way around and the mechanisms that may explain the gender difference. To do that, we rely on two theoretical arguments: the availability of alternative roles and social selection. The first argument builds on the idea that men and women may compensate for the detrimental health consequences of unemployment through the commitment to 'alternative roles,' which can provide for the resources needed to fulfill people's socially constructed needs. Notably, the availability of alternative options depends on the different positions that men and women have in society. Further, we merge the availability of the 'alternative roles' argument with the health selection argument. We assume that health selection could be contingent on people's social position as defined by gender and, thus, explain the gender differential in the relationship between unemployment and health. Ill people might be less reluctant to fall or remain (i.e., self-select) in unemployment if they have alternative roles. In Western societies, women generally have more alternative roles than men and thus more discretion in their labor market attachment. Therefore, health selection should be stronger for them, explaining why unemployment is less menace for women than for their male counterparts. Finally, relying on the idea of different gender regimes, we extended these arguments to comparison across contexts. For example, in contexts where being a caregiver is assumed to be women's traditional and primary roles and the primary breadwinner role is reserved to men, unemployment is less stigmatized, and taking up alternative roles is more socially accepted for women than for men (Hp.1). Accordingly, social (self)selection should be stronger for women than for men in traditional contexts, where, in the case of ill-health, the separation from work is eased by the availability of alternative roles (Hp.2). By focusing on contexts that are representative of different gender regimes, we implement a multiple-step comparative approach. Firstly, by using EU-SILC longitudinal data (2004-2015), our analysis tests gender roles and selection mechanisms for Sweden and Italy, representing radically different gender regimes, thus providing institutional and cultural variation. Then, we limit institutional heterogeneity by focusing on Germany and comparing East- and West-Germany and older and younger cohorts—for West-Germany (SOEP data 1995-2017). Next, to assess the differential impact of unemployment for men and women, we compared (unemployed and employed) men with (unemployed and employed) women. To do so, we calculate predicted probabilities and average marginal effect from two distinct random-effects probit models. Our first step is estimating random-effects models that assess the association between unemployment and self-perceived health, controlling for observable characteristics. In the second step, our fully adjusted model controls for both direct and indirect selection. We do this using dynamic correlated random-effects (CRE) models. Further, based on the fully adjusted model, we test our hypotheses on alternative roles (Hp.1) by comparing several contexts – models are estimated separately for each context. For this hypothesis, we pool men and women and include an interaction term between unemployment and gender, which has the advantage to allow for directly testing whether gender differences in the effect of unemployment exist and are statistically significant. Finally, we test the role of selection mechanisms (Hp.2), using the KHB method to compare coefficients across nested nonlinear models. Specifically, we test the role of selection for the relationship between unemployment and health by comparing the partially-adjusted and fully-adjusted models. To allow selection mechanisms to operate differently between genders, we estimate separate models for men and women. We found support to our first hypotheses—the context where people are embedded structures the relationship between unemployment, health, and gender. We found no gendered effect of unemployment on health in the egalitarian context of Sweden. Conversely, in the traditional context of Italy, we observed substantive and statistically significant gender differences in the effect of unemployment on bad health, with women suffering less than men. We found the same pattern for comparing East and West Germany and younger and older cohorts in West Germany. On the contrary, our results did not support our theoretical argument on social selection. We found that in Sweden, women are more selected out of employment than men. In contrast, in Italy, health selection does not seem to be the primary mechanism behind the gender differential—Italian men and women seem to be selected out of employment to the same extent. Namely, we do not find any evidence that health selection is stronger for women in more traditional countries (Hp2), despite the fact that the institutional and the cultural context would offer them a more comprehensive range of 'alternative roles' relative to men. Moreover, our second hypothesis is also rejected in the second and third comparisons, where the cross-country heterogeneity is reduced to maximize cultural differences within the same institutional context. Further research that addresses selection into inactivity is needed to evaluate the interplay between selection and social roles across gender regimes. While the health consequences of unemployment have been on the research agenda for a pretty long time, the interest in precarious employment—defined as the linking of the vulnerable worker to work that is characterized by uncertainty and insecurity concerning pay, the stability of the work arrangement, limited access to social benefits, and statutory protections—has emerged only later. Since the 80s, scholars from different disciplines have raised concerns about the social consequences of de-standardization of employment relationships. However, while work has become undoubtedly more precarious, very little is known about its causal effect on individual health and the role of gender as a moderator. These questions are at the core of my third paper : 'Bad job, bad health? A longitudinal analysis of the interaction between precariousness, gender and self-perceived health in Germany'. Herein, I investigate the multidimensional nature of precarious employment and its causal effect on health, particularly focusing on gender differences. With this paper, I aim at overcoming three major shortcomings of earlier studies: The first one regards the cross-sectional nature of data that prevents the authors from ruling out unobserved heterogeneity as a mechanism for the association between precarious employment and health. Indeed, several unmeasured individual characteristics—such as cognitive abilities—may confound the relationship between precarious work and health, leading to biased results. Secondly, only a few studies have directly addressed the role of gender in shaping the relationship. Moreover, available results on the gender differential are mixed and inconsistent: some found precarious employment being more detrimental for women's health, while others found no gender differences or stronger negative association for men. Finally, previous attempts to an empirical translation of the employment precariousness (EP) concept have not always been coherent with their theoretical framework. EP is usually assumed to be a multidimensional and continuous phenomenon; it is characterized by different dimensions of insecurity that may overlap in the same job and lead to different "degrees of precariousness." However, researchers have predominantly focused on one-dimensional indicators—e.g., temporary employment, subjective job insecurity—to measure EP and study the association with health. Besides the fact that this approach partially grasps the phenomenon's complexity, the major problem is the inconsistency of evidence that it has produced. Indeed, this line of inquiry generally reveals an ambiguous picture, with some studies finding substantial adverse effects of temporary over permanent employment, while others report only minor differences. To measure the (causal) effect of precarious work on self-rated health and its variation by gender, I focus on Germany and use four waves from SOEP data (2003, 2007, 2011, and 2015). Germany is a suitable context for my study. Indeed, since the 1980s, the labor market and welfare system have been restructured in many ways to increase the German economy's competitiveness in the global market. As a result, the (standard) employment relationship has been de-standardized: non-standard and atypical employment arrangements—i.e., part-time work, fixed-term contracts, mini-jobs, and work agencies—have increased over time while wages have lowered, even among workers with standard work. In addition, the power of unions has also fallen over the last three decades, leaving a large share of workers without collective protection. Because of this process of de-standardization, the link between wage employment and strong social rights has eroded, making workers more powerless and more vulnerable to labor market risks than in the past. EP refers to this uneven distribution of power in the employment relationship, which can be detrimental to workers' health. Indeed, by affecting individuals' access to power and other resources, EP puts precarious workers at risk of experiencing health shocks and influences their ability to gain and accumulate health advantages (Hp.1). Further, the focus on Germany allows me to investigate my second research question on the gender differential. Germany is usually regarded as a traditionalist gender regime: a context characterized by a configuration of roles. Here, being a caregiver is assumed to be women's primary role, whereas the primary breadwinner role is reserved for men. Although many signs of progress have been made over the last decades towards a greater equalization of opportunities and more egalitarianism, the breadwinner model has barely changed towards a modified version. Thus, women usually take on the double role of workers (the so-called secondary earner) and caregivers, and men still devote most of their time to paid work activities. Moreover, the overall upward trend towards more egalitarian gender ideologies has leveled off over the last decades, moving notably towards more traditional gender ideologies. In this setting, two alternative hypotheses are possible. Firstly, I assume that the negative relationship between EP and health is stronger for women than for men. This is because women are systematically more disadvantaged than men in the public and private spheres of life, having less access to formal and informal sources of power. These gender-related power asymmetries may interact with EP-related power asymmetries resulting in a stronger effect of EP on women's health than on men's health (Hp.2). An alternative way of looking at the gender differential is to consider the interaction that precariousness might have with men's and women's gender identities. According to this view, the negative relationship between EP and health is weaker for women than for men (Hp.2a). In a society with a gendered division of labor and a strong link between masculine identities and stable and well-rewarded job—i.e., a job that confers the role of primary family provider—a male worker with precarious employment might violate the traditional male gender role. Men in precarious jobs may perceive themselves (and by others) as possessing a socially undesirable characteristic, which conflicts with the stereotypical idea of themselves as the male breadwinner. Engaging in behaviors that contradict stereotypical gender identity may decrease self-esteem and foster feelings of inferiority, helplessness, and jealousy, leading to poor health. I develop a new indicator of EP that empirically translates a definition of EP as a multidimensional and continuous phenomenon. I assume that EP is a latent construct composed of seven dimensions of insecurity chosen according to the theory and previous empirical research: Income insecurity, social insecurity, legal insecurity, employment insecurity, working-time insecurity, representation insecurity, worker's vulnerability. The seven dimensions are proxied by eight indicators available in the four waves of the SOEP dataset. The EP composite indicator is obtained by performing a multiple correspondence analysis (MCA) on the eight indicators. This approach aims to construct a summary scale in which all dimensions contribute jointly to the measured experience of precariousness and its health impact. Further, the relationship between EP and 'general self-perceived health' is estimated by applying ordered probit random-effects estimators and calculating average marginal effect (further AME). Then, to control for unobserved heterogeneity, I implement correlated random-effects models that add to the model the within-individual means of the time-varying independent variables. To test the significance of the gender differential, I add an interaction term between EP and gender in the fully adjusted model in the pooled sample. My correlated random-effects models showed EP's negative and substantial 'effect' on self-perceived health for both men and women. Although nonsignificant, the evidence seems in line with previous cross-sectional literature. It supports the hypothesis that employment precariousness could be detrimental to workers' health. Further, my results showed the crucial role of unobserved heterogeneity in shaping the health consequences of precarious employment. This is particularly important as evidence accumulates, yet it is still mostly descriptive. Moreover, my results revealed a substantial difference among men and women in the relationship between EP and health: when EP increases, the risk of experiencing poor health increases much more for men than for women. This evidence falsifies previous theory according to whom the gender differential is contingent on the structurally disadvantaged position of women in western societies. In contrast, they seem to confirm the idea that men in precarious work could experience role conflict to a larger extent than women, as their self-standard is supposed to be the stereotypical breadwinner worker with a good and well-rewarded job. Finally, results from the multiple correspondence analysis contribute to the methodological debate on precariousness, showing that a multidimensional and continuous indicator can express a latent variable of EP. All in all, complementarities are revealed in the results of unemployment and employment precariousness, which have two implications: Policy-makers need to be aware that the total costs of unemployment and precariousness go far beyond the economic and material realm penetrating other fundamental life domains such as individual health. Moreover, they need to balance the trade-off between protecting adequately unemployed people and fostering high-quality employment in reaction to the highlighted market pressures. In this sense, the further development of a (universalistic) welfare state certainly helps mitigate the adverse health effects of unemployment and, therefore, the future costs of both individuals' health and welfare spending. In addition, the presence of a working partner is crucial for reducing the health consequences of employment instability. Therefore, policies aiming to increase female labor market participation should be promoted, especially in those contexts where the welfare state is less developed. Moreover, my results support the significance of taking account of a gender perspective in health research. The findings of the three articles show that job loss, unemployment, and precarious employment, in general, have adverse effects on men's health but less or absent consequences for women's health. Indeed, this suggests the importance of labor and health policies that consider and further distinguish the specific needs of the male and female labor force in Europe. Nevertheless, a further implication emerges: the health consequences of employment instability and de-standardization need to be investigated in light of the gender arrangements and the transforming gender relationships in specific cultural and institutional contexts. My results indeed seem to suggest that women's health advantage may be a transitory phenomenon, contingent on the predominant gendered institutional and cultural context. As the structural difference between men's and women's position in society is eroded, egalitarianism becomes the dominant normative status, so will probably be the gender difference in the health consequences of job loss and precariousness. Therefore, while gender equality in opportunities and roles is a desirable aspect for contemporary societies and a political goal that cannot be postponed further, this thesis raises a further and maybe more crucial question: What kind of equality should be pursued to provide men and women with both good life quality and equal chances in the public and private spheres? In this sense, I believe that social and labor policies aiming to reduce gender inequality in society should focus on improving women's integration into the labor market, implementing policies targeting men, and facilitating their involvement in the private sphere of life. Equal redistribution of social roles could activate a crucial transformation of gender roles and the cultural models that sustain and still legitimate gender inequality in Western societies.

A Generalized Ordered Logit Model to Accommodate Multiple Rating Scales

Preprint

Full-text available

Mar 2022

Markus Gangl

Rating scales are ubiquitous in the social sciences, yet may present practical difficulties when response formats change over time or vary across surveys. To allow researchers to pool rating data across alternative question formats, the paper provides a generalization of the ordered logit model that accommodates multiple scale formats in the measurement of a single latent rating construct. The resulting multi-scale ordered logit model shares the interpretation as well as the proportional odds (or parallel lines) assumption with the standard ordered logit model. A further extension to relax the proportional odds assumption in the multi-scale context is proposed, and substitution of the logit with other convenient link functions is equally straightforward. The utility of the model is illustrated from an empirical analysis of the determinants of confidence in democratic institutions that combines data from the European Social Survey, the General Social Survey, and the European and World Values Survey series .

Das Ansehen von Hausfrauen in Deutschland – Eine quantitativ-empirische Analyse differenzieller WahrnehmungenThe Prestige of Housewives in Germany—A Quantitative–Empirical Analysis of Differential Perceptions

Article

Full-text available

Mar 2022
KOLNER Z SOZIOL SOZ

Zusammenfassung Die Erwerbstätigenquote von Frauen ist in den letzten Jahrzehnten international wie auch in Deutschland merklich angestiegen, wohingegen das klassische Male Breadwinner Model zunehmend erodiert. Vor diesem Hintergrund hat die Studie zum Ziel, das gesellschaftliche Ansehen der zahlenmäßig geringer werdenden Gruppe von Hausfrauen, deren Haupttätigkeit in der Haus- und Familienarbeit liegt, mit aktuellen Befragungsdaten zu untersuchen. Die Analysen gehen zum einen der Frage nach, wie hoch das Ansehen generell von der Bevölkerung in Deutschland eingestuft wird und zum anderen, ob sich die Wahrnehmungen anhand von ausgewählten soziodemografischen Merkmalen systematisch unterscheiden. Die empirischen Befunde zeigen, dass das Ansehen von Hausfrauen in Deutschland im Allgemeinen höher eingeschätzt wird als das von Arbeitslosen sowie von Helfertätigkeiten, aber auch geringer als das Ansehen von beruflichen Tätigkeiten auf Fachkräfteniveau. Darüber hinaus variieren die Beurteilungen zum Hausfrauenprestige signifikant danach, welcher sozialen Gruppe (Geburtskohorte, Ausbildungsniveau, Erwerbsbeteiligung, Geschlecht) die Befragten angehören. Weiterführende Analysen von Interaktionseffekten verdeutlichen ferner ein differenziertes Zusammenspiel der Variable Geschlecht mit anderen Gruppenmerkmalen. Der Beitrag schließt mit einer ausführlichen Diskussion der Ergebnisse sowie einem Ausblick auf zukünftige Forschung.

Changes in Perceived Fairness of Division of Household Labor Across Parenthood Transitions: Whose Relationship Satisfaction Is Impacted?

Article

Feb 2022

Using a nationally representative, prospective study of young German adults, we address two research questions: First, are changes in the perceptions of the fairness of (un)paid labor division associated with changes in men’s and women’s partnership satisfaction across fertility transitions? Second, is this association moderated by men and women’s pre-birth gender role attitudes? Our results indicate that differences between respondents in changes in relationship satisfaction after fertility transitions could be observed across perceptions of the fairness of the division of labor, rather than across differing actual divisions of household labor. That effect was found for women, but not men. Across gender role attitudes, the perception of a stable fair arrangement was detrimental to traditional men’s relationship satisfaction, whereas the perception of increased fairness protected against declines in relationship satisfaction only for egalitarian women. We discuss how the mismatch between imagined and lived realities might affect relationship dynamics across fertility transitions.

Couples’ Life Courses and Women’s Income in Later Life: A Multichannel Sequence Analysis of Linked Lives in Germany

Article

Oct 2021

We examine how the life courses of couples in East and West Germany are linked to women’s income in later life using multichannel sequence analysis. By applying a couple perspective, we overcome the individualistic approach in most previous research analysing women’s old-age income. Detailed monthly information on spouses’ employment and earnings trajectories from age 20 to 50 for the birth cohorts 1925–1965 (N = 2020) stems from SHARE-RV, a data linkage of the administrative records of the German public pension insurance with the Survey of Health, Ageing and Retirement in Europe (SHARE). We identify seven clusters of couples’ life courses and link them to women’s absolute individual and relative household income in later life using a cohort comparison to identify trends over time. While in older cohorts, women in male-breadwinner type clusters achieve the lowest, and those in dual-earner type couples have the highest incomes, this relationship does no longer prevail in younger cohorts. Here, we identify a polarization in dual-earner and male-breadwinner type clusters. The former increasingly diverge into successful female-breadwinner constellations and those with both partners in marginalized careers. The latter polarize between persistent male-breadwinner constellations and those in which women increase their labor market engagement.

Gender Ideologies in Europe: A Multidimensional Framework: Gender Ideologies in Europe: Multidimensional Scheme

Article

Full-text available

Feb 2018

The authors argue, in line with recent research, that operationalizing gender ideology as a unidimensional construct ranging from traditional to egalitarian is problematic and propose an alternative framework that takes the multidimensionality of gender ideologies into account. Using latent class analysis, they operationalize their gender ideology framework based on data from the 2008 European Values Study, of which eight European countries reflecting the spectrum of current work–family policies were selected. The authors examine the form in which gender ideologies cluster in the various countries. Five ideology profiles were identified: egalitarian, egalitarian essentialism, intensive parenting, moderate traditional, and traditional. The five ideology profiles were found in all countries, but with pronounced variation in size. Ideologies mixing gender essentialist and egalitarian views appear to have replaced traditional ideologies, even in countries offering some institutional support for gendered separate spheres.

Changing Public Views of Gender Roles in seven nations: 1988-2002.

Chapter

Full-text available

Jan 2009

The paper analyzes the change of gender-role attitudes from 1988 to 2002 along two dimensions: the consequences of female labor-force participation for the children and a general gender ideology. Both dimensions are measured by two core items which can be regarded as equivalent across countries. We focus on those countries for which we have data for all three points in time (1988, 1994 and 2002), i.e. Austria, West Germany, Great Britain, the United States, Ireland, the Netherlands and Hungary. While in countries that have established long-time series for gender-role attitudes a liberal trend could be demonstrated to operate at least from the 1970s to the 1990s, scholars are discussing a possible trend reversal in more recent times. Actually, what the most recent ISSP data show is less a trend reversal than a leveling off the liberal trend. This is particularly true of Great Britain and the United States, which were already characterized by less traditional attitudes; whereas in most of the countries with more traditional attitudes the liberal trend is continuing (in particular: Austria and West Germany). The leveling off in Great Britain and the United States cannot be explained as a methodological artifact, i.e. a ceiling effect, as Scandinavian countries have far lower levels of traditionality. Hungary appears to be a special case, with traditional attitudes coming to the fore after the collapse of socialism but now becoming more liberal. A wider look at the development of other post-socialist societies suggests that there is a marked liberal trend, particularly in countries where attitudes have been most traditional. Unfortunately, ISSP data do not allow us to examine whether most former socialist countires experienced a temporary traditional blip, in the wake of the breakdown of socialism. A main focus of our paper is to understand the importance of cohorts for attitudinal change. We examine how much change is due to aging of period effects that influence all cohorts in a similar way, and how much is due to cohort replacement.

Re-theorizing Family Demographics

Article

Full-text available

Mar 2015
POPUL DEV REV

Two dominant theories within family research foresee a long-term decline in marriage, fertility, and partner stability. They also assume that this “less-family” scenario will be spearheaded by higher-educated strata. Trends in the latter half of the twentieth century seemed to provide ample support for both predictions. However, recent signs of change in family behavior raise doubts about their continued validity. In a number of countries we see a halt to, and even reversal of, fertility decline and of couple instability. In parallel, we observe a reversal of the social gradient on both dimensions. Applying a multiple equilibrium framework, we propose a theoretical framework that helps explain both the phase of marital and fertility decline and the subsequent recovery. We focus especially on the endogenous dynamics of the process, which, we argue, depend on the conditions that favor rapid diffusion. Our core argument is that the turnaround is driven by the diffusion of gender-egalitarian norms.

Determinanten traditionell-sexistischer Einstellungen in Deutschland – eine Analyse mit Allbus-Daten

Article

Full-text available

Jun 2012

Anja Mays

In der Bundesrepublik verfügt nach wie vor ein relevanter Teil der männlichen wie weiblichen Bevölkerung über traditionell-sexistische Rollenvorstellungen. Um ein besseres Verständnis in die Mechanismen ihrer Entwicklung zu bekommen, untersucht der vorliegende Beitrag Ausmaß und Bestimmungsgründe von Geschlechtsrollenvorstellungen. Dazu werden unter Verwendung der ALLBUS 2008-Daten Strukturgleichungsmodelle berechnet, die eine Differenzierung zwischen direkten und indirekten Einflussfaktoren erlauben. Es zeigt sich, dass für sexistische Einstellungen sowohl Effekte der Sozialisation als auch Einflüsse der Situation von Bedeutung sind. Zu den insgesamt wichtigsten Determinanten gehören bei beiden Geschlechtern: (mangelnde) Bildung, westdeutsche Herkunft, Geburt vor 1949, antiegalitäre Werthaltungen sowie, als bislang nicht untersuchte Erklärungsgröße, anomische Empfindungen. Zwei Effekte sind überraschenderweise ausschließlich beim männlichen Teil der Bevölkerung zu beobachten: Mütterliche Nicht-Berufstätigkeit sowie das Gefühl ökonomischer Deprivation führt nur bei Männern zu verstärkt traditionell-sexistischen Rollenvorstellungen. Aus diesen Befunden ergeben sich Ansatzpunkte für eine Reduktion sexistischer Geschlechtsrollenorientierungen.

The long-standing demographic East-West-divide in Germany

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Full-text available

Jan 2012

Over the last decades numerous studies have dealt with demographic differences between the former communist eastern part of Germany and western Germany. Although the demography of these two regions has converged with respect to mortality and overall fertility levels, non-marital births are the norm in eastern Germany but the exception in western Germany. A number of explanations, stemming from the policy and socio-economic conditions of eastern and western Germany in recent decades, have been put forth. Here, we show that the divide in demographic behavior regarding fertility and marriage pre-dates the division of Germany into a communist east and (capitalist) west. Indeed, the areas in eastern Germany that formed the German Democratic Republic had in average roughly twice the level of non-marital fertility from at least since the middle of the 19th century. The persistence of the past suggests that explanations depending on current conditions are likely to be incomplete and that convergence, if it happens, will be a process lasting many decades or even centuries.

Family Structure and the Intergenerational Transmission of Gender Ideology

Article

Full-text available

Apr 2011

Using data from the National Survey of Families and Households, this study explores how single-parent, stepparent, and two-parent biological family structures may affect the transmission of gender ideology from parents to their adult children. Results indicate that biological parents’ ideologies are strong predictors of their children’s ideologies. Stepparents’ ideologies are predictive of their stepchildren’s only when they have high-quality relationships. Parent—child gender heterogeneity, performance of traditional parenting roles, and relationship quality are related to high similarity scores. The authors find evidence of converging ideologies between mothers and sons and diverging ideologies for fathers and daughters—especially in stepfamilies. Finally, their results suggest that high-quality relations with a stepparent enhance transmission between same-sex biological parent—child dyads but high-quality relations with a spouse in two-parent biological families produce a competing role-model dynamic.

Population Aging, Intracohort Aging, and Sociopolitical Attitudes

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Full-text available

Oct 2007

Prevailing stereotypes of older people hold that their attitudes are inflexible or that aging tends to promote increasing conservatism in sociopolitical outlook. In spite of mounting scientific evidence demonstrating that learning, adaptation, and reassessment are behaviors in which older people can and do engage, the stereotype persists. We use U.S. General Social Survey data from 25 surveys between 1972 and 2004 to formally assess the magnitude and direction of changes in attitudes that occur within cohorts at different stages of the life course. We decompose changes in sociopolitical attitudes into the proportions attributable to cohort succession and intracohort aging for three categories of items: attitudes toward historically subordinate groups, civil liberties, and privacy. We find that significant intracohort change in attitudes occurs in cohorts-inlater- stages (age 60 and older) as well as cohorts-in-earlier-stages (ages 18 to 39), that the change for cohorts-in-later-stages is frequently greater than that for cohorts-inearlier-stages, and that the direction of change is most often toward increased tolerance rather than increased conservatism. These findings are discussed within the context of population aging and development.

Gender and Work in Germany: Before and After Reunification

Article

Full-text available

Jul 2004

New state and market arrangements were twice imposed on the residents of the eastern part of Germany, once when Germany was divided in 1949 and again when it was reunified in 1990; these changes produced a unique natural experiment concerning the effect of policies and institutions on the gendered nature of work. This review synthesizes research on gender equality in paid and unpaid work in East versus West Germany during the decades immediately preceding and following reunification. We consider empirical evidence on gender equality in five major dimensions of work: the prevalence of labor market attachment, time spent in paid work, wages, employment sector and occupation, and time spent in unpaid work in the home. Taken together, developments across these dimensions suggest that, following reunification, the two parts of the country converged toward the gendered arrangement in which men are employed full-time and their female partners hold part-time jobs—with some evidence of continuing differences betwe...

The Gendering State and Citizens' Attitudes toward Women's Roles: State Policy, Employment, and Religion in Germany

Article

Full-text available

Mar 2006
Polit Gend

Lee Ann Banaszak

This study explores how the state genders citizens' attitudes toward women by examining differences between East and West Germany in gender role attitudes since unification. Compared to the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG), the German Democratic Republic (GDR) was a stronger supporter of women's employment, although the two countries did not differ greatly in their policies on women's roles within the family. Using four waves of the German Social Survey, I examine whether East–West differences in gender role attitudes are explained by: 1) institutional learning (socialization under a particular regime) or 2) compositional effects (variation in the distribution of causal factors, specifically women's employment or religious affiliation). Analyses suggest that both types of factors influenced East–West differences in gender role attitudes. Even when other characteristics are included in the model, East and West Germans continue to differ in their gender role attitudes. Women's employment and religiosity—both heavily influenced by GDR policies—continue to play a large role in determining gender role attitudes even 15 years after unification. The results suggest that gendered state policies are reflected in citizens' gender role attitudes both directly and through changes in the social characteristics of the population. a

East-West Differences in Attitudes About Employment and Family in Germany

Article

Full-text available

Apr 2005
SOCIOL QUART

This article examines East-West differences in attitudes toward the traditional gender division of labor among German women and men, using data from the 1991 German Social Survey (ALLBUS). We test hypotheses about the effects of region and gender, and the interaction of both, in shaping gender-role attitudes. The results indicate that the combination of region and gender produces (1) a similar gender gap in attitudes in both regions, with women in East and West voicing stronger opposition to traditional gender roles than their male counterparts and (2) regional differences in attitudes, with East Germans more likely than West Germans to oppose a gender-based division of labor. Thus, this study shows that although state socialism was successful in fostering more progressive attitudes among East Germans, especially women, it did not eliminate the gender gap in attitudes about gender, work, and family.

Beliefs About Women's Labour in the Reunified Germany, 1991–2004

Article

Full-text available

Aug 2009

This research investigates the mechanisms of change in gender beliefs in East and West Germany since reunification. Using repeated cross-sectional data from the German General Social Survey (ALLBUS), we examine how processes of cohort replacement and of intra-cohort change contributed to the changes in beliefs about gender ideology and about the consequences of women working for pay that occurred from 1982 to 2004 in the former West Germany and from 1991 to 2004 in the former East Germany. We find that while changes in gender beliefs occurred through both cohort replacement and within-cohort change in West Germany, changes in East Germany primarily occurred through processes of intra-cohort change. Heterogeneity in levels of schooling and employment status are important in accounting for variation in gender beliefs. We find support for the conclusion that there are continued changes in gender beliefs in the reunified Germany across time. However, we do not find that beliefs converged in the East and West following reunification. In fact, focusing on the period following reunification, we find that the gap in beliefs between the East and West actually increased between 1991 and 2004.

Gender Ideology: Components, Predictors, and Consequences

Article

Full-text available

Aug 2009
ANNU REV SOCIOL

The purpose of this article is to review research on the construction of gender ideology and its consequences. The article begins with a summary of research focused on measuring gender ideology — individuals' levels of support for a division of paid work and family responsibilities that is based on the belief in gendered separate spheres. We describe the ways this concept has been operationalized in widely available data sources and provide a categorization schema for the items used to measure gender ideology. We also review the research predicting gender ideology, focusing on social and demographic characteristics while concurrently examining studies using cross-sectional, trend, and panel data. Finally, this article summarizes research focused on the consequences of gender ideology, both in families and family-related behaviors and in other areas of social life where beliefs about gender are relevant, such as the workplace. We conclude with implications for future research for measurement tools, predictors of gender ideology, and consequences of ideology in individuals' lives.

How Do Children Matter? A Comparison of Gender Earnings Inequality for Young Adults in the Former East Germany and the Former West Germany

Article

Full-text available

May 2000
J MARRIAGE FAM

The former Federal Republic of Germany (West Germany) and the former German Democratic Republic (East Germany) differed sharply in their family policies. We follow 1950s and early 1960s birth cohorts from their first jobs to 1989 to see in what ways having children affected earnings for women and men. For the FRG, we find that being a parent had stronger earnings effects (positive for men and negative for women) than in the GDR, with much of this impact mediated by employment hours for women. This does not mean that having children was unimportant for women's and men's earnings in the GDR, but it indicates that the less variable life course led to more society-wide than individual-level impact. Further, in the East, some young women balanced family and employment by taking jobs below their qualifications, and this reduced their earnings.

Cohort change, diffusion, and support for gender egalitarianism in cross-national perspective

Article

Full-text available

Jul 2011
DEMOGR RES

Fred Pampel

Arguments about the spread of gender egalitarian values through a population highlight several sources of change. First, structural arguments point to increases in the proportion of women with high education, jobs with good pay, commitment to careers outside the family, and direct interests in gender equality. Second, value-shift arguments contend that gender norms change with economic affluence among women and men in diverse positions—at all levels of education, for example. Third, diffusion arguments suggest that structural changes lead to adoption of new ideas and values supportive of gender equality by innovative, high-education groups, but that the new ideas later diffuse to other groups. This study tests these arguments by using International Social Survey Program surveys in 1988, 1994, and 2002 for 19 nations to examine gender egalitarianism across 85 cohorts born from roughly 1900 to 1984. Multilevel models support diffusion arguments by demonstrating that the effects of education first strengthen with early adoption of gender egalitarianism and then weaken as other groups come to accept the same views. However, the evidence of a sequence of divergence and convergence in educational differences across cohorts appears most clearly for women in Western nations.

Political regimes and the family: How sex-role attitudes continue to differ in reunified Germany

Article

Full-text available

Dec 2011
J POPUL ECON

We exploit the German separation and later reunification to investigate whether political regimes can shape attitudes about appropriate roles for women in the family and the labor market. During the divided years, East German institutions encouraged female employment, while the West German system deterred women, in particular mothers, from full-time employment. Our results show that East Germans are significantly more likely to hold egalitarian sex-role attitudes than West Germans. Despite a scenario of partial policy convergence after reunification, we find no evidence for a convergence process in gender attitudes. Indeed, if anything, the gap in attitudes rather increased.

Modernization and Postmodernization: Cultural, Economic, and Political Change in 43 Societies

Book

Dec 1997

Ronald Inglehart

Varieties of Capitalism

Book

Aug 2001

Applying the new economics of organization and relational theories of the firm to the problem of understanding cross‐national variation in the political economy, this volume elaborates a new understanding of the institutional differences that characterize the ‘varieties of capitalism’ found among the developed economies. Building on a distinction between ‘liberal market economies’ and ‘coordinated market economies’, it explores the impact of these variations on economic performance and many spheres of policy‐making, including macroeconomic policy, social policy, vocational training, legal decision‐making, and international economic negotiations. The volume examines the institutional complementarities across spheres of the political economy, including labour markets, markets for corporate finance, the system of skill formation, and inter‐firm collaboration on research and development that reinforce national equilibria and give rise to comparative institutional advantages, notably in the sphere of innovation where LMEs are better placed to sponsor radical innovation and CMEs to sponsor incremental innovation. By linking managerial strategy to national institutions, the volume builds a firm‐centred comparative political economy that can be used to assess the response of firms and governments to the pressures associated with globalization. Its new perspectives on the welfare state emphasize the role of business interests and of economic systems built on general or specific skills in the development of social policy. It explores the relationship between national legal systems, as well as systems of standards setting, and the political economy. The analysis has many implications for economic policy‐making, at national and international levels, in the global age.

Haben hierarchische Alters-Perioden-Kohorten-Modelle eine Zukunft?Do Hierarchical Age-Period-Cohort Models Have a Future?: Eine Simulationsstudie und ein empirisches BeispielA Simulation Study and an Empirical Example

Article

Oct 2019

Daniel Lois

Im Jahr 2006 haben Yang Yang und Kenneth C. Land sogenannte hierarchische Alters-Perioden-Kohorten-Modelle (HAPK) vorgeschlagen. Hierbei werden Einflüsse der Kalenderzeit und der Geburtskohorte als zeitliche Kontextfaktoren auf Ebene 2 eines Mehrebenenmodells aufgefasst. Die vorliegende Arbeit kommt auf Basis einer Simulationsstudie mit Trenddaten (wiederholten Querschnitten) zu dem Schluss, dass das konventionelle HAPK-Modell zu deutlich verzerrten Schätzungen führt. Während der Alters- als auch der Periodeneffekt überschätzt werden, wird der Kohorteneffekt unterschätzt. Abgewandelte HAPK-Modelle, die den Kohorteneffekt im „fixed part“ des Modells ansiedeln, sind dem konventionellen Modell gemäß der Simulationsstudie deutlich überlegen. Der modifizierte HAPK-Ansatz wird anschließend auf ein empirisches Beispiel angewendet, das sich mit dem Wandel der Geschlechtsrollenideologie westdeutscher Frauen beschäftigt.

Gender Role Attitudes: An Examination of Cohort Effects in Japan

Article

Apr 2019

Objective This study examines cohort differences in attitudes toward women's roles within marriage in Japan. Background Japan has undergone dramatic sociocultural shifts in the 20th century that have shaped childhood experiences differently by cohort. Sociodemographic perspectives predict cohort effects, which suggest the lasting impact of experiences during the formative years on attitudes. Method This study employs a hierarchical age‐period‐cohort analysis and uses repeated cross‐sectional data from the 2000 to 2012 Japanese General Social Survey (N = 31,912), a nationwide probability survey. Results Among cohorts born before 1960, for both sexes, attitudes toward wife's employment and a gender‐based division of labor were significantly less traditional for later born cohorts. However, younger cohorts born in 1960 and after were not significantly different in their attitudes from the cohort born in the 1950s. Conclusion This study suggests the strong impact of ideological shifts and mothers' homemaking role (experienced in one's formative years) on gender role attitudes. It points to the important and lasting influence of structural contexts on attitudes and hence cohort effects. Implications This study contributes to our understanding of attitudinal change (and stagnation) toward gender roles and has policy implications for Japan and other countries characterized by low marriage and fertility rates.

Attitudes and the Stalled Gender Revolution: Egalitarianism, Traditionalism, and Ambivalence from 1977 through 2016

Article

Nov 2018

Empirical studies show that though there is more room for improvement, much progress has been made toward gender equality since the second wave of feminism. Evidence also suggests that women’s advancements have been more dramatic in the public sphere of work and politics than in the private sphere of family life. We argue that this lopsided gender progress may be traced to uneven changes in gender attitudes. Using data from more than 27,000 respondents who participated in the General Social Survey from 1977 through 2016, we show that gender attitudes have more than one underlying dimension and that these dimensions have changed at different rates over time. Using latent class analysis, we find that the distribution of respondents’ attitudes toward gender equality has changed over the past 40 years. There has been an increase in the number of egalitarians who support equality in public and private spheres, while the traditionals who historically opposed equality in both domains have been replaced by ambivalents who feel differently about gender equality in the public and private spheres. Meanwhile, successive birth cohorts are becoming more egalitarian, with Generation-Xers and Millennials being the most likely to hold strong egalitarian views. The feminist revolution has succeeded in promoting egalitarian views and decreasing the influence of gender traditionalism, but has yet to convince a substantial minority that gender equality should extend to both public and private spheres of social life

Policy reform and fathers’ use of parental leave in Germany: The role of education and workplace characteristics

Article

May 2018
J EUR SOC POLICY

The introduction of the parental leave benefit scheme in 2007 is widely regarded as a landmark reform that has shifted the German welfare state towards a model that better supports work and family life compatibility. In this article, we investigate whether and how this reform has affected men’s use of parental leave based on data from the German microcensus of 1999–2012. We find that parental leave usage has increased across all educational levels, but the shift has been strongest for university-educated fathers. Public sector employment is beneficial for men’s uptake of leave, while self-employment and temporary work lowers fathers’ chances of taking leave. The parental leave reform has not affected these associations much.

Measures of gender role attitudes under revision: The example of the German General Social Survey

Article

Feb 2018

Jessica Walter

Using the example of the German General Social Survey, this study describes how measures of gender role attitudes can be revised. To date measures have focused on the traditional male breadwinner model. However, social developments in female labor force participation, education, and family structure suggest that a revision and adjustment of existing measures are required. First, these measures need to be supplemented with items that represent more egalitarian models of division of labor and the role of the father in the family. Second, the phrasing of existing items needs to be revised. The results of this study indicate that especially regarding the amount of working hours and the age of children, a specification is needed. This study presents a revised measure, to facilitate analyses over time. This revised measure represents two factors: one referring to traditional and one to modern gender role attitudes.

Gender and Family in European Economic Policy, Developments in the New Millennium

Book

Jan 2016

This collection explores how pioneering gender equality policies have shaped women’s economic presence in Europe since 2000. Equal pay policies, parental leave reforms, corporate quotas and electoral quotas have raised pressing questions about the effectiveness in promoting equal participation, as researchers quote both quantitative improvement in gender diversity and qualitative lag in cultural change. The chapters in this book present interlocking cross-national and cross-policy comparisons of the three most controversial reforms: equal pay, parental leave, and quotas for political representatives. The contributors address the cultural context in which reforms arose, internally contradictory policies, and the relative effectiveness of fast-track quotas and incentives compared to long-term efforts to change the overall culture of gender. This critical examination of the new millennium’s groundbreaking gender policies will appeal to academics and practitioners interested in the progress of gender equality in the economic, political, and social welfare fields.

The Rise and Fall of a Socialist Welfare State

Book

Jan 2013

This book provides a comprehensive analysis of social policy in the German Democratic Republic (GDR, 1949-1990), followed by an analysis of the “Social Union”, the transformation of social policy in the process of German unification in 1990. Schmidt’s analysis of the GDR also depicts commonalities and differences between the welfare state in East and West Germany as well as in other East European and Western countries. He concludes that the GDR was unable to cope with the trade-off between ambitious social policy goals and a deteriorating economic performance. Ritter embeds his analysis of the Social Union in a general study of German unification, its international circumstances and its domestic repercussions (1989-1994). He argues that social policy played a pivotal role in German unification, and that there was no alternative to extending the West German welfare state to the East. Ritter, a distinguished historian, bases his contribution on an award-winning study for which he drew on archival sources and interviews with key actors. Schmidt is a distinguished political scientist.

The Silent Revolution: Changing Values and Political Styles Among Western Publics

Book

Dec 2015

Inglehart Ronald

This book contends that beneath the frenzied activism of the sixties and the seeming quiescence of the seventies, a "silent revolution" has been occurring that is gradually but fundamentally changing political life throughout the Western world. Ronald Inglehart focuses on two aspects of this revolution: a shift from an overwhelming emphasis on material values and physical security toward greater concern with the quality of life; and an increase in the political skills of Western publics that enables them to play a greater role in making important political decisions.

One Egalitarianism or Several? Two Decades of Gender-Role Attitude Change in Europe

Article

Mar 2017

This article challenges the implicit assumption of many cross-national studies that gender-role attitudes fall alongasinglecontinuumbetween traditional and egalitarian. The authors argue that this approach obscures theoretically important distinctions in attitudes and renders analyses of change over time incomplete. Using latent class analysis, they investigate the multidimensional nature of gender-role attitudes in 17 postindustrial European countries. They identify three distinct varieties of egalitarianism that they designate as liberal egalitarianism, egalitarian familism, and flexible egalitarianism. They show that while traditional gender-role attitudes have precipitously and uniformly declined in accordance with the “rising tide” narrative toward greater egalitarianism, the relative prevalence of different egalitarianisms varies markedly across countries. Furthermore, they find that European nations are not converging toward one dominant egalitarian model but rather, remain differentiated by varieties of egalitarianism.

Reconciliation of Employment and Childcare in Austria, Germany and Iceland. Examples for Gender Equality in Family Life?

Chapter

Dec 2017

Sigrid Leitner

The paper starts with theoretical assumptions and empirical findings on gender equality effects of reconciliation policies. Thereafter, childcare provision and parental leave schemes in Austria, Germany and Iceland are compared. While Germany and Austria may be classified as optional familialistic with a choice between paid parental leave and childcare services, Iceland follows a strong adult worker model with familizing and de-familizing policies in quick succession. Leave take-up rates of fathers and employment rates of mothers differ enormously between the three countries. This is due to differences in policy design with regard to father’s quotas, benefit levels and the length of the leave as well as to the availability of high quality childcare services. The advantages and shortfalls of the three different models of reconciliation will be analysed from a gender equality perspective.

Social Policy in the German Democratic Republic

Chapter

Sep 2013

Manfred G. Schmidt

This chapter describes, explains, and evaluates the social policy of the German Democratic Republic (GDR) from the creation of that state on 7 October 1949 to the accession of its Länder (states) to the Federal Republic of Germany on 3 October 1990. What effects did the GDR’s social policy have? How did it influence the social situation of the population and the stratification of the society in East Germany? How and how much did dictatorship and socialist statism mark social policy? What shape did social policy assume in the final year of East Germany’s socialist state particularly after the fall of Erich Honecker in October 1989 and that of his successor, Egon Krenz? What did social policy of the GDR have in common with the critical junctures of social policy in pre-1945 Germany? At what point did it abandon old paths? Lastly, what distinguished the social policy of the GDR from that in other socialist states and from the welfare state in the Federal Republic of Germany prior to 1990? These questions guide the following analysis of the main features of social policy in former East Germany.

Economic necessity or self-actualization? Attitudes toward women's labour-force participation in East and West Germany

Article

May 1994

The contribution of women's labour-force participation to attitudes about the family is the focus of recent comparative research, but the relationships between gender, work, and attitudes have not yet been compared across national contexts that differ dramatically in economic conditions. Using data from the German General Social Survey (ALLBUS) of East and West Germany and the International Social Survey Programme, this paper examines the relationship between the objective situation of women and subjective orientations to work and family life comparatively. In contrast to the prevailing Western patterns Unking family and work the former state-socialist systems were distinctive in the dual conditions of extremely high levels of female labour-force involvement and an encompassing system-level organization of family-support structures. The pattern of similarities and differences in gender-role attitudes between East and West Germans reveals that the former are no less traditionalist than the latter, and that the higher level of acceptance of female labour-force participation by East Germans is a result of the present condition of economic hardship and penury. The German case is placed in a broader perspective using data from other Western countries and Hungary. It is concluded that the state-decreed professional emancipation of women did not succeed in changing traditional gender-role attitudes.

Closing the Gender Gap: Act Now

Article

Dec 2012

Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD

Gender gaps are pervasive in all walks of economic life and imply large losses in terms of foregone productivity and living standards to the individuals concerned and the economy. This new OECD report focuses on how best to close these gender gaps under four broad headings: 1) Gender equality, social norms and public policies; and gender equality in 2) education; 3) employment and 4) entrepreneurship. Key policy messages are as follows: -Greater gender equality in educational attainment has a strong positive effect on economic growth; -Stereotyping needs to be addressed in educational choices at school from a young age. For example, adapt teaching strategies and material to increase engagement of boys in reading and of girls in maths and science; encourage more girls to follow science, engineering and maths courses in higher education and seek employment in these fields; -Good and affordable childcare is a key factor for better gender equality in employment. But change also has to happen at home as the bulk of housework and caring is left to women in many countries. Policy can support such change, for example, through parental leave policies that explicitly include fathers. -Support policies for women-owned enterprises need to target all existing firms, not just start-ups and small enterprises. Equal access to finance for male and female entrepreneurs needs to be assured.

Labour market developments and their significance for VET in Germany: An overview

Article

Oct 2015
Res Comp Int Educ

Christian Ebner

The German labour market has seen substantial structural changes, especially over the past decades: there has been a major shift in labour market policy, the service industry is booming and skills requirements have changed dramatically. This article discusses these trends, offering an empirical analysis of the extent to which the German dual VET system is prepared to meet them. For this purpose, the article explores representative data for Germany and looks at the labour market integration of dual VET graduates. The basic assumption is that a mismatch between the dual VET system and the labour market will also become evident at the micro level of individuals. The results show that dual VET graduates enjoy far better protection against unemployment than people without a vocational training qualification. Likewise, they are far less likely to work in temporary employment. The dual VET system thus functions as a ‘safety net’. At the same time, however, the earnings of dual VET graduates are markedly lower than those of higher education graduates. The article concludes by discussing some of the future challenges and opportunities facing the dual VET system.

Handbooks of Sociology and Social Research

Article

Jan 2003

The effects of family policy on maternal labor supply: Combining evidence from a structural model and a quasi-experimental approach

Article

Jul 2015
LABOUR ECON

Parental leave and subsidized child care are prominent examples of family policies supporting the reconciliation of family life and labor market careers for mothers. In this paper, we combine different empirical strategies to evaluate the employment effects of these policies for mothers with young children. In particular we estimate a structural labor supply model and exploit quasi-experimental variation from a parental leave reform in Germany. Our findings suggest that a combination of parental leave benefits and subsidized child care leads to sizable employment effects of mothers.

Developments in women's labor force participation

Article

Sep 1997
Mon Labor Rev

H.V. Hayghe

During the early 1990's, there was no growth in women's labor force participation rates; since 1994 however, the rate has edged upward, with mothers accounting for most of the rise.

The intricate geographies of gender ideologies in Germany

Article

Aug 2015
GEOFORUM

Peter Dirksmeier

Due to Germany’s recent history, the country represents a case that is unparalleled worldwide for regional differentiations of gender ideologies. The 40-year separation into one capitalist and one socialist state until 1990 is reflected in different wage-work policies toward women in the former GDR and FRG, which are mirrored by more conservative gender role attitudes in the western federal states and more liberal attitudes in the eastern federal states. Furthermore, this order is destabilized by an urban/rural differentiation that becomes apparent in an urbanized western part and a rural and sparsely populated eastern part. In international rural studies, such pastoral regions are coupled with a rural ideology of gender conservatism. The paper analyzes the present regional differentiation of gender ideologies in Germany with respect to this supposed intersection between socialist wage-work policies of including women in the labor force and conservative rural ideologies in the East and conservative male breadwinner policies and liberal urban ideologies in the West. The findings show, first, that the attitudinal dimension of gender ideologies is more moderate in the eastern federal states but that the behavioral dimension of work in the household is not. Second, for the urbanized western federal states, a rural ideology of gender conservatism is crucial, and it expresses itself in an imagined rurality. In the western federal states the self-description of the place of residence as rural has a significant effect on gender ideologies. Clearly, beyond the official categorization of the place of domicile as urban, suburban, or rural, only the imagining of rural living is able to predict conservative gender ideologies in the western part of Germany. Third, in terms of imagined rurality, the finding is interpreted as a structure of feeling that induces a transition of social experiences and attitudes from generation to generation and explains the still existing gap between the eastern and the western parts of Germany.

The Three Worlds of Welfare Capitalism.

Article

May 1991

The Rise and Decline of the Male Breadwinner Model: Institutional Underpinnings and Future Expectations

Article

Apr 2015

In this article, we provide a long-term East–West comparison of partnered women’s employment from the 1940s into the first decade of the new millennium in Germany, and focus on the nexus of gainful employment and family-related responsibilities in women’s lives. Based on an analysis of the institutionally and culturally shaped opportunity structures that define the conditions for partnered women’s employment, we identify distinct periods of support and derive hypotheses on cohort-specific developments. The empirical analysis largely confirms that a divergence between East and West German women’s employment patterns started as early as in the 1950s. East–West differences in labour market participation were strongest among women born around 1940. For successive cohorts of East and West German women, the employment patterns converged. Whereas the labour market participation of West German women gradually increased over time, the employment pattern of East German women adjusted to the West German pattern after unification, resulting in an increase of part-time employment and non-employment, in particular among mothers. The article concludes by discussing implications of these trends for the future of the male breadwinner model.

Modernization and Postmodernization: Cultural, Economic, and Political Change in 43 Societies

Book

Jan 1997
FOREIGN AFF

Inglehart Ronald

Destined for Equality: The Inevitable Rise of Women's Status

Article

Dec 1999

Women's Role in the German Democratic Republic and the State's Policy Toward Women

Article

Susanne Kranz

According to the theories of Marx, Engels, Bebel, and the political leaders of the GDR, the emancipation of women would be accomplished when the emancipation of the working class was realized. They further clarify the general view toward women in a socialist society; these ideas characterized the GDR and the general perception of women. The women's question was incorporated into the social question and the class struggle, and not distinguished as an individual aspect of gender relations. The question is how much equality women in the GDR had achieved and how emancipated the society, truly, was. My main focus is the analysis of the women's movement in East Germany, and whether an independent women's movement existed or not. The state's policy toward women was primarily aimed in the direction of mothers, and not toward women as women. Gradually, women began to realize that emancipation and equality meant more than employment and economic independence. Introduction "The degree of emancipation of women in every society is the natural standard for the general emancipation." This statement by one of the early utopian socialists, Charles Fourier (1772-1837), describes an important source of reflection on the conditions of societies past and present. According to the theories of the socialist thinkers such as Karl Marx, Friedrich Engels and August Bebel, and the political leaders of the GDR [German Democratic Republic], when the emancipation of society, i.e., of the working class, was realized, then the liberation of women would also be accomplished. The 'women's question,' that is, the issue of the social and political role of women under East German Socialism, was incorporated into the social question and the question of the class struggle. It was not distinguished as an individual aspect of gender relations. In addition, the 'women's question' seemed central because women appeared to have special needs. The primary concern is that women in the GDR as well as the entire society had achieved a certain kind of equality and emancipation which can only be seen within the specific context of socialism. But overall, the society and women were not much emancipated and ironically, women especially lacked feminist consciousness. The contradictory concept of feminism versus Marxism is a striking arena of concern and interest in looking at East German women's movements as well as the official policy of the communist party versus the reality of women's lives within society. This article examines how these contradictions actually increased throughout the existence of the German Democratic Republic. The theories of Karl Marx, Friedrich Engels, and August Bebel, 1 are essential because they provided the intellectual and ideological framework within which the 1 Susanne Kranz is a PhD student at the University of Leeds in the UK, Her email address is: hisskr@leeds.ac.uk .

A Long-Standing Demographic East–West Divide in Germany

Article

Jan 2016
POPUL SPACE PLACE

Over the last 25 years, a large number of studies have looked at the demographic differences between the previously divided eastern and western parts of Germany. The two regions have converged with respect to mortality and overall fertility levels. But in terms of family formation behaviour, differences remain. Non-marital births are the norm in eastern Germany, whereas they are still the exception in western Germany. Various explanations for these differences have been offered, with the most persuasive linking policy and socio-economic conditions in eastern and western Germany after 1945 with the persistence of regional patterns. Here, we show that the non-marital fertility divide pre-dates the 1945 division of Germany. Indeed, already in the early 20th century, the areas of eastern Germany that made up the German Democratic Republic had, on average, roughly twice the non-marital fertility levels of western Germany. In the first part of our paper, we document the history of this long-standing pattern and provide a set of explanations for its emergence. In the second part, we apply multi-level models to birth register data to explore whether East–West differences in non-marital fertility would remain even under scenarios such as convergence in secularisation levels and economic conditions. The persistence of the past suggests that explanations for family formation differences between eastern and western Germany based solely on the most recent and current conditions are incomplete, and that convergence, if it occurs at all, will take longer than anticipated, perhaps lasting many decades or more. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Rising Tide: Gender Equality and Cultural Change Around the World

Book

Apr 2003

The twentieth century gave rise to profound changes in traditional sex roles. This study reveals how modernization has changed cultural attitudes towards gender equality and analyzes the political consequences. It systematically compares attitudes towards gender equality worldwide, comparing almost 70 nations, ranging from rich to poor, agrarian to postindustrial. This volume is essential reading to gain a better understanding of issues in comparative politics, public opinion, political behavior, development and sociology. © Ronald Inglehart and Pippa Norris 2003 and Cambridge University Press, 2009.

Labor Markets, Breadwinning, and BeliefsHow Economic Context Shapes Men's Gender Ideology

Article

Apr 2009

Abundant research has found that men's economic status shapes their gender ideology such that men who are breadwinners are less likely to endorse egalitarian ideology than men in nontraditional arrangements. This article investigates how the association between men's breadwinning status and gender ideology is influenced by the institutional arrangements of different types of labor markets. Rigid labor markets support men's ability to be breadwinners in the long term, whereas flexible labor markets provide men with more frequent, but less permanent, experiences of nontraditional arrangements. The authors anticipate that breadwinner status will have stronger effects on men's gender ideology in rigid labor markets because men can expect less fluctuation in their employment situations in those contexts. Results from a multilevel analysis of 27 countries indeed demonstrate that individual men's economic dependency on their partners influences men's gender egalitarian ideology more strongly in rigid labor markets than in flexible markets.

Generational Changes in Gender-Role Attitudes: Britain in a Cross-National Perspective

Article

Aug 1996
SOCIOLOGY

This paper compares the nature and extent of change in gender-role attitudes in Britain with other nations. We hypothesise that while many of the changes would be similar across nations reflecting, in part, the increased importance of women's labour-force participation, the pace and sources of attitudinal change would be different in the different nations. Comparisons are made over the last decade between Britain, the United States and Germany. Using data from the International Social Survey Programme (ISSP) additional comparisons over a shorter time period are made with Ireland, the Netherlands and Italy. Data from the General Social Surveys of America (GSS) and Germany (ALLBUS) reveal that there has been a marked liberal shift in attitudes, with more of the change occurring within cohorts than through the process of cohort succession. In Britain, data from the British Social Attitudes surveys (BSA) reveal a slower and less consistent pace of change, with evidence of a growing gender difference in beliefs that maternal employment may be harmful to children.

Work and Family in Women's Lives in the German Democratic Republic

Article

Nov 1996
WORK OCCUPATION

Heike Trappe

This article examines the impact of changing social policies on strategies to balance family responsibilities and employment used by women who were living in the German Democratic Republic (GDR). New life-history data for 4 birth cohorts that cover the different periods of this socialist society's 40-year existence allow comprehensive analyses of women's life courses. In the context of changing levels of support to combine work and family, the article attempts to show what strategies women used and how their chances for upward mobility were influenced by these adjustments. Systematic differences regarding labor force participation, quality of work, and adaptations to family demands are revealed among women who entered the labor force and formed their families at different times. The considerable change in women's employment patterns can only be explained by taking into account the social policies that were embedded in women's opportunity structures.

Inequality in Income: a Comparison of East and West Germans Before Reunification and During Transition

Article

Nov 1994
J EUR SOC POLICY

This article analyses the income distribution of East Germany at the time of reunification with West Germany, the pertod 1990 to 1993. Using data from the German Socio-Economic Panel Study (GSOEP), we compare the situ ation in East Germany on the eve of the union to that in West Germany. We then analyse the change of relative income positions of certain social groups — such as lone-parent households and the aged - in the three years following reunification. The article also provides a dis cussion of the measurement problems that arise when comparing income distributions across nations and across time. The data proves that the general income distribution in East Germany — starting from a very low level of inequality — is slowly approaching West German standards. It appears that persons in similar socio-demographic groups are in com parable relative income positions in both regions. In East Germany unemployment is of increasing importance as a source of decline in economic well-being .

Four Decades of Trends in Attitudes Toward Family Issues in the United States

Article

Nov 2001
J MARRIAGE FAM

This article examines trends in family attitudes and values across the last 4 decades of the 20th century, with particular emphasis on the past 2 decades. The article focuses on attitudes toward a wide range of family issues, including the roles of men and women, marriage, divorce, childlessness, premarital sex, extramarital sex, unmarried cohabitation, and unmarried childbearing. More generally, the article considers trends in 3 broad contemporary values: freedom; equality; and commitment to family, marriage, and children. Five data sets are used for the article: Monitoring the Future, General Social Survey, International Social Science Project, Intergenerational Panel Study of Parents and Children, and the National Survey of Families and Households. These 5 data sets reveal substantial and persistent long-term trends toward the endorsement of gender equality in families, which may have plateaued at very high levels in recent years. There have also been important and continuing long-term trends toward individual autonomy and tolerance toward a diversity of personal and family behaviors as reflected in increased acceptance of divorce, premarital sex, unmarried cohabitation, remaining single, and choosing to be childless. At the same time, marriage and family life remain important in the cultural ethos, with large and relatively stable fractions of young people believing that marriage and family life are important and planning marriage and the bearing and rearing of children.

Influences on Gender-Role Attitudes during the Transition to Adulthood

Article

Jun 2000

We use longitudinal data for a nationally representative sample of U.S. youth to study intergenerational and intragenerational influences on the gender-role attitudes of young women and men. We find that during the period between 1979 and 1987 young women had more egalitarian attitudes than young men but that the gender-role attitudes of both sexes were similarly influenced by family background. Although there was considerable stability in gender-role attitudes during the transition to adulthood, both sexes experienced change in an egalitarian direction with age. Young men experienced more change than young women, making their attitudes more similar to those of young women over time. Gender-role attitudes were also influenced by particular experiences and role changes during the transition to adulthood, including the continuation of education, movement into and out of the labor force, entry into marriage, and becoming a parent.

Variance function regressions for studying inequality

Article

Aug 2009
SOCIOL METHODOL

Regression-based studies of inequality model only between-group differences, yet often these differences are far exceeded by residual inequality. Residual inequality is usually attributed to measurement error or the influence of unobserved characteristics. We present a model, called variance function regression, that includes covariates for both the mean and variance of a dependent variable. In this model, the residual variance is treated as a target for analysis. In analyses of inequality, the residual variance might be interpreted as measuring risk or insecurity. Variance function regressions are illustrated in an analysis of panel data on earnings among released prisoners in the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth. We extend the model to a decomposition analysis, relating the change in inequality to compositional changes in the population and changes in coefficients for the mean and variance. The decomposition is applied to the trend in U.S. earnings inequality among male workers, 1970 to 2005.

Where does social change come from?

Article

Jan 1992

Glenn Firebaugh

Many discussions, academic and otherwise, implicitly assume that public opinion changes because opinions change. This ignores the possibility that public opinion changes because publics change. In this paper I show how, by modifying existing component-difference methods, the proximate sources of societal change - actual individual change versus change in publics (turnover) - can be separated using repeated survey data. The method is applied to change in gender role attitudes in the United States, using 1972–1988 data from the General Social Surveys. Both components have contributed substantially to the trend away from traditional attitudes. Yet there is an important difference: Population turnover has contributed steadily to the trend, whereas the contribution of individual change has been erratic from survey to survey.

Cohort Changes in the Level and Dispersion of Gender Ideology after German Reunification: Results from a Natural Experiment

Abstract

No full-text available

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