Employment orientation and economic activity of women in eastern and western Germany under changed basic social conditions

Abstract

"The number of western German women who wish to work has increased continuously since the mid-sixties irrespective of the economic development. In eastern Germany it remained at a high level in spite of continuously high unemployment. With the crisis on the labour market in the early nineties, however, it also became increasingly difficult for western German women to realise their wishes regarding employment, and in eastern Germany the competition on the labour market intensified at the expense of the women. The result was a stagnating labour force participation of women in western Germany compared with the 1980s, with an increasing shift from full-time to part-time work, high unemployment, and the decline in the employment of women in eastern Germany almost to the level in western Germany. These are the results of a survey carried out by the IAB in 1995 which included 4,059 women in western Germany and 2,683 in eastern Germany. In addition it could be seen that the higher labour force participation of better qualified women which was ascertained as early as the 1980s stabilised in all age groups in western Germany in the 1990s. As a result of the above-average sudden drops in employment among women without a vocational qualification and among those with skilled or semi-skilled worker qualifications, the employment opportunities of eastern German women were even more strongly determined by the level of vocational qualifications. The consequence of this was that eastern German women from lower income groups, whose financial necessity to work is the highest, succeed less and less in finding employment again.With the improved basic legal conditions since the beginning of 1991, the number of women on childcare leave increased clearly, especially in western Germany. The 'voluntary' retreat from working life in this phase of life was, however, frequently of a temporary nature: the vast majority of western German women and virtually all eastern German women wished to return to work following the period of childcare leave. Whereas to a large extent western German women succeeded in returning to work after childcare leave, more than a quarter of the eastern German women who gave up work between 1990 and 1992 in order to care for children were unemployed or seeking work at the time of the survey. Women in western Germany also more frequently had possibilities to maintain contact to their company via part-time or temporary work during their childcare leave than did women in eastern Germany." (Author's abstract, IAB-Doku) ((en))

Cite article

Engelbrech, G., Gruber, H. & Jungkunst, M. (1997): Erwerbsorientierung und Erwerbstätigkeit ost- und westdeutscher Frauen unter veränderten gesellschaftlichen Rahmenbedingungen. In: Mitteilungen aus der Arbeitsmarkt- und Berufsforschung, Vol. 30, No. 1, p. 150-169.