A History Shared and Divided. East and West Germany Since the 1970s

(Rick Simeone) #1

SOCIAL SECURITY, SOCIAL INEQUALITY 225


however, were marked by a sharp discrepancy between their high ex-
pectations and the reality of their social situations. This meant that dis-
appointment with the German welfare state after reunifi cation was really
quite inevitable. Given the often tremendous demands that were made of
people over the course of this transition, it is rather surprising that the
overwhelming majority of East Germans believe that the Wende had a
positive eff ect on their own lives. Nonetheless, in retrospect, the socio-
political institutions of the GDR—in particular the health care system, the
childcare system, and the high level of job security—are aspects of state
socialism before its fateful demise that are still remembered in a particu-
larly positive light.^71



  1. Although it is by no means easy to outline the complex development
    of income distribution and the risk of job loss, it is even more complicated
    to tease out the factors feeding into social inequality as it changes over
    time. Despite the fact that inequalities are now much more dependent
    on individual decisions than in the past, the great majority of these dif-
    ferences are still tightly coupled with the key principles of a wage-based
    employment society and the system of social security associated with it.
    Indeed, the greatest risk of poverty in modern society was and will con-
    tinue to be unemployment. However, it is becoming increasingly more
    diffi cult to trace social inequality back to a few defi nitive dimensions of
    inequality, because its structure has acquired a number of diff erent lay-
    ers.^72 The distribution eff ects of the job market have been augmented by
    specifi c social stratifi cations such as ethnicity, as well as regrowth in the
    signifi cance of age-related diff erences and stronger regional variations
    that have appeared since 1990 (not only in the form of a slowly decreas-
    ing split between east and west, but also a growing gap between north
    and south). Simultaneously, social positions that are relevant in terms
    of inequality are no longer as tightly linked to specifi c social classes be-
    cause they are more heavily dependent on individual choices. As a re-
    sult, for example, the poverty risk of single-parent families is now spread
    across almost all income brackets. Moreover, the welfare state is still very
    much mixed up in constellations of social inequality in Germany. Patterns
    of inequality that are not directly linked to the job market have thereby
    come to play a greater role. The trajectory of sociopolitical integration in
    the new federal states points to the fact that the eff ects of timing, such as
    the ability to take advantage of welfare state programs under favorable
    conditions, is becoming more important, as the developments in early re-
    tirement regulations suggest. The growth in female employment and the
    erosion of the male breadwinner model have not entirely leveled existing
    gender-based inequalities. There is still a striking inequality in income
    distribution, for instance, due to industry-specifi c wage practices and the

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