Gerechtigkeitspolitische Handlungsfelder in Deutschland: Relevante Probleme angemessen angehen

Zentrale verteilungspolitische Indikatoren in Deutschland haben sich seit dem Jahr 2005 wieder normalisiert oder sogar strukturell verbessert. Dennoch bleiben mindestens drei zentrale Herausforderungen: Erstens gelingt es nicht, die Langzeitarbeitslo-sigkeit stärker als bereits geschehen zurückzuführen. Zweitens geht die längerfristige Spreizung von Markteinkommen nicht wieder stärker zurück und nimmt die Auf-stiegsmobilität nicht strukturell zu, obwohl die Arbeitslosigkeit sich seit 2005 nahezu halbiert hat. Drittens gibt es auch mehr als 25 Jahre nach der deutschen Wiedervereinigung zwischen West und Ost und auch innerhalb von Bundesländern immer noch sehr ausgeprägte regionale Disparitäten. Zur Verringerung der Langzeitarbeitslosigkeit sind daher mehr Mittel im Rechtskreis SGB II sachgerecht, etwa durch befristete Lohnsubventionen und eine höhere Betreuungsdichte, insbesondere bei Jugendli-chen. Zur Förderung der Aufstiegsmobilität ist insbesondere die Bildungs- und Qualifizierungspolitik gefordert, etwa durch die Stärkung der frühkindlichen Bildung, der Ganztagsschulqualität und der Förderinfrastruktur sowie die Verbesserung der Anerkennung ausländischer Berufsabschlüsse und die Sprachförderung für Migranten. Zur Verminderung der regionalen Disparitäten sollte die Regionalpolitik mit anderen Programmen (Bildung, Städtebau, Gründungsförderung) verzahnt werden, die digitale Infrastruktur rasch ausgebaut und die Regionalförderung in Ostdeutschland auf Regionen mit stark unterdurchschnittlichen Lebensverhältnissen konzentriert werden.Central distributional indicators in Germany have re-normalized since the year 2005 or even improved structurally. Nevertheless, at least three key challenges remain: Firstly, the reduction of long-term unemployment does not keep up pace with average decline in unemployment. Secondly, the long-term upward mobility does not increase substantially although unemployment has almost halved since 2005. Thirdly, even more than 25 years after German reunification there are still very pronounced regional between West and East and also within the federal states. In order to reduce long-term unemployment, therefore more funds are appropriate in the basic income scheme. To foster upward mobility, education and qualification policies such as to strengthen early-childhood education, full-day schooling quality and support infrastructure, improving the recognition of foreign professional qualifications and language support for migrants are crucial. In order to reduce regional disparities, regional policy should be interlinked with other programs (education, urban development, start-ups), digital infrastructures should be expanded rapidly, and regional funding in Eastern Germany should be concentrated on regions with sub-average living conditions

Flexible Work Time in Germany: Do Workers Like it and How Have Employers Exploited it Over the Cycle?

After describing qualitatively the increasingly flexible organization of work hours in Germany, I turn to the German Socio-Economic Panel to quantify practices and trends, and assess their effects on workers and employers. Measuring flexibility as the extent to which overtime is compensated with time off, and hence receives no overtime premium, I show that hourly{paid workers have undergone a regime shift towards more flexibility since 1984, while salaried workers have maintained an already high level of flexibility. I find weak evidence that flexibility causes workers to be slightly less satisfied with their work and more satisfied with their leisure. Over the boom and bust cycle of 2004-2009, I find that for hourly-paid workers in manufacturing, paid and unpaid overtime hours were equally cyclical, but that the cycle for unpaid overtime led the cycle for paid overtime. The results suggest that while the new practices do free employers to make more cyclical adjustments in hours, they have not eliminated the need for adjustments in paid overtime. I identify as constraints ceilings on cumulated overtime hours to be compensated with time off and the window within which the compensation in time off must occur

A New Color in the Picture: The Impact of Educational Fields on Fertility in Western Germany

The extensive research on the impact of educational attainment on fertility behavior has been expanded by a new dimension. According to these recent findings, not only the level but also the field of education has to be taken into account. The field of education determines a great deal about labor market options and influences opportunities to combine employment and family life. The question this paper aims to answer is: How does the educational field influence the transition to parenthood of women and men in Western Germany? The German Socio Economic Panel (1984-2010) provides the data. Discrete time event history models are applied to examine the impact of the field of education on the transition to parenthood, looking at the time after graduation until a first child is born. Educational fields are grouped according to their most salient characteristic with regard to the share of women, the occupational specificity, the share of public-sector employment, and the share of part-time employment among people educated in the field. The models take the educational level into account and control for marital status, episodes of educational enrollment, and migration background. The results show that educational fields matter for the transition to a first birth only for women. For men, the results do not show a significant impact of educational fields on the transition rates to parenthood. However, they point at the importance of the educational level for the probability of men to become fathers. High transition rates are found among women educated in both female-dominated and male-dominated fields. The finding of low transition rates among women educated in public-sector fields come as a surprise, since, given the high workplace security in the public sector, they were expected to be among the women with high transition rates