Between privilege and burden: Work past retirement age in Germany and the UK

The paper investigates paid work beyond retirement age in Germany and the UK. This comprises a combination of work, payments from a pension (or several pensions) and old age which is counter to the assumed finality of retirement and the corresponding standardised passage from end of work into retirement and receipt of a pension. Paid work beyond retirement has not only become more frequent in the last decade, but is also part of heated policy debates on pension reform. The paper first gives a comprehensive literature review, presenting empirical results, conceptual differentiations and theoretical approaches to post-retirement work from previous studies. A heuristic model summarises the most important individual and structural influences on post-retirement work. Thereafter, the most important features of the pension systems and labour markets in Germany and in the UK are outlined. In terms of institutional settings, the countries represent opposing cases whose comparison helps to better understand the institutional factors shaping employment beyond retirement age. In the second half of the paper, data from the German Ageing Survey (DEAS) and the English Longitudinal Study of Ageing (ELSA) serve to empirically describe paid work beyond retirement age. In addition to the demographic and regional distribution of postretirement work, particular attention is paid to the socio-economic status of people working past retirement, in comparison to those who do not work. Other important areas studied are non-paid activities of post-retirement workers, their health and living arrangements as well as their life satisfaction and subjective reasons for employment. On the one hand, the results of the empirical description confirm the privileged situation of many post-retirement workers who, for example, tend to be more highly educated and have better health than their non-working counterparts. On the other hand, some post-retirement workers work for financial reasons and in the low-paid service sector. There are some indications that the latter group, who experience post-retirement work more often as a burden, or at least in a more ambivalent way, is larger in the UK than in Germany, mainly for institutional and structural reasons.Dieses Arbeitspapier beschäftigt sich mit Erwerbsarbeit jenseits der Rentengrenze in Deutschland und Großbritannien. Mit Erwerbsarbeit jenseits der Rentengrenze ist eine Kombination von bezahlter Arbeit, Rentenzahlungen und Alter gemeint, die im Kontrast steht zur Endgültigkeit des Ruhestands und dem entsprechenden standardisierten Übergang aus der Erwerbsarbeit in den Ruhestand und zum Empfang von Rentenzahlungen. Erwerbsarbeit jenseits der Rentengrenze ist in den letzten zehn Jahren nicht nur häufiger geworden; sie wird auch intensiv debattiert, etwa im Rahmen von Diskussionen zu Rentenreformen. Das Arbeitspapier gibt zunächst einen umfassenden Literaturüberblick, der bisherige empirische Ergebnisse, konzeptuelle Differenzierungen und theoretische Annäherungen an Erwerbsarbeit jenseits der Rentengrenze einschließt. Ein heuristisches Modell fasst die wichtigsten individuellen und strukturellen Einflüsse auf Arbeit jenseits der Rentengrenze zusammen. Anschließend werden sowohl die Rentensysteme als auch die Arbeitsmarktstrukturen Deutschlands und Großbritanniens in groben Zügen beschrieben. Was den institutionellen Rahmen angeht, repräsentieren die beiden Länder zwei gegensätzliche Fälle, deren Vergleich dazu beiträgt, die institutionellen Faktoren zu verstehen, welche Erwerbsarbeit jenseits der Rentengrenze prägen. In der zweiten Hälfte des Arbeitspapiers werden Daten des Deutschen Alters-Surveys (DEAS) und der English Longitudinal Study of Ageing dazu genutzt, Erwerbsarbeit jenseits der Rentengrenze empirisch zu beschreiben. Über die soziodemographischen Charakteristika von erwerbstätigen Rentnern und die regionale Verteilung dieser Form von Arbeit hinaus wird dem sozio-ökonomischem Status erwerbstätiger Rentner im Vergleich zu anderen Rentnern besondere Aufmerksamkeit gewidmet. Außerdem werden unbezahlte Aktivitäten erwerbstätiger Rentner, ihre Gesundheit und Lebensformen sowie ihre Lebenszufriedenheit und die subjektiven Gründe für ihre Arbeit beschrieben. Einerseits bestätigen die Ergebnisse der Beschreibung die eher privilegierte Situation erwerbstätiger Rentner, die beispielsweise eine bessere Bildung aufweisen und gesünder sind als nicht-erwerbstätige Rentner. Andererseits gibt es erwerbstätige Rentner, die aus finanziellen Gründen und im schlechtbezahlten Dienstleistungssektor arbeiten. Einiges deutet darauf hin, dass die letztgenannte Gruppe, die ihre Arbeit häufiger als eine Bürde oder zumindest ambivalent erlebt, in Großbritannien größer ist als in Deutschland, und zwar vor allem aus institutionellen und strukturellen Gründen

Supporting second language acquisition of bilingual preschool children through professionalization of caregivers in specialized preschool programs

The aim of the present study was to investigate the effectiveness of a training program on language support strategies and dialogic reading for caregivers working in specialized preschool programs. These programs serve children without a regular childcare place who grow up with one or more languages other than German as the environmental language. Recent studies investigating the development of children attending these programs found only moderate improvements in German receptive language skills, while language support quality of the programs was rated as average. We assessed receptive second language competencies in vocabulary and grammar of n = 48 children and language support competencies of n = 15 caregivers using an interventional pre-posttest design. Receptive vocabulary skills of children supported by trained caregivers (intervention group) were compared to children supported by untrained caregivers (control group, n = 43). We found that both children’s and caregivers’ competencies increased from pre- to posttest, whereas the control group’s receptive vocabulary skills did not increase noticeably. The caregivers’ language support competencies influenced the increase of children’s receptive grammar but not vocabulary skills. The comparison between the intervention group and control group consistently showed no effect of group membership on children’s receptive vocabulary acquisition over time. Since the control group data came from a secondary analysis, only receptive vocabulary skills could be compared. The preliminary results of our study suggest that a caregivers’ training on language support strategies and dialogic reading in everyday educational situations support bilingual children’s grammar acquisition

Ditransitive structures in child language acquisition: an investigation of production and comprehension in children aged five to seven

The aim of the present study was to investigate the acquisition of ditransitive structures beyond production. We conducted an elicitation task (production) and a picture-sentence matching task measuring accuracy and response times (comprehension). We examined German five-to seven-year-old typically developing children and an adult control group. Our data showed quasi-perfect performance in comprehension in adults and in those children who had already mastered ditransitives productively. However, children who had not yet mastered the production of ditransitives showed comprehension abilities preceding production abilities. Unlike adults, in the comprehension task children did not react explicitly before the end of the auditory stimulus

The bilingual native speaker competence: evidence from explicit and implicit language knowledge using elicited production, sentence-picture matching, and pupillometry

The present pilot study investigated potential effects of early and late child bilingualism in highly proficient adult bilinguals. It has been shown that some early second language (eL2) speakers stagnate when it comes to complex linguistic phenomena and that they display subtle difficulties in adulthood. Therefore, we have chosen the complex structure of double object constructions. We investigate the long-term achievement in a combined-method approach using elicited production, explicit comprehension by sentence-picture matching and a measure of implicit linguistic knowledge, namely pupillometry. This eye tracking method is suitable for measuring implicit reactions of the pupils to unexpected or ungrammatical stimuli. For production, ditransitive structures were elicited by means of a game. For comprehension, a sentence-picture matching task was conducted. Two pictures were shown on a monitor that were equal with respect to the involved objects, but the thematic roles of direct and indirect objects were interchanged. Items were controlled for length, gender, animacy, semantic likelihood and word order. Reaction times and accuracy scores were analyzed. To this end, N = 18 bilingual adult speakers of German (+ another language, mean age: 26.5) with different ages of onset participated in this study and were compared to N = 26 monolingual German adult speakers (mean age 23.9). All participants had a proficiency of German above 89% correct in placement and cloze tests. Results show fully comparable productive and comprehensive competencies in monolinguals and bilinguals including the reaction times in the sentence-picture matching task and a word order effect on the reaction times in both groups. In the pupillometry task, we found monolinguals and bilinguals to be sensitive to differing conditions with respect to grammatical and ungrammatical utterances. However, we find between group differences in pupil dilations in that bilinguals react differently to strong grammatical violations than monolinguals. These results are discussed with respect to the term of native speaker competence and the variation within both groups

Erwerbstätigkeit jenseits der Rentengrenze: Erfahrung und Deutung erwerbsbezogener Handlungsspielräume im Alter

"Der Artikel untersucht und vergleicht die Gründe für Erwerbstätigkeit jenseits der Rentengrenze aus der subjektiven Perspektive von arbeitenden Rentnerinnen und Rentnern sowie von Expertinnen und Experten, die sozialpolitische Akteure vertreten. Grundlage sind in Deutschland und Großbritannien geführte qualitative Interviews. Arbeitende Ältere schildern eine Vielzahl von Gründen für ihre Tätigkeit, besonders Freude an der Arbeit und soziale Kontakte. Finanzielle Motive fürs Arbeiten sind vielfältig und lassen sich nicht auf finanzielle Not reduzieren. Insgesamt überwiegt die positive Erfahrung der Tätigkeit vor dem Hintergrund des entpflichteten Ruhestands, der durch die Erwerbstätigkeit aktiv gestaltet wird. Die Expertinnen und Experten ordnen die von ihnen ausgemachten vielfältigen Gründe für Arbeit im Rentenalter, dichotomisieren sie teilweise (in Zwang oder Wahl) und quantifizieren ihr Vorkommen. Dies ist die Grundlage für ihre Wertungen und politischen Folgerungen. Wir diskutieren die Unterschiede zwischen den Perspektiven der arbeitenden Älteren und der Fachleute im Kontext der institutionellen Formierung von Handlungsspielräumen, der Deutung individuellen Handelns in individualisierten Gesellschaften und der an Aktivierung orientierten Neuverhandlung der Lebensphase Alter. Erwerbstätigkeit im Rentenalter wird bisher kaum als Zwang und Folge eingeschränkter finanzieller Handlungsspielräume erfahren. Die durch die Fachleute vorgenommene Gleichsetzung von finanziellen Motiven und Notwendigkeit des Arbeitens findet sich in den Sichtweisen der Älteren kaum. Gleichzeitig übersehen die Fachleute Handlungseinschränkungen der Älteren, die diese in Hinblick auf ihre Arbeitsgelegenheiten ausmachen. Sowohl in den Deutungen der Fachleute als auch in denen der arbeitenden Älteren schlagen sich auf Aktivierung zielende Neudeutungen des Ruhestands nieder, die neue soziale Ungleichheiten mit sich bringen könnten." (Autorenreferat

Chancen und Grenzen einer technologiebasierten Risikodiagnostik

Die Diagnostik sprachlicher Beeinträchtigungen im Kindesalter stellt im Kontext der Mehrsprachigkeit eine Herausforderung dar, da bisher keine effektiven Verfahren zur frühzeitigen und somit präventiven Erkennung sprachlicher Beeinträchtigungen für mehrsprachige Kinder existiert. Dieses Defizit besteht vor allem, da herkömmliche diagnostische Ansätze auf explizite sprachliche Reaktionen angewiesen sind, wodurch eine frühzeitige Anwendung bei bilingualen Kindern nahezu unmöglich wird. In diesem Kontext erweist sich die Pupillometrie als vielversprechende Alternative, da sie implizite kindliche Reaktionen auf Sprache erfasst, ohne auf explizite Sprachhandlungen angewiesen zu sein. Bisherige Studien konnten zeigen, dass die Pupillometrie erfolgreich zur Untersuchung der Sprachverarbeitung bei prä- und frühverbalen Personengruppen eingesetzt werden kann. Der vorliegende Beitrag stellt eine Studie vor, die sich auf bilingual aufwachsende Kinder im Alter von zwei bis sechs Jahren (N = 51) mit begrenztem Deutschkontakt von weniger als zwölf Monaten bezieht. Das Hauptziel besteht darin, die Sensibilität dieser Kinder für grammatische Verstöße in ihrer Zweitsprache Deutsch zu überprüfen, um Rückschlüsse auf mögliche Beeinträchtigungen auf Sprachverarbeitungsebene ziehen zu können. Trotz ihrer vielversprechenden Anwendungsmöglichkeiten birgt die Methodik der Pupillometrie auch Herausforderungen. Diese werden in dieser Studie näher erläutert, um anderen Forschungsgruppen Hinweise für eine mögliche zukünftige Arbeit mit dieser innovativen Methode geben zu können.The diagnosis of developmental language disorders in childhood presents a challenge in the context of bi- and multilingualism, as to date, there are no effective procedures for the early and thus preventive identification of language impairments for bilingual children. This deficit exists primarily because conventional diagnostic approaches rely on explicit linguistic responses which making early application with bilingual children almost impossible. In this context, pupillometry proves to be a promising alternative, as it captures implicit child responses to language without relying on explicit speech acts. Previous studies have shown that pupillometry can be successfully used to investigate language processing in pre-verbal and early verbal groups. This paper presents a study focusing on bilingual growing children aged two to six years (N = 51) with limited contact to German of less than twelve months. The main aim is to examine these children's sensitivity to grammatical violations in their second language German to draw conclusions about possible disorders at the language processing level. Despite its promising potential, the methodology of pupillometry also poses challenges. These are explained in more detail in this study to be able to give other research groups indications for possible future work with this innovative method

Supporting second language acquisition of bilingual preschool children through professionalization of caregivers in specialized preschool programs

The aim of the present study was to investigate the effectiveness of a training program on language support strategies and dialogic reading for caregivers working in specialized preschool programs. These programs serve children without a regular childcare place who grow up with one or more languages other than German as the environmental language. Recent studies investigating the development of children attending these programs found only moderate improvements in German receptive language skills, while language support quality of the programs was rated as average. We assessed receptive second language competencies in vocabulary and grammar of n = 48 children and language support competencies of n = 15 caregivers using an interventional pre-posttest design. Receptive vocabulary skills of children supported by trained caregivers (intervention group) were compared to children supported by untrained caregivers (control group, n = 43). We found that both children’s and caregivers’ competencies increased from pre- to posttest, whereas the control group’s receptive vocabulary skills did not increase noticeably. The caregivers’ language support competencies influenced the increase of children’s receptive grammar but not vocabulary skills. The comparison between the intervention group and control group consistently showed no effect of group membership on children’s receptive vocabulary acquisition over time. Since the control group data came from a secondary analysis, only receptive vocabulary skills could be compared. The preliminary results of our study suggest that a caregivers’ training on language support strategies and dialogic reading in everyday educational situations support bilingual children’s grammar acquisition

The bilingual native speaker competence: evidence from explicit and implicit language knowledge using elicited production, sentence-picture matching, and pupillometry

The present pilot study investigated potential effects of early and late child bilingualism in highly proficient adult bilinguals. It has been shown that some early second language (eL2) speakers stagnate when it comes to complex linguistic phenomena and that they display subtle difficulties in adulthood. Therefore, we have chosen the complex structure of double object constructions. We investigate the long-term achievement in a combined-method approach using elicited production, explicit comprehension by sentence-picture matching and a measure of implicit linguistic knowledge, namely pupillometry. This eye tracking method is suitable for measuring implicit reactions of the pupils to unexpected or ungrammatical stimuli. For production, ditransitive structures were elicited by means of a game. For comprehension, a sentence-picture matching task was conducted. Two pictures were shown on a monitor that were equal with respect to the involved objects, but the thematic roles of direct and indirect objects were interchanged. Items were controlled for length, gender, animacy, semantic likelihood and word order. Reaction times and accuracy scores were analyzed. To this end, N = 18 bilingual adult speakers of German (+ another language, mean age: 26.5) with different ages of onset participated in this study and were compared to N = 26 monolingual German adult speakers (mean age 23.9). All participants had a proficiency of German above 89% correct in placement and cloze tests. Results show fully comparable productive and comprehensive competencies in monolinguals and bilinguals including the reaction times in the sentence-picture matching task and a word order effect on the reaction times in both groups. In the pupillometry task, we found monolinguals and bilinguals to be sensitive to differing conditions with respect to grammatical and ungrammatical utterances. However, we find between group differences in pupil dilations in that bilinguals react differently to strong grammatical violations than monolinguals. These results are discussed with respect to the term of native speaker competence and the variation within both groups

PiggyBac transposon tools for recessive screening identify B-cell lymphoma drivers in mice.

B-cell lymphoma (BCL) is the most common hematologic malignancy. While sequencing studies gave insights into BCL genetics, identification of non-mutated cancer genes remains challenging. Here, we describe PiggyBac transposon tools and mouse models for recessive screening and show their application to study clonal B-cell lymphomagenesis. In a genome-wide screen, we discover BCL genes related to diverse molecular processes, including signaling, transcriptional regulation, chromatin regulation, or RNA metabolism. Cross-species analyses show the efficiency of the screen to pinpoint human cancer drivers altered by non-genetic mechanisms, including clinically relevant genes dysregulated epigenetically, transcriptionally, or post-transcriptionally in human BCL. We also describe a CRISPR/Cas9-based in vivo platform for BCL functional genomics, and validate discovered genes, such as Rfx7, a transcription factor, and Phip, a chromatin regulator, which suppress lymphomagenesis in mice. Our study gives comprehensive insights into the molecular landscapes of BCL and underlines the power of genome-scale screening to inform biology