Unjust Divergence in Earnings in Germany?

Since a court decided that bonuses paid to the former top management at Mannesmann AG were unjustifiable there has been widespread public discussion over fair pay in Germany. This has been against the background of big increases in the salaries paid to top executives at a time when the economy is sluggish and there is high unemployment. A special survey by the Socio-Economic Panel (SOEP) conducted by DIW Berlin in conjunction with Infratest Sozialforschung showed that many people feel top executives are too highly paid, and that the differences between their earnings and those of unskilled workers is not justifiable. Many, especially in eastern Germany, also feel that their own pay is unfairly low. Greater transparency would increase the acceptance of differentials that are otherwise seen as unjust.

Perceived Income Justice Depends on the Economy

At least half of all employees in Germany described their wages in all three survey years under consideration here - 2005, 2007, and 2009 - as just. Still, major changes occurred over this period in how people perceived their earnings. Data from the Socio- Economic Panel (SOEP) Study show that after an increase in income dissatisfaction in 2007, the percentage of the population who consider their income unjust has again decreased substantially in 2009 - at 30 percent - to 2005 levels. This suggests that in times of economic crisis, people are willing to lower their earnings expectations, while in times of economic growth - like the year 2007 - they expect to share in the benefits of increased prosperity. The analysis shows that it was mainly people in the low to medium income range and in particular skilled workers who perceived their net income as unjust, a perception that remained stable over time. This is partly due to the income taxes paid by these groups. In the upper income segment, in contrast, no negative effect of the income tax burden on perceived income justice is found. Finally, the results confirm previous studies indicating that even in a world in which everyone received the wages they subjectively perceived to be fair, income differences between men and women would still persist. Women's income expectations are significantly lower than men's - even within the individual occupational groups.Justice, SOEP, Inequality

The Justice of Earnings in Dual-Earner Households

The rise in female labor market participation and the growth of "atypical" employment arrangements has, over the last few decades, brought about a steadily decreasingpercentage of households in which the man is the sole breadwinner, and a rising percentage of dual-earner households. Against this backdrop, the present paper investigates the impact of household contexts in which the traditional male breadwinner model has been called into question on individuals' subjective evaluations of the equity or inequity of their personal earnings. In the first step, based on social production function theory, we derive three criteria used by individuals to evaluate the fairness or justice of their personal earnings: compensation for services rendered, coverage of basic needs, and the opportunity to earn social approval. In the second step, we apply considerations from household economics and new approaches from gender research to explain why men's and women's evaluations of justice are determined to a considerable degree by the specific situation within their household - for example, by the status and income relation between the two partners. The assumptions derived regarding gender-specific patterns in justice attitudes are then tested on data from the German Socio-Economic Panel Study (SOEP) from the year 2007. We find that, among women, the perceived justice of personal earnings depends much more strongly on the particular household context. At the same time, opportunities for social comparison within the household and the relation between the woman's personal income and that of her husband play central roles. Men's justice evaluations, in contrast, are determined to a much greater extent by whether their income allows them to conform to traditional gender norms and concepts of "masculinity", and by so doing, to gain social approval outside the household as well.

Mechanisms of social regulation change across colony development in an ant

abstract: Background Mutual policing is an important mechanism for reducing conflict in cooperative groups. In societies of ants, bees, and wasps, mutual policing of worker reproduction can evolve when workers are more closely related to the queen's sons than to the sons of workers or when the costs of worker reproduction lower the inclusive fitness of workers. During colony growth, relatedness within the colony remains the same, but the costs of worker reproduction may change. The costs of worker reproduction are predicted to be greatest in incipient colonies. If the costs associated with worker reproduction outweigh the individual direct benefits to workers, policing mechanisms as found in larger colonies may be absent in incipient colonies. Results We investigated policing behaviour across colony growth in the ant Camponotus floridanus. In large colonies of this species, worker reproduction is policed by the destruction of worker-laid eggs. We found workers from incipient colonies do not exhibit policing behaviour, and instead tolerate all conspecific eggs. The change in policing behaviour is consistent with changes in egg surface hydrocarbons, which provide the informational basis for policing; eggs laid by queens from incipient colonies lack the characteristic hydrocarbons on the surface of eggs laid by queens from large colonies, making them chemically indistinguishable from worker-laid eggs. We also tested the response to fertility information in the context of queen tolerance. Workers from incipient colonies attacked foreign queens from large colonies; whereas workers from large colonies tolerated such queens. Workers from both incipient and large colonies attacked foreign queens from incipient colonies. Conclusions Our results provide novel insights into the regulation of worker reproduction in social insects at both the proximate and ultimate levels. At the proximate level, our results show that mechanisms of social regulation, such as the response to fertility signals, change dramatically over a colony's life cycle. At the ultimate level, our results emphasize the importance of factors besides relatedness in predicting the level of conflict within a colony. Our results also suggest policing may not be an important regulatory force at every stage of colony development. Changes relating to the life cycle of the colony are sufficient to account for major differences in social regulation in an insect colony. Mechanisms of conflict mediation observed in one phase of a social group's development cannot be generalized to all stages.The electronic version of this article is the complete one and can be found online at: http://bmcevolbiol.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/1471-2148-10-32

Pilotstudie einer surveybasierten Verknüpfung von Personen- und Betriebsdaten: Durchführung sowie Generierung einer Betriebsstudie als nachgelagerte Organisationserhebung zur SOEP-Innovationsstichprobe 2007

In this paper, we compare different approaches to the generation of datasets linking employees and firms, and present the specific advantages and disadvantages of each method. We discuss in detail the employee-first method, which has only been investigated so far in the survey research in initial US studies. We show that for Germany, this method provides reasonably comprehensive and error-free data on individuals. Our analyses are based on the results of a follow-up study of firms that was first tested in a SOEP Pretest in the year 2007 on more than 300 employees. Our results also show that the data edition method provides a relatively easy means of considerably improving the quality of contact addresses obtained through an open-ended survey question. The quality and number of the firm contact data as well as the number of participating firms can be increased as well through improvements in the different phases of the generation process. Der Beitrag diskutiert hinsichtlich der Erstellung verknüpfter Datensätze von Arbeitnehmern und Betrieben unterschiedliche Vorgehensweisen und die damit verbundenen spezifischen Vor- und Nachteilen. Ausführlich wird dabei die employee-first-method vorgestellt, zu dem bislang in der Surveyforschung lediglich entsprechende Vorbildstudien aus den USA vorliegen. Es kann für Deutschland gezeigt werden, dass mit Hilfe dieser Methodik erstens die Angaben der Personen hinreichend vollständig und fehlerfrei sind. Die Analysen basieren auf den Ergebnissen einer nachgelagerten Erhebung von Betrieben, die im SOEP-Pretest im Jahr 2007 erstmals bei mehr als 300 Beschäftigten erprobt wurde. Hierzu Weiterhin zeigen die Ergebnisse, dass mittels der Methode der Datenedition relativ einfach eine beachtliche Verbesserung der Güte der durch offene Abfrage erhaltenen Betriebskontaktadressen erreicht werden. Die Güte und Anzahl der Nennungen der Betriebskontaktdaten ebenso wie die Anzahl der teilnehmenden Betriebe kann zudem durch eine Reihe an Verbesserungen in den unterschiedlichen Phasen des Generierungsprozesses gesteigert werden.German Socio-Economic Panel Study, SOEP, Linked Employer-Employee-Data

Gerechtigkeitsprobleme im Wohlfahrtsstaat: Besteuerung, wohlfahrtsstaatliche Transfers und die Gerechtigkeit des eigenen Erwerbseinkommens

The article discusses the conflict of goals between fair compensation for performance and equitable support based on need in modern welfare states, which is a subject of controversy in various disciplines. It answers the question of the extent to which this policy problem of modern welfare states, which is an issue at the macrosocial level, also creates individual perceptions of problems of equity. Based on survey results of a theory-driven supplemental survey of the longitudinal study of the German Socio-economic Panel (SOEP), it was investigated how employed persons evaluated their income with respect to the fairness of earnings and what effect welfare state interventions have. An important result of the analyses is the high proportion of persons who considered their earned income to be fair. Only a quarter of those employed in Germany consider their remuneration to be unfair. Thus it appears that the normative conflict of goals between fair compensation for performance and equitable support based on need described in the literature for the macrosocial level does not really exist at the individual level, as the article discusses theoretically with reference to new multidisciplinary work and also demonstrates empirically. An unexpected result of the analyses is that transfer payments by the government cannot compensate for perceptions of unfairness with regard to individual income; openly recognizable transfer payments may be seen as discriminatory.

Immer mehr Erwerbstätige empfinden ihr Einkommen als ungerecht

Seit einiger Zeit mehren sich die Stimmen, die für Deutschland eine "soziale Schieflage" konstatieren und im Namen sozialer Gerechtigkeit Korrekturen fordern. So haben die Reallöhne in den vergangenen Jahren stagniert, teilweise sind sie sogar zurückgegangen. Zugleich kann eine Zunahme von Einkommensungleichheit beobachtet werden. Diese Entwicklung spiegelt sich auch in der subjektiven Bewertung der eigenen Einkommensposition wider. Der Anteil derjenigen Erwerbstätigen, die sich ungerecht entlohnt fühlen, hat von rund 26 Prozent im Jahr 2005 auf rund 35 Prozent im Jahr 2007 zugenommen. In Westdeutschland war der Anstieg deutlich stärker als in Ostdeutschland. Vor allem bei den Beziehern mittlerer Einkommen verstärkt sich offenbar das Gefühl, ein ungerechtfertigt niedriges Einkommen zu erhalten. Die Analyse zeigt auch, dass individuell empfundene Ungerechtigkeit durchaus gesellschaftlich bedeutsame Konsequenzen haben kann. So weisen diejenigen, die sich ungerecht entlohnt fühlen, mehr krankheitsbedingte Fehltage auf als andere Beschäftigte.Justice, SOEP, Inequality

Risk-sensitive foraging and the evolution of cooperative breeding and reproductive skew

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Group formation and food sharing in animals may reduce variance in resource supply to breeding individuals. For some species it has thus been interpreted as a mechanism of risk avoidance. However, in many groups reproduction is extremely skewed. In such groups resources are not shared equally among the members and inter-individual variance in resource supply may be extreme. The potential consequences of this aspect of group living have not attained much attention in the context of risk sensitive foraging.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>We develop a model of individually foraging animals that share resources for reproduction. The model allows analyzing how mean foraging success, inter-individual variance of foraging success, and the cost of reproduction and offspring raising influence the benefit of group formation and resource sharing. Our model shows that the effects are diametrically opposed in egalitarian groups versus groups with high reproductive skew. For individuals in egalitarian groups the relative benefit of group formation increases under conditions of increasing variance in foraging success and decreasing cost of reproduction. On the other hand individuals in groups with high skew will profit from group formation under conditions of decreasing variance in individual foraging success and increasing cost of reproduction.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>The model clearly demonstrates that reproductive skew qualitatively changes the influence of food sharing on the reproductive output of groups. It shows that the individual benefits of variance reduction in egalitarian groups and variance enhancement in groups with reproductive skew depend critically on ecological and life-history parameters. Our model of risk-sensitive foraging thus allows comparing animal societies as different as spiders and birds in a single framework.</p

Gerechtigkeitsprobleme im Wohlfahrtsstaat: Besteuerung, wohlfahrtsstaatliche Transfers und die Gerechtigkeit des eigenen Erwerbseinkommens

The article discusses the conflict of goals between fair compensation for performance and equitable support based on need in modern welfare states, which is a subject of controversy in various disciplines. It answers the question of the extent to which this policy problem of modern welfare states, which is an issue at the macrosocial level, also creates individual perceptions of problems of equity. Based on survey results of a theory-driven supplemental survey of the longitudinal study of the German Socio-economic Panel (SOEP), it was investigated how employed persons evaluated their income with respect to the fairness of earnings and what effect welfare state interventions have. An important result of the analyses is the high proportion of persons who considered their earned income to be fair. Only a quarter of those employed in Germany consider their remuneration to be unfair. Thus it appears that the normative conflict of goals between fair compensation for performance and equitable support based on need described in the literature for the macrosocial level does not really exist at the individual level, as the article discusses theoretically with reference to new multidisciplinary work and also demonstrates empirically. An unexpected result of the analyses is that transfer payments by the government cannot compensate for perceptions of unfairness with regard to individual income; openly recognizable transfer payments may be seen as discriminatory. Der Beitrag arbeitet den in verschiedenen wissenschaftlichen Disziplinen kontrovers diskutierten Zielkonflikt zwischen Leistungs- und Bedarfsgerechtigkeit in modernen Wohlfahrtsstaaten heraus. Es wird dabei die Frage beantwortet, inwieweit dieses für die Makroebene der Gesellschaft durchaus bestehende Steuerungsproblem moderner Wohlfahrtsstaaten auch in der individuellen Wahrnehmung Gerechtigkeitsprobleme erzeugt. Anhand von Umfrageergebnissen einer theoriegeleiteten Zusatz-Erhebung der Längsschnittstudie Sozio-oekonomisches Panel (SOEP) wird untersucht, wie Erwerbstätige ihr Einkommen unter dem Aspekt der Lohngerechtigkeit bewerten und welche Bedeutung dabei wohlfahrtsstaatliche Eingriffe haben. Ein zentrales Ergebnis der Analysen stellt der vergleichsweise hohe Anteil derjenigen dar, die ihr Erwerbseinkommen als gerecht wahrnehmen. Lediglich ein Viertel der Erwerbstätigen beurteilen in Deutschland ihr Einkommen als ungerecht. Genauso scheint der in der Literatur für die Makroebene der Gesellschaft konstatierte normative Zielkonflikt zwischen Leistung- und Bedarfsgerechtigkeit auf der individuellen Ebene nicht wirklich zu bestehen, wie der Beitrag theoretisch unter Rückgriff auf neue multidisziplinäre Arbeiten diskutiert und auch empirisch zeigt. Ein nicht erwartetes Ergebnis der Analysen besteht darin, dass Transferzahlungen des Staates die individuellen Ungerechtigkeitsempfindungen im Hinblick auf das eigene Einkommen nicht kompensieren können; offen erkennbare Transferzahlungen werden möglicherweise als diskriminierend empfunden.Gerechtigkeit, Wohlfahrtsstaat, SOEP

Empfinden die Erwerbstätigen in Deutschland ihre Einkommen als gerecht?

In der sozial- und arbeitsmarktpolitischen Reformdebatte in Deutschland nimmt die Forderung nach einer Erhöhung der Ungleichheit der Einkommensverteilung zur Durchsetzung des Prinzips der Leistungsgerechtigkeit eine ebenso zentrale wie kontroverse Rolle ein. Die Vorschläge zielen etwa auf die Einführung eines Niedriglohnsektors, eine Senkung des Grundsicherungsniveaus sowie auf eine Verminderung der Steuerbelastung für Bezieher hoher Einkommen. Damit verbunden ist die Erwartung einer Besserung der wirtschaftlichen Lage in Deutschland. Im Rahmen seiner Langzeitstudie Sozio-oekonomisches Panel (SOEP) hat das DIW Berlin zum Jahresanfang 2005 allen Erwerbstätigen Fragen zur Bewertung der eigenen Erwerbseinkommen gestellt. Erste Ergebnisse liegen jetzt vor. Danach betrachten Personen mit höherem Einkommen ihr Nettoeinkommen ganz überwiegend als angemessen. Das Empfinden von Ungerechtigkeit bei der Entlohnung ist hingegen eher bei den unteren Einkommensgruppen anzutreffen. Auch die Frage des jeweiligen Arbeitszeitarrangements spielt eine wichtige Rolle bei der Beurteilung der Entlohnungsgerechtigkeit. Dort, wo der Betrieb vorschreibt, wann seine Beschäftigten zu arbeiten haben - und dies auch noch zu wechselnden Tageszeiten -, wird das Einkommen eher als ungerecht beurteilt; wenn die Beschäftigten selbst festlegen, wann sie arbeiten, ist dies weniger der Fall. Zeitautonomie scheint ein Substitut für höheres Einkommen zu sein.