Paid Work, the Family and Societal Formation of the Welfare State
- the German “Sozialstaat” in Rebuilding Process?


Research Object and Research Question:

The main interest of this project is to study whether or in which form a rebuilding process of the welfare state in the Federal Republic of Germany can be identified and characterized. In the course of the research, this question will be systematically investigated by paying particular attention to the family-household as linkage between the quasi-public sphere of production and the privat sphere of reproduction, in other words as coordination between two different logical principles of societal formation.

Research Program:

During the investigation, the ideas for the family-household or, more precisely, the ideas for family employment patterns in german social policies are to be analysed (continuity? change?) to identify a possible rebuilding process. The research begins with an analytical discussion of how the “male breadwinner model” functioned as the guiding idea for family employment pattern in german social policies. This will then be followed by a detailed analysis of the socio-political reforms with regard to labour market and family formation during the recent years in Germany as well as the parlimentary debates about these reforms to study whether or in which form a shift of the politically guiding idea for the family employment pattern has taken place.

Reference to the Framework of the Graduiertenlolleg:

In the discussion of the current development of the German welfare state most studies in comparative welfare state research concentrated on the relations between the state and the market, assuming the sphere of family reproduction to be uniform and stable. The socio-political coordination between the sphere of production and the sphere of reproduction was not programmatically included in the identification of a possible rebuilding process, wherefrom a “blind spot” came into being. In the course of the investigation this socio-political coordination will be analytically identified with the concept of family employment pattern in oder to broaden our knowledge about the development of the German “Sozialstaat”, an important Social Model in Europa.