was an assistant professor at Northwestern University and before that a postdoctoral fellow at the Carolina Population Center at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Witte's areas of interest include the sociology of the Internet, economy and society, and research methods. Witte was the principal investigator for the National Geographic Society's Web-based survey, Survey2000, and is principal investigator for the National Science Foundation-funded follow-up study, Survey2001.

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Standard-Nutzungsbedingungen:Die Dokumente auf EconStor dürfen zu eigenen wissenschaftlichen Zwecken und zum Privatgebrauch gespeichert und kopiert werden.Sie dürfen die Dokumente nicht für öffentliche oder kommerzielle Zwecke vervielfältigen, öffentlich ausstellen, öffentlich zugänglich machen, vertreiben oder anderweitig nutzen.Sofern die Verfasser die Dokumente unter Open-Content-Lizenzen (insbesondere CC-Lizenzen) zur Verfügung gestellt haben sollten, gelten abweichend von diesen Nutzungsbedingungen die in der dort genannten Lizenz gewährten Nutzungsrechte. POST-WORLD WAR II GERMANY has provided social scientists with a unique opportunity to study social change. At the end of the war a single nation with a common culture was divided. Two distinct political entities undertook the process of reconstruction, each guided by its own set of ideological principles. Now, after 40 years of separation, East (the German Democratic Republic) and West (the Federal Republic of Germany) are united as the Federal Republic of Germany. Political and economic unification were quickly achieved; the Berlin Wall fell in November 1989, the West German Mark was adopted as the common currency in July 1990, and formal political unification followed in October of the same year. Terms of use: Documents inThe social unification of Germany will take far longer, however. The integration and assimilation of the two populations cannot simply be proclaimed or ratified. Instead it must be effected by altering the patterns of behavior of the millions of citizens of the unified German state. Any number of behavioral patterns-such as consumer choices, voting behavior, church attendance, and labor force participation-may be taken as indicators of the progress and course of social unification. But to obtain a first measure of the extent of social change, there is a certain appeal to considering fertility-one of the fundamental demographic processes touching countless aspects of social life.

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