Do Regions Matter? Regional Differences in Female Labour-Market Participation in Germany

Abstract

Over the last twenty years, fundamental changes have taken place in the structure of employment in the highly developed countries. In particular, the number of jobs in manufacturing has decreased, but service employment has increased considerably. This has been associated with an increase in the number of women in paid work, as well as with regional shifts in growth and decline. However, despite these fundamental changes, in Germany the pattern of female labour-market participation has, in contrast, been stable over the last 100 years. The authors aim to develop an explanation for this contrast. Labour-market analysis does not provide an adequate explanation, for there is no simple relation between female participation in employment and the presence or absence of typical ‘female’ jobs. Rather, explanations lie outside the remit of current labour-market explanations. To this end the authors examine regional differences in the ‘modernisation’ of life-styles since industrialisation in the nineteenth century. Industrialisation progressively removed paid employment from the home, which became more purely a site for housework undertaken by women. However, this process varied regionally, and resulted in regionally specific female roles of dual orientation to paid work and unpaid housework. Female participation in the labour force, therefore, took different forms—and means different things—in different regions.

Regional fertility differences in western Germany: an overview of the literature and recent descriptive findings

“…Although Sackmann and Ha Èussermann (1994) found a relatively stable geographical pattern of female labour market participation in Germany over the past century ± which they interpret as a result of lags in the modernisation of lifestyles ± the differences between regions de®ned by their respective fertility level are negligible, if the aggregate labour force participation of women aged 20 to 29 is considered. 12 The same holds for the regional unemployment rate, where geographical disparities are most pronounced between the northern and southern Bundesla Ènder.…”

Socio‐historical paths of the male breadwinner model – an explanation of cross‐national differences1

“…Until now, the question of how differing geographical factors might explain why a particular family form established itself historically during the transition to modern society has hardly been empirically researched. One of the few exceptions is the regional comparative study by Sackmann and Häußermann (1994) of the historical development of women's employment. According to this study, the historical transition to the housewife family model in Germany did not occur uniformly, but rather was marked by delays and other variations within the country.…”

“…taking place in small firms and without great structural transformations, the employment of women was favoured more than in a transition marked by major industrial growth. This was due, in their explanation, to the fact that women in general have much greater chances of finding employment in small enterprises than in large ones which are usually based on the employment of men (Häußermann and Sackmann 1994). Thus the variation in economic development could account for the differences in the employment of women, and with that also in the forms of the family observed.…”

Adoption Patterns of Occupational Pensions in Germany

“…Women's aspirations have been profoundly different in the East, and they prefer financial independence to staying at home (Rosenfeld et al, 2004). By the same token, the women in the East are expected to time their enrolment even earlier than women in the West (hypothesis 4), Similarly, fernale roles within the society differ between Soutb and the North of the country (Sackmann andHäussermann, 1994, page 1383), Women return to their jobs after maternity leave more often in the South (Bayern and Baden-Württemberg), meaning that women aim for paid work and financial independence in the North less often than in the South, Therefore, as a part of hypothesis 4, the North -South difference is tested: women are expected to enrol in the South earlier than women in the North, 2.4 Expected relationships between employers' and employees' decisions Employee take-up also depends on the timing of employer adoptions. Technically, it takes time for the employer to adopt a product; individual adoptions can only ''* Price levels in cities are usually higher too, but this does not ofTset overall difference in purchasing power (GfK, 2010).…”