Personalpolitik in schrumpfenden Kommunen

Endangered European Municipalities: A Systematic Outline of the Problem and Its Political Impact

“…The phenomenon of shrinking cities is not unusual or new and can be found in ancient times (Richter 2013: 21). For example, Bartl (2011) explains the shrinking of municipalities by the migration and aging of the population. The correlating decrease in population has an impact on municipal budgets.…”

“…On that account, these municipalities can go into debt, their development might deteriorate, and the services could be restricted, including health care. In extreme cases, municipalities would have no human resources for management and no candidates for elections (Bartl 2011). In Europe, case studies have been developed on this issue, mainly concerning German municipalities.…”

Germany: The public sector in the financial and debt crisis

“…Beamte were less affected than other employees because of the existence of strict dismissal protection. Furthermore, the local/municipal level suffered more from these cuts than the Land and federal level (Bartl, 2011; Keller, 2011). Improvements in the local infrastructure that had been introduced until the 1980s but proved more expensive than originally expected, were stopped.…”

Economisation of the Education System in Shrinking Regions? The Demographic Responsiveness of Education Demand and Supply at Different Levels of the Education System

“…Hence, the intervening variables proposed above based on theoretical considerations (inclusiveness, internal differentiation, and commodifi cation) have to be reconsidered with respect to results from other studies. Inclusiveness: While in Saxony-Anhalt the number of childcare centres was vulnerable to demographic decline because of a high participation rate, participation in childcare was significantly lower in Poland and West Germany (Bartl 2011b). Participation rates can be interpreted as informal expressions of normative expectations about standards of welfare services.…”

“…Later, in the posttransformation period, low numbers of children were offset by the introduction of a compulsory year of pre-schooling, and the system of general schools was even expanded (Kopycka 2013). In West Germany, attempts at the federal state level to modernise the traditionally conservative German welfare regime have recently led to extending childcare to children younger than 3, thus offsetting the effect of lower numbers of children aged 3 to 6 years in the general population (Bartl 2011b). Hence, low inclusiveness makes it less probable that fertility decline results in overcapacities only if normative aspirations rise at the same time -thus offsetting decline through rising participation rates.…”