European Media in the Digital Age: Analysis and Approaches by Richard Rooke

Author:Richard Rooke [Rooke, Richard]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Social Science, Media Studies
ISBN: 9781317866060
Google: xWsYAgAAQBAJ
Goodreads: 17128602
Publisher: Routledge
Published: 2013-11-04T13:11:17+00:00

DUAL EXCLUSION: UNEMPLOYMENT AND LOW INCOMES

Since the system transformation that put an end to the GDR-style employment society, unemployment and employment uncertainties have become daily risks. In families with three or more members, employment decreased between 1991 and 1995 while unemployment rose by 40 per cent. In the same period, the number of households headed by a woman without employment grew from 59 per cent to 64 per cent while households with an employed woman as head decreased from 41 per cent to 36 per cent. The number of households headed by an employed man also fell a little but remained high at 63 per cent.37 Families with children fared worst. Here, unemployment of the head of household increased by 30 per cent. In Brandenburg alone, 80,000 children lived in a family whose head was unemployed, an increase of 54 per cent from 1991.38

A survey conducted in the Saxony-Anhalt in 1993 pointed to the link between women's unemployment risk and their status as mothers. At the time, 23 per cent of women with children who were married or lived in a partnership were unemployed. Of the female lone parents, 35 per cent were unemployed. Women without children also faced an unemployment risk, but at a lower level. At the time, just one in ten single women without children and one in six women living in a partnership or marriage but without children were out of work.39 For 1992, Hölzler and Mächler recorded in their Sozialbericht that 17 per cent of women with children were unemployed compared to 11 per cent of women without children. Women with children under the age of three faced an even higher risk of unemployment, with 37 per cent out of work at the time.40 Regional statistics for Brandenburg confirm this unemployment risk. Between 1991 and 1995, female unemployment had risen by about half; unemployment of single mothers, however, had soared by 142 per cent.41

In the social transformation of post-communist Germany, children have become an employment risk. This risk exacerbates the comparatively disadvantageous starting position of east German women in the market economy due to their concentration in certain branches and their career tracks, the limited use of their qualifications outside the GDR and their place at the lower end of the employment hierarchy. Moreover, the post-unification labour market displayed a bias in favour of men and against women from the outset. In the allocation of short-time working or specially funded work-creation employment, men took precedence over women and generally enjoyed better chances than women to re-enter the labour market after unemployment. In the post-communist transformation in Germany, women have been exposed to unemployment earlier and more severely than men. Nearly a decade after it first began to constitute a threat in the new Länder, unemployment has continued to rise, passing the 20 per cent mark in 1997. Throughout these years, at least 60 per cent of the unemployed have been women. Of a female labour force exceeding three million, close to one million are unemployed. Long-term unemployment has been a particular problem for women.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.