THE OPENING OF THE BERLIN WALL on November 9, 1989, was one of the
most dramatic events of the post-World War II period. In the ensuing
months, much more than just the graffiti-covered concrete panels of that
infamous structure came crashing down during carnival-like celebrations.
After four decades, the division of an entire continent, a nation, and a
society came to an abrupt end.
A powerful force setting the revolutionary change in motion was a
substantial movement of people from the German Democratic Republic (GDR,
or East Germany) westward. Throughout its forty-year history, the GDR
had resorted to extreme measures to control its borders and halt the
exodus of productive workers. The most extreme of these measures was the
erection in 1961 of the Berlin Wall to check the sustained movement of
East Germans to the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG, or West Germany),
whose booming economy had created millions of new jobs. Nearly three
decades later, for a period of several years beginning in the summer of
1989, the appeal of West Germany, even with its economy mired in
recession, prompted another wave of migration of more than 700,000 East
Germans, most between the ages of eighteen and thirty.
The FRG's absorption of the GDR in 1990 enlarged its area by about 30
percent and increased its population about 20 percent. Integrating this
new territory has proven to be a Herculean task. Prior to unification,
West Germans enjoyed one of the highest standards of living in the world
and a per capita income exceeding that of the United States. East
Germans were prosperous by the standards of the communist world but had
a living standard considerably below that of Western Europe. As the
costs of unification have accumulated, the time when easterners will
attain the standard of living of westerners has receded further into the
future.
In the early 1990s, the five new eastern states (Länder ;
sing., Land ) experienced substantial depopulation as a result
of a plummeting birth rate and the internal migration of eastern Germans
to the west. All social groups in the east were affected by the hasty
merger, but the position of women was even more negatively affected. In
particular, the rapid privatization of the socialist command economy led
to much unemployment among women and the dismantling of an extensive
child-care system. The east's elderly, who generally had incomes and
savings much below their counterparts in the western Länder ,
also suffered hardship.
Unification inevitably revealed a series of unpleasant surprises
about the closed economy and society of what had been East Germany. One
of the most distressing was the deplorable state of the environment.
Among the world's most environmentally conscious peoples, West Germans
were shocked by the levels of ecological damage in the east.
Environmental degradation, most noticeably badly polluted air and water,
was perhaps a more important cause of the inequalities in living
standards between east and west than smaller living quarters and lower
wages. Surveying the dilapidated infrastructure and housing stock,
observers dubbed the newly incorporated territory "Germany's
Appalachia."
By mid-1995 it appeared that the physical and administrative mergers
of the two German states would be far easier to accomplish than the
social aspect of the union. In the postwar period, the two Germanys had
assiduously developed two mutually exclusive models of society. Thus,
the major challenge lay in harmonizing and integrating these societies,
which were only gradually emerging from the long shadows cast by four
decades of separate development in antagonistic systems.
Germany - Population
The population of Germany manifests trends characteristic of most
advanced industrial countries: lower marriage rates, delayed marriage
and child-bearing, low fertility rates, small household size, high
divorce rates, and extended life expectancy. The population of
indigenous Germans has been in decline since 1972 in the west and since
1969 in the east because the number of births has not kept pace with the
number of deaths. In 1990 only five of the sixteen Länder
registered growth in population because of natural increase.
Household size decreased from 3.0 persons in 1950 to 2.3 in 1990.
Marriage rates have slackened, while divorce rates have risen or
remained stable at high rates. In the late 1980s, almost one-third of
all marriages ended in divorce. Infant mortality has steadily declined,
and life expectancy has risen, albeit more slowly in eastern Germany. As
in the United States, a greater proportion of the population is moving
into advanced age. In 1871 only 4.6 percent of the population was
sixty-five years of age or older. By 1939 that proportion had risen to
7.8 percent, and by 1992 it had risen to about 15 percent. By 2000 it is
estimated that one-quarter of the population will be sixty or older.
Since the 1950s, the population of Germany has become more diverse.
Millions of foreigners have migrated to Germany, seeking employment,
citizenship, or asylum. In contrast to the native population, foreigners
in Germany tend to have more children and larger households. In 1988
their average household size was 3.5 persons. Depending upon their
origins and social status, foreigners in Germany have been integrated
into society in widely varying degrees.
<>Historical
Background
Since the first unification of Germany in 1871 to form the German
Empire, the population and territorial expanse of Germany have
fluctuated considerably, chiefly as a result of gains and losses in war.
At the time of its founding, the empire was home to some 41 million
people, most of whom lived in villages or small towns. As industrialization and urbanization accelerated over the
next forty years, the population increased significantly to 64.6
million, according to the 1910 census. About two-thirds of this
population lived in towns with more than 2,000 inhabitants, and the
number of large cities had grown from eight in 1871 to eighty-four in
1910. Stimulating population growth were improvements in sanitary and
working conditions and in medicine. Another significant source of growth
was an influx of immigrants from Eastern Europe, who came to Germany to
work on farms and in mines and factories. This wave of immigrants, the
first of several groups that would swell Germany's population in the
succeeding decades, helped compensate for the millions of Germans who
left their country in search of a better life, many of whom went to the
United States.
At the outbreak of World War I in 1914, the population of Germany had
reached about 68 million. A major demographic catastrophe, the war
claimed 2.8 million lives and caused a steep decline in the birth rate.
In addition, the 1919 Treaty of Versailles awarded territories
containing approximately 7 million German inhabitants to the victors and
to newly independent or reconstituted countries in Eastern Europe.
In the 1930s, during the regime of Adolf Hitler, a period of
expansion added both territory and population to the Third Reich.
Following the annexation of Austria in 1938 and the Sudetenland (part of
Czechoslovakia) in 1939, German territory and population encompassed
586,126 square kilometers and 79.7 million people, according to the 1939
census. The census found that women still outnumbered men (40.4 million
to 38.7 million), despite a leveling trend in the interwar period.
The carnage of World War II surpassed that of World War I. German war
losses alone were estimated at 7 million, about half of whom died in
battle. Ruined, defeated, and divided into zones of occupation, a much
smaller Germany emerged in 1945 with a population about the same as in
1910. In the immediate postwar period, however, more than 12 million
persons--expelled Germans and displaced persons--immigrated to Germany
or used the country as a transit point en route to other destinations,
adding to the population.
By 1950 the newly established Federal Republic of Germany had a
population of about 50 million, more than 9 million of whom were
"expellees." The German Democratic Republic had about 4
million newcomers and 14 million natives. Most
of the expellees came from East Prussia, Pomerania, Silesia, and the
Sudetenland, all one-time German territories held by other countries at
the end of World War II. The majority of the settlers in West Germany
remained, found work in the rapidly recovering economy, and in time were
successfully integrated into the society. Between 1950 and 1989, West
Germany's population grew from 50 million to 62.1 million. Resettled
Germans and refugees from former eastern territories and their families
constituted approximately 20 percent of the country's population. From
its earliest years, West Germany had become either a temporary or a
final destination for millions of migrants. Yet despite this influx, the
country did not develop an identity as a country of immigration as did,
for example, the United States or Canada.
The situation in East Germany was much different. From its founding
in 1949, the GDR struggled to stabilize its population and thwart
emigration. In the course of its forty-year history, almost one-quarter
of East Germany's population fled the state to settle in West Germany.
In the 1950s alone, more than 2 million people moved west, a migration
that triggered the regime's radical solution in August 1961--the
construction of the Berlin Wall. During
most of its existence, the only segment of East Germany's population
permitted to leave for West Germany were retirees, whose resettlement
there was unofficially encouraged to reduce the GDR's pension payments.
As a result, the number of persons sixty years of age and older in the
GDR fell from 22.1 percent in 1970 to 18.3 percent in 1985 and made the
East German population younger than that of West Germany.
Deprived of a regular supply of workers by the construction of the
Berlin Wall, the Federal Republic in the 1960s absorbed yet another wave
of migrants. Laborers were recruited through agreements with seven
countries: Italy, Spain, Greece, Turkey, Portugal, Tunisia, and Morocco.
Between 1955 and 1973, the number of foreign workers, called guest
workers (Gastarbeiter ) to emphasize the intended temporary
nature of their contracts, grew from about 100,000 to about 2.5 million.
Originally brought in for three-year shifts, most workers--mainly single
men--remained and made a valuable contribution to the booming West
German economy. In the early 1970s, however, a recession brought on by
the international energy crisis slowed the West German economy; the
importing of workers officially came to an end in 1973.
In the 1980s and early 1990s, the fourth and most controversial wave
of immigrants to West Germany were asylum-seekers and political
refugees--ethnic Germans from Poland, Yugoslavia, Czechoslovakia, and
territories belonging to the former Soviet Union and also East Germans
who moved west as the GDR collapsed. Many Germans were angered by the
financial and social costs these immigrants required because they
believed many asylum-seekers were drawn to Germany more by the desire
for a better standard of living than by the need to escape political
oppression. Many ethnic Germans hardly seemed German: some did not even
speak German.
Germany.
Despite the Berlin Wall and the fortified boundary that divided them,
the two Germanys had many similar demographic developments in the
postwar period. In the late 1950s and especially in the 1960s, both
Germanys experienced a "baby boom," stimulated by increased
economic prosperity and a heightened sense of security. During the
second half of the 1960s, East Germany's population grew slightly, an
unusual occurrence. In West Germany, the absolute peak in births, 1.3
million, was reached in 1965. In that year, births outnumbered deaths by
417,504.
After the baby boom, both countries experienced periods of zero
population growth when the annual number of births failed to compensate
for the annual number of deaths. As of 1993, with the exclusion of
foreigners' births, deaths have outnumbered births every year since 1976
in the old Länder . Since 1986 the same has been true for the
new Länder . When the West German total fertility rate reached
its historic peacetime low of fewer than 1.3 children per woman of
child-bearing age in 1985, popular newsmagazines caused a sensation with
cover stories that warned of the eventual disappearance of the Germans.
In the former GDR, a pronatalist policy temporarily had modest success
in boosting the birth rate in the mid-1970s, but the population declined
there for two reasons: emigration and low fertility. This was especially
noticeable after the fall of the Berlin Wall in November 1989 when
emigration soared. Low fertility also continued to be a problem. Between
1989 and 1991, eastern Germany's total fertility rate fell by 38
percent. In 1991 the rate was 0.98, well below West Germany's lowest
level.
Although its population was just one-fifth that of West Germany,
until 1986 East Germany officially topped in absolute terms West Germany
in both the number of births outside marriage and the number of
abortions. This situation was accounted for in part by a chronic lack of
birth control choices in the former Soviet bloc and the practice of
using abortion as a regular means of curbing unwanted pregnancies. In
1988 one-third of all births in the GDR were to unwed mothers, whereas
in the FRG only one-tenth were. The trend of out-of-wedlock births in
the east continued to increase after unification. By 1992 nearly 42
percent of the babies born in the new Länder were to single
mothers, compared with 12 percent in the old Länder .
Until mid-1993, when a more restrictive West German law came into
effect, the eastern section of Germany recognized the right of abortion
on demand. The highest rate was reached in 1972, when one-third of
pregnancies were aborted. By 1989 the rate had declined, but the
probability of an abortion was still one in every four pregnancies. In
the old Länder , legal abortions were restricted to special
circumstances based on such factors as the physical or mental health of
the mother or fetus. In 1989 West Germany officially registered 75,297
abortions, compared with about 74,000 for East Germany. Social,
cultural, and economic factors accounted for the differences in
frequency of abortion and extramarital birth rates.
Following unification, a trend termed demographic paralysis was
observed in the former East Germany when the number of births fell by 50
percent between 1990 and 1993. From 1988 to mid-1993, the crude birth
rate fell from 12.9 per 1,000 to 5.3 per 1,000, an abrupt and
precipitous decline unmatched in an industrial society in peacetime.
Especially hard hit by skyrocketing unemployment and adrift in an alien
market economy, record numbers of women in the new Länder
stopped having children. Some reports indicated that by the summer of
1993 as many as two-thirds of working women in the east had lost their
jobs since unification. In that same year, the marriage rate fell by
half.
Germany.
Following unification, the Federal Republic encompassed 356,958
square kilometers and was one of the largest countries in Europe. With
about 81.3 million people in mid-1995, it ranked second behind Russia in
population among the countries of Europe. Unification actually reduced
the Federal Republic's population density, however, because East
Germany, which had a large rural area, was more sparsely populated. With
an average of 228 persons per square kilometer in late 1993, unified
Germany ranked third in population density among European countries. It
ranked behind the Netherlands and Belgium, which had 363 and 329 persons
per square kilometer, respectively.
Germany's population density varies greatly. The most densely
populated Länder are Berlin, Hamburg, and Bremen, with
densities of 3,898, 2,236, and 1,697 persons per square kilometer,
respectively, at the end of 1992. The least
densely populated are two new Länder , Mecklenburg-Western
Pomerania and Brandenburg, both mostly rural in character. They had
population densities of eighty and eighty-six persons per square
kilometer, respectively, at the end of 1992. Other Länder are
closer to the national average: the largest Land , Bavaria,
with 167 persons per square kilometer, is mostly rural, but its capital
is the large city of Munich; Rhineland-Palatinate, with 196 persons per
square kilometer, is also mostly rural but has numerous heavily
populated areas along the Rhine; and Saxony, with 252 persons per square
kilometer, also has a number of heavily populated areas.
The Land with the most population, one-fifth of the nation's
total, is North Rhine-Westphalia. With a population density of 519
persons per square kilometer at the end of 1992, it is the most heavily
settled of all Länder , with the exception of the three city Länder
of Bremen, Hamburg, and Berlin. North Rhine-Westphalia's density is
caused by its many cities; several dozen of these cities have
populations above 100,000, including five with populations above
500,000. Many of these cities are located so close together that they
form one of Europe's largest urban agglomerations, the Ruhrstadt (Ruhr
City), with a population of about 5 million.
The Federal Republic has few very large cities and many medium-sized
ones, a reflection of the centuries when the name Germany
designated a geographical area consisting of many small and medium-sized
states, each with its own capital. Berlin, by
far the largest city, with a population of 3.5 million at the end of
1993, is certain to grow in population as more of the government moves
there in the second half of the 1990s and as businesses relocate their
headquarters to the new capital. Some estimates predict that Greater
Berlin will have a population of 8 million by early in the twenty-first
century.
Berlin already dwarfs the only other cities having more than 1
million inhabitants: Hamburg with 1.7 million and Munich with 1.3
million. Ten cities have populations between 500,000 and 1 million,
seventeen between 250,000 and 500,000, and fifty-four between 100,000
and 250,000. In the early 1990s, about one-third of the population lived
in cities with 100,000 residents or more, one-third in cities and towns
with populations between 50,000 and 100,000, and one-third in villages
and small towns.
Other densely populated areas are located in the southwest. They are
Greater Stuttgart; the Rhine-Main area with its center of Frankfurt am
Main; and the Rhine-Neckar region with its center in Mannheim. The
greater Nuremberg and Hanover regions are also significant population
centers. The new Länder are thinly settled except for Berlin
and the regions of Dresden-Leipzig and Chemnitz-Zwickau.
Urban areas in the east are more densely populated than those in the
west because the GDR saw little of the suburbanization seen in West
Germany. As a result, there is a greater contrast between urban and
rural areas in the new Länder than in the west. West Germany's
suburbanization, however, is not nearly as extensive as that experienced
by the United States after the end of World War II. Compared with cities
in the United States, German cities are fairly compact, and their
inhabitants can quickly reach small villages and farmlands.
Germany's population growth has been slow since the late 1960s. Many
regions have shown little or no growth, or have even declined in
population. The greatest growth has been in the south, where the
populations of Baden-Württemberg and Bavaria each increased by well
over 1 million between 1970 and 1993. (Each had also grown by over 1
million in the 1960s.) North Rhine-Westphalia, which had grown by 1
million in the 1960s, added another 750,000 to its population between
1970 and 1993, a small increase, given a total population of nearly 18
million at the end of 1993. Bremen, Hamburg, and the Saarland
experienced some population loss between 1970 and 1993. With the
exception of united Berlin, all the new Länder lost population
between the fall of the Berlin Wall and the end of 1993. In general,
this development reflected long-term trends in East Germany, although
the rate of decline has been higher since unification.
Germany.
Immigration has been a primary force shaping demographic developments
in the two Germanys in the postwar period (see Historical Background,
this ch.). After the erection of the Berlin Wall in 1961, the
immigration flow, first into West Germany and later into united Germany,
consisted mainly of workers from southern Europe. In addition, the
immigrants included several other groups: a small but steady stream of
East German immigrants (Übersiedler ) during the 1980s that
exploded in size in 1990 (389,000) but by 1993 had fallen by more than
half (172,000) and was somewhat offset by movement from west to east
(119,000); several million ethnic Germans (Aussiedler ) from
East European countries, especially the former Soviet Union; and several
million persons seeking asylum from political oppression, most of whom
were from East European countries.
Foreign Residents
As of early 1994, approximately 6.8 million registered foreigners
resided in Germany. Turks made up the largest group (1.9 million),
followed by immigrants from the former Yugoslavia (930,000), Italians
(565,000), Greeks (350,000), Poles (260,000), and Austrians (185,000).
About 25 percent of these foreign residents, most of whom were born in
Germany, are under the age of eighteen. Because of the higher birth rate
of foreigners, one of every ten births in Germany is to a foreigner.
However, because recruiting of Gastarbeiter stopped in 1973 at
the onset of a worldwide recession, most foreign workers are middle-aged
and have lived in Germany for several decades.
The foreign population is not distributed evenly. More than
two-thirds live in the Länder of North Rhine-Westphalia,
Baden-Württemberg, and Bavaria, where in 1990 they made up 9, 10, and 7
percent of the population, respectively. Foreigners live mainly in urban
areas; in 1989 approximately 23 percent of foreign residents lived in
Hamburg and Berlin. Foreigners often live in particular areas of large
cities. (For example, Kreuzberg in Berlin and Kalk in Cologne both have
large Turkish communities.) There are few foreigners in the new Länder
. Of the roughly 190,000 foreigners living in the former GDR in 1989
because of work contracts, many have since been repatriated to Vietnam,
Mozambique, Cuba, and other developing countries that were friendly to
the GDR regime.
Foreigners began arriving in West Germany in large numbers in the
1960s after the construction of the Berlin Wall ended migration from
East Germany. Recruited mainly from a number of countries in southern
Europe, Gastarbeiter were not expected to stay beyond the terms
of their work permits. However, many opted to remain in West Germany and
subsequently brought their families there to live. As a result, and
owing to higher birth rates, the foreign population in Germany has
increased substantially. By offering financial
incentives, West German authorities hoped to encourage some Gastarbeiter
to return to their native countries, but relatively few took advantage
of these provisions. A tightening of entry restrictions also caused many
to remain in Germany rather than risk not being readmitted after
spending time in their home country.
Although no longer recruited abroad, Germany's foreign residents
remain vital to the economy, parts of which would shut down if they were
to depart. They also contribute to the country's welfare and social
insurance programs by paying twice as much in taxes and insurance
premiums as they receive in benefits. In the long term, their presence
may be seen as vital because they have a positive birth rate. The birth
rate among native Germans is so low that some studies have estimated
that Germany will require approximately 200,000 immigrants a year to
maintain its population into the next century and support its array of
social welfare benefits.
Most Germans do not see their country as a land of immigration like
the United States or Canada, and no demographic or social issue has
generated greater controversy than the presence of foreigners in the
Federal Republic. In an opinion poll taken in 1982, two-thirds of West
Germans said that there were too many foreigners in Germany, and
one-half thought that foreigners should be sent back to their countries
of origin. In 1992 another poll found that the "foreigner
problem" ranked as the most serious issue for western Germans and
was third in importance for eastern Germans.
According to the foreigners law that went into effect in mid-1993,
foreigners living in Germany for fifteen years may become German
citizens if they have no criminal record and renounce their original
citizenship. Young foreigners who have resided eight years in Germany
may become citizens if they have attended German schools for six years
and apply for citizenship between the ages of sixteen and twenty-three.
Usually, however, German citizenship depends not on where one is born (ius
solis ) but on the nationality of the father or, since 1974, on the
mother (ius sanguinis ). Thus, to many, German citizenship
depends on being born German and cannot rightfully be acquired through a
legal process. This notion makes it practically impossible for
naturalized citizens or their children to be considered German. Some
reformers advocate eliminating the concept of German blood in the 1913
law regulating citizenship, but the issue is an emotional one, and such
a change has little popular support.
Ethnic Germans
Ethnic Germans have immigrated to Germany since the end of World War
II. At first, these immigrants were Germans who had resided in areas
that had formerly been German territory. Later, the offspring of German
settlers who in previous centuries had settled in areas of Eastern
Europe and Russia came to be regarded as ethnic Germans and as such had
the right to German citizenship according to Article 116 of the Basic
Law. Because they became citizens immediately upon arrival in Germany,
ethnic Germans received much financial and social assistance to ease
their integration into society. Housing, vocational training, and many
other types of assistance, even language training--because many did not
know the language of their forebears--were liberally provided.
With the gradual opening of the Soviet empire in the 1980s, the
numbers of ethnic Germans coming to West Germany swelled. In the
mid-1980s, about 40,000 came each year. In 1987 the number doubled and
in 1988 doubled again. In 1990 nearly 400,000 ethnic Germans came to the
Federal Republic. In the 1991-93 period, about 400,000 ethnic Germans
settled in Germany. Since January 1993, immigration of ethnic Germans
has been limited to 220,000 per year.
Because this influx could no longer be managed, especially because of
the vast expense of unification, restrictions on the right of ethnic
Germans to return to Germany became effective in January 1991. Under the
new restrictions, once in Germany ethnic Germans are assigned to certain
areas. If they leave these areas, they lose many of their benefits and
are treated as if they were foreigners. The government has also
established programs to encourage the estimated several million ethnic
Germans who still live in the former Soviet Union and Eastern Europe to
remain there. Although ethnic Germans are entitled to German citizenship
by virtue of their bloodlines, to many Germans they do not seem German,
and their social integration has frequently been difficult.
Asylum-Seekers
To atone for the crimes of the Third Reich, Article 16/2 of West
Germany's Basic Law offers liberal asylum rights to those suffering
political persecution. Until the 1980s, relatively few refugees took
advantage of this provision. But in the second half of the decade, a new
class of "jet-age refugees" began to make its way to Europe
and especially to West Germany, which accepted more than any other West
European country. In the mid-1980s, many refugees came from Iran and
Lebanon. By 1991 most refugees originated in regions of war-torn former
Yugoslavia, Romania, or Turkey. From 1986 to 1989, about 380,000
refugees sought asylum inWest Germany. By comparison, in the 1990-92
period, nearly 900,000 people sought refuge in a united Germany.
Although only about 5 percent of requests for asylum are approved,
slow processing and appeals mean that many refugees remain in Germany
for years. Because financial aid is also provided for the refugees'
living expenses, their presence has become a burden on federal and local
government. The resulting social tensions made imperative an amendment
to the constitutional provision regarding asylum. After heated debate,
in 1993 the Bundestag passed legislation that amended the Basic Law and
tightened restrictions on granting asylum. One important change is that
asylum-seekers are no longer to be admitted into Germany if they have
applied from a third country. In addition, more funds are to be allotted
to processing applications, so that asylum-seekers remain in Germany for
shorter periods.
Germany.
In the early 1990s, there were between 50,000 and 60,000 Gypsies in
Germany. They were divided into two groups: the Sinti, who have lived
for hundreds of years in Germany and who have largely adopted
conventional modes of living and employment; and the Roma, many of whom
fled Romania following the 1989 revolution that toppled the Nicolae
Ceausescu regime. The lifestyle and work habits of the mobile Roma clash
with those of most Germans. As a result, in 1992 the German government
signed an agreement with Romania providing for the repatriation of
thousands of Roma in exchange for cash payments to be used for housing
and job training.
Several other minority groups, officially recognized and their
languages protected, also live in Germany. For more than 1,000 years,
the Sorbs, a Slavic nationality, have lived as an ethnic minority in
Brandenburg and Saxony. As of 1993, there were about 120,000 Sorbs in
Germany. In addition, about 60,000 Danish speakers live in
Schleswig-Holstein, a reminder of the area's Danish past; and about
12,000 speakers of the Frisian language live on the Frisian Islands and
on the northwestern coast.
Germany once had a prosperous and largely assimilated Jewish
population of about 600,000. In the 1930s and 1940s, most German Jews
were exiled, were imprisoned, or perished in Nazi death camps. By the early 1990s,
Germany's Jewish community was only about 40,000. Its numbers were
growing, however, as the result of the immigration of some Israelis and
Russian Jews. One of the most eloquent spokespersons for the rights of
minorities and a tireless advocate for greater tolerance is the
community's leader, Ignaz Bubnis.
Germany.
For centuries, a woman's role in German society was summed up and
circumscribed by the three "K" words: Kinder
(children), Kirche (church), and Küche (kitchen).
Throughout the twentieth century, however, women have gradually won
victories in their quest for equal rights. In 1919 they received the
right to vote. Profound changes also were wrought by World War II.
During the war, women assumed positions traditionally held by men. After
the war, the so-called Trümmerfrauen (women of the rubble)
tended the wounded, buried the dead, salvaged belongings, and began the
arduous task of rebuilding war-torn Germany by simply clearing away the
rubble.
In West Germany, the Basic Law of 1949 declared that men and women
were equal, but it was not until 1957 that the civil code was amended to
conform with this statement. Even in the early 1950s, women could be
dismissed from the civil service when they married. After World War II,
despite the severe shortage of young men that made marriage impossible
for many women, traditional marriage once again became society's ideal.
Employment and social welfare programs remained predicated on the male
breadwinner model. West Germany turned to millions of migrants or
immigrants--including large numbers of GDR refugees--to satisfy its
booming economy's labor requirements. Women became homemakers and
mothers again and largely withdrew from employment outside the home.
In the east, however, women remained in the workforce. The
Soviet-style system mandated women's participation in the economy, and
the government implemented this key objective by opening up educational
and vocational opportunities to women. As early as 1950, marriage and
family laws also had been rewritten to accommodate working mothers.
Abortion was legalized and funded by the state in the first trimester of
pregnancy. An extensive system of social supports, such as a highly
developed day-care network for children, was also put in place to permit
women to be both mothers and workers. Emancipated "from above"
for economic and ideological reasons, women in the east entered
institutes of higher learning and the labor force in record numbers
while still maintaining the household. East Germany had to rely on women
because of its declining population; the situation was made more
critical by the fact that most of those fleeing to West Germany were
men.
Because of these developments, about 90 percent of East German women
worked outside the home. They made up about half the membership in the
two most important mass organizations of the former GDR--the Free German
Trade Union Federation (Freier Deutscher Gewerkschaftsbund--FDGB) and
the Free German Youth (Freie Deutsche Jugend--FDJ). In 1988 slightly
more than one-third of the membership of the ruling Socialist Unity
Party of Germany (Sozialistische Einheitspartei Deutschlands--SED)
consisted of women. In contrast, only about 4.4 percent of West German
women were members of a political party.
After several decades of conforming to traditional social patterns,
West German women began to demand changes. Following patterns in Europe
and the United States, emancipation in the Federal Republic originated
"from below," with women themselves. In the 1970s, the women's
movement gathered momentum, having emerged as an outgrowth of student
protests in the late 1960s (see Citizens' Initiative Associations, ch.
7). Rallying around the causes of equal rights (including the right to
abortion, which was somewhat restricted in West Germany), the movement
succeeded in having legislation passed in 1977 that granted a woman
equal rights in marriage. A woman could work outside the home and file
for divorce without her husband's permission. Divorce was permitted when
the marriage partners could no longer be reconciled.
Women also made gains in education in both Germanys. By the
mid-1960s, East German women accounted for about half of all secondary
school graduates who had prepared to study at institutes of higher
learning in the GDR; by the 1975-76 academic year, they were in the
majority (53 percent). To assist women in completing their studies, an
extensive support system, including supplementary payments and child
care, was provided. Expanded educational opportunities for West German
women were slower in coming and never equaled the levels reached in the
east. Only in the early 1980s did West German women qualify for
admission to universities in the same numbers as men. Although fewer
than that number pursued college and university studies, between 1970
and 1989 the percentage of female students increased from 31 percent to
41 percent. Two factors were believed to be responsible for the
discrepancy between eastern and western rates of attendance at
institutes of higher learning: West German women had a stronger
orientation toward traditional familial relations; and they had dimmer
prospects for admission to particular academic departments and for
professional employment after graduation.
Despite significant gains, discrimination remains in united Germany.
Income inequalities persist: a woman's wages and salaries range between
65 percent and 78 percent of a man's for many positions. In most fields,
women do not hold key positions. Generally, the higher the position, the
more powerful is male dominance. For example, women are heavily
represented in the traditional care-giving fields of health and
education, but even in such fields there is a wide disparity between the
number of females working in hospitals (75 percent of total staff) and
schools (more than 50 percent) and the number of female physicians (4
percent) and principals (20 percent in the west and 32 percent in the
east). In the late 1980s, only 5 percent of university professors in
West Germany were women.
Although substantial barriers to equality of the sexes in Germany
remain as a result of a persistently patriarchal family structure and
work environment, women have managed to gain isolated high-profile
victories. A separate national office for women's affairs was created in
West Germany in 1980, and similar agencies have been established in most
Länder in united Germany. Since the mid-1980s, offices
responsible for working toward women's equality have been active, first
in West Germany and after unification in the new Länder . The
Equality Offices (Gleichstellungstellen ) have as one of their
tasks ensuring that women occupy a more equitable share of positions in
the public sector.
Some women have succeeded in reaching positions of power. One of the
most successful women in politics in the 1990s is Rita Süssmuth,
president of the Bundestag. In the field of industry, Birgit Breuel
assumed the leadership, following the assassination of Detlev Rohwedder
in April 1991, of the Treuhandanstalt (Trust Agency), the powerful
agency charged with privatizing the former East German economy. Other
influential and prominent German women in the mid-1990s are Marion von Dönhoff,
coeditor of Die Zeit , and Elizabeth Noelle-Neumann, director
of the Allensbach Public Opinion Institute. Yet despite this progress, a
1991 article in an influential weekly magazine made it clear how far
women must go to achieve equality. The magazine's list of the 100 most
powerful people in Germany included only four women.
Almost all segments of eastern German society encountered tremendous
difficulty in the unification process, but women suffered the most. Some
reports indicated that two-thirds of working women in the new Länder
were unemployed, and many more were turned into part-time workers as a
result of privatization, downsizing of firms, and elimination of support
services such as day-care and after-school centers. To improve their
prospects for employment, some women in eastern Germany reportedly were
resorting to sterilization, one of the factors contributing to the steep
decline in births from twelve per 1,000 in 1989 to 5.3 per 1,000 in
1993.
Among the issues that demonstrated differences between women of the
old and new Länder , one of the most contentious was abortion.
In 1991 there were about 125,000 registered abortions performed in
Germany, about 50,000 of which were in the east. Although the number of
registered abortions in both parts of Germany had been declining in
recent years, the actual number of abortions was estimated at about
250,000. For a time following unification, the restrictive western and
permissive eastern legislation on abortion continued in force. In June
1992, however, the Bundestag voted to ease abortion restrictions and to
permit the procedure during the first twelve weeks of pregnancy with
compulsory counseling. Resorting to what had been a successful policy in
the early 1970s, those opposed to the new law, including Chancellor
Helmut Kohl, appealed to the Federal Constitutional Court in Karlsruhe
to nullify the new law. Just before it was scheduled to take effect, the
law was blocked when the court issued an injunction. Subsequently, a new
restrictive law came to apply in all of Germany (see Political
Developments since Unification, ch. 7).
Germany - Marriage and Family
Like most other advanced countries in the postwar era, Germany
recorded fewer marriages, more divorces, and smaller families. In 1960
there were 690,000 marriages, compared with 516,000 in 1990. The total
for 1993 amounted to only 442,000, but most of this decline was caused
by a drop of than more 50 percent in the number of marriages in the new Länder
between 1990 and 1993. Until 1990 the decline in marriages in East
Germany had been appreciably greater than in West Germany (from 215,000
in 1950 to 137,000 in 1989, compared with 536,000 and 399,000 in the
same years in West Germany), but not nearly as steep in the 1990-93
period. Just as the dramatic social changes brought to the new Länder
by unification affected birth rates there, so they also affected
marriages rates.
Another difference in marriage practices between the two Germanys had
been that easterners marrying for the first time did so at an earlier
age than westerners. Easterners did so, it is believed, because of their
desire to have children and hence qualify for low-cost child care and
housing benefits. Following unification this difference remained. In
1992 the average age at first marriage was 29.0 for men and 26.5 for
women in the old Länder , compared with 27.1 for men and 25.1
for women in the new Länder . Since the mid-1970s, the average
age at which people marry has slowly risen for both genders in both
parts of Germany.
As the number of marriages declined, the frequency of divorce
increased in both states. Between 1960 and 1990, the number of divorces
in West Germany more than doubled, increasing from 49,000 to 123,000 and
yielding a divorce rate of about 30 percent. Divorce was always more
common in East Germany than it was in West Germany. The number of
divorces roughly doubled between 1960 and 1988, going from 25,000 to
49,000. In 1986 there was a record divorce rate of 46 percent. Although
home to only 20 percent of the total population, the new Länder
accounted for 29 percent of all divorces in 1990. After unification,
however, the incidence of divorce decreased greatly in the east, perhaps
in response to the overall uncertainty and insecurity of future
prospects for single mothers in unified Germany. In 1992 the number of
divorces in the new Länder amounted to only 10,000. In 1993,
however, this number rose to 18,000, an increase of 78 percent.
Despite the increasing likelihood of divorce, in 1990 about 89
percent of all families consisted of married couples, and about 70
percent of those of marriage age were married. In both east and west,
however, the failure of these families to produce the necessary number
of children for population replacement was striking. Of the 15 million
married couples in the former West Germany, about 57 percent had
children. Forty-seven percent of couples with children had one child, 38
percent had two children, and 13 percent had three or more children. In
1950 the average number of persons in German households was 3.0. By 1990
this figure had declined to 2.3. In 1991 four-person households
accounted for 13 percent of the total number of households, three-person
households for 16 percent, two-person households for 31 percent, and
single-person households for 35 percent. In the early 1990s, only
foreign families were regularly having two or more children, with the
Turkish subgroup being the largest in terms of family size.
Like West Germany, East Germany had provided legislative protection
for the family and married couples, together with generous maternity
leave and pay provisions. In the east, however, it was assumed that the
mother would rejoin the workforce soon after maternity leave, and an
elaborate child-care system was put in place. Virtually all women could
obtain excellent care for their children if they wished. In the west,
many mothers gave up their careers or interrupted them for long periods
following the birth of a child because child care was generally
unavailable. As a result, in 1990 women of child-bearing age in the east
had more children (1.67) than women in the west (1.42). Supported by the
state, eastern women had long been accustomed to balancing child-rearing
and a profession. After unification, however, the new Länder experienced
a precipitous decline in births because of high unemployment, especially
among women (see Fertility, this ch.).
By the mid-1990s, the newest trend in household formation was what
became known as nonmarital living partnerships. Between 1972 and 1990,
the number of such households increased sevenfold, to 963,000, or 2.7
percent of all households. Almost 90 percent of these were childless
households. Most young people were opting to live together before
deciding to marry. This factor pushed the average age at marriage
higher.
Another sign of the movement away from the traditional concept of
family and of the manifestation of sexual freedom was the rising number
of out-of-wedlock births. In the late 1980s, about one in ten West
German and three in ten East German births were to unmarried women.
In the postwar period, it became clear that marriage had lost its
former position as the only legitimate locus for sexual activity. In the
early 1990s, polls indicated that 60 percent of German sixteen-year-olds
were sexually active, compared with 15 percent in the 1950s.
In the past, when regional differences were acute, convention held
that marriages between a Prussian and a Bavarian, between a Catholic and
a Protestant, and definitely between a Christian and a Jew were
"mixed" marriages. In modern Germany, only unions between
Germans and foreigners are considered mixed. Of 516,000 marriages in
1990, about 6 percent were between Germans and foreigners. Most often
German women married Americans, Italians, Turks, and Yugoslavs, and
German men married Yugoslavs, Poles, Filipinos, and Austrians. In 1974
legislation was passed conferring automatic citizenship on children born
of these unions.
Germany - Housing
There is a wide range of housing stock in Germany, from mansions and
country estates for the wealthy, to tents and welfare hotels for the
needy and homeless. Most Germans live in self-contained apartments or in
single-family houses. Single-story and two-story townhouse-like
dwellings characterize the tidy neighborhoods of small towns and
medium-sized cities, and high-rise apartment buildings are common in
larger cities. In many communities, merchants, tradespeople, and
shopkeepers continue to live above their stores, and clustered
farmhouses still form the nucleus of many villages.
After World War II, West Germany faced a severe housing shortage. Not
only had the war destroyed much of the housing, but the millions of
refugees from the east had to find new accommodations. According to one
estimate, there were 10 million dwellings for 17 million households. The
housing shortage often forced several families to share a single
dwelling. In the 1950s and 1960s, a tremendous surge in construction,
supported heavily by the government, resulted in the construction of as
many as 700,000 dwellings in a single year. Gradually, the housing
crisis eased. The problems that persisted generally involved a shortage
of affordable housing in urban areas. Housing conditions in East Germany
also improved greatly. However, much of the housing was badly designed
and poorly constructed, and even at the state's demise in 1990, the
overall housing supply was inadequate.
Unification revealed significant differences in the quality, variety,
and size of dwellings in the two Germanys. In West Germany, about 70
percent of the housing stock had been built after 1948, with 95 percent
of the dwellings having their own bathrooms and 75 percent having
central heating. In East Germany, 55 percent of the housing stock had
been built before 1948, with only 75 percent of the dwellings having
bathrooms and only 47 percent having central heating. In addition, much
of the housing in East Germany was in poor condition because the
authorities had maintained rents at such low levels that funds were not
available for essential repairs.
In 1992 united Germany had approximately 34.5 million dwellings with
149 million rooms, for a total of 2.8 billion square meters of living
space. Dwellings in the west were larger than those in the east. In 1992
dwellings in the old Länder had an average floor space of 82.7
square meters for an average of 35.1 square meters per person, compared
with 64.5 square meters and an average of 29.0 square meters per person
in the new Länder .
The federal government has responded with special measures to rectify
housing problems in the new Länder , launching an ambitious
program to upgrade and expand housing. By 1993 about 1.1 million units
had been modernized. Specialists have estimated that bringing housing in
the east up to western standards will require the construction of
140,000 new dwellings a year until 2005.
Unification also revealed significant differences with respect to
home ownership. In the early 1990s, approximately 40 percent of
residents owned their dwellings in the old Länder , compared
with 25 percent in the new Länder .
Prior to unification, a housing shortage had developed in West
Germany because of increased immigration and the rising number of single
householders. The arrival of several million refugees, ethnic Germans,
and eastern Germans coincided with a steep drop in the availability of
inexpensive housing. Despite the construction of as many as 400,000 new
dwellings each year, as of 1993 the need for housing outpaced the
supply. A housing shortage exists because the country's 35 million
households exceed the number of dwellings by about 500,000.
The housing shortage and a lack of available land for building in
densely populated areas have driven up real estate prices. In 1992 a
single-family free-standing house with 125 square meters of floor space
cost DM300,000 in <"http://worldfacts.us/Germany-Dresden.htm">Dresden
, DM450,000 in Hamburg, DM590,000 in Frankfurt
am Main, DM800,000 in Berlin, and DM910,000 in Munich. In western
Germany, the average price of building land was DM129 per square meter,
compared with DM32 per square meter in the east.
Because decent housing is seen as a basic right in Germany, the
government provides financial aid to households devoting too great a
share of their income to housing costs. The aid can subsidize their
rents or help pay mortgages. In the early 1990s, some 3 million
households received this type of aid. Despite these programs, however,
homelessness remains a problem. In the early 1990s, some specialists
estimated the number of homeless at between 800,000 and 1 million, while
others believed it to be as low as 150,000. The homeless receive aid
from government and charitable organizations, which provide an array of
social services and shelters (see Provisions of the Social Welfare
System, ch. 4).
Roman Catholicism, one of Germany's two principal religions, traces
its origins there to the eighth-century missionary work of Saint
Boniface. In the next centuries, Roman
Catholicism made more converts and spread eastward. In the twelfth and
thirteenth centuries, the Knights of the Teutonic Order spread German
and Roman Catholic influence by force of arms along the southern Baltic
Coast and into Russia. In 1517, however, Martin Luther challenged papal
authority and what he saw as the commercialization of his faith. In the
process, Luther changed the course of European and world history and
established the second major faith in Germany--Protestantism.
Religious differences played a decisive role in the Thirty Years' War. An enduring legacy of the
Protestant Reformation and this conflict was the division of Germany
into fairly distinct regions of religious practice. Roman Catholicism
remained the preeminent faith in the southern and western German states,
while Protestantism became firmly established in the northeastern and
central regions. Pockets of Roman Catholicism existed in Oldenburg in
the north and in areas of Hesse. Protestant congregations could be found
in north Baden and northeastern Bavaria.
The unification of Germany in 1871 under Prussian leadership led to
the strengthening of Protestantism. Otto von Bismarck sought to weaken Roman Catholic influence through
an anti-Roman Catholic campaign, the Kulturkampf, in the early 1870s.
The Jesuit order was prohibited in Germany, and its members were
expelled from the country. In Prussia the "Falk laws," named
for Adalbert Falk, Bismarck's minister of culture, mandated German
citizenship and attendance at German universities for clergymen, state
inspection of schools, and state confirmation of parish and episcopal
appointments. Although relations between the Roman Catholic Church and
the state were subsequently improved through negotiations with the
Vatican, the Kulturkampf engendered in Roman Catholics a deep distrust
of the empire and enmity toward Prussia.
Prior to World War II, about two-thirds of the German population was
Protestant and the remainder Roman Catholic. Bavaria was a Roman
Catholic stronghold. Roman Catholics were also well represented in the
populations of Baden-Württemberg, the Saarland, and in much of the
Rhineland. Elsewhere in Germany, especially in the north and northeast,
Protestants were in the majority.
During the Hitler regime, except for individual acts of resistance,
the established churches were unable or unwilling to mount a serious
challenge to the supremacy of the state. A Nazi, Ludwig Müller, was installed as the Lutheran bishop in
Berlin. Although raised a Roman Catholic, Hitler respected only the
power and organization of the Roman Catholic Church, not its tenets. In
July 1933, shortly after coming to power, the Nazis scored their first
diplomatic success by concluding a concordat with the Vatican,
regulating church-state relations. In return for keeping the right to
maintain denominational schools nationwide, the Vatican assured the
Nazis that Roman Catholic clergy would refrain from political activity,
that the government would have a say in the choice of bishops, and that
changes in diocesan boundaries would be subject to government approval.
However, the Nazis soon violated the concordat's terms, and by the late
1930s almost all denominational schools had been abolished.
Toward the end of 1933, an opposition group under the leadership of
Lutheran pastors Martin Niemöller and Dietrich Bonhoeffer formed the
"Confessing Church." The members of this church opposed the
takeover of the Lutheran Church by the Nazis. Many of its members were
eventually arrested, and some were executed--among them, Bonhoeffer--by
the end of World War II.
<>Postwar
Christianity
The postwar division of Germany left roughly equal numbers of Roman
Catholics and Protestants in West Germany. East Germany had five times
as many Protestants as Roman Catholics. There the authorities waged a
persistent and largely successful campaign to minimize the influence and
authority of the Protestant and Roman Catholic churches.
In the Federal Republic, freedom of religion is guaranteed by Article
4 of the Basic Law, and the churches enjoy a special legal status as
corporate bodies. In theory, there is constitutional separation of
church and state, but church financing complicates this separation. To
support churches and their work, most Germans in the old Länder
pay a voluntary church tax, amounting to an 8 or 9 percent surcharge on
income tax paid. Living in a society known for consensus and conformity,
few West Germans formally withdrew from the established churches before
the 1980s and hence continued to pay the tax.
Beginning in the 1980s, negative attitudes toward the tax and the
churches become more common, and people began leaving the churches in
significant numbers. Between 1980 and 1992, about 1.0 million Roman
Catholics and 1.2 million Protestants gave up their church memberships.
A faltering economy and increased taxes caused many to withdraw for
financial reasons. In a 1992 poll, approximately 42 percent of those
queried stated that the church tax was "much too high"; 64
percent favored abolishing the tax and supporting the churches through
voluntary contributions. Fourteen percent of those Roman Catholics and
Protestants polled stated that they were likely to withdraw or
definitely would withdraw from their church.
In a society increasingly materialist and secular, the spiritual and
moral positions of the churches became irrelevant to many. Among the
younger generation seeking autonomy and self-fulfillment, allegiance was
no longer simply surrendered without question to institutions of
authority. Attendance at services dropped off significantly, and the
institution of the church quietly disappeared from the lives of many
Germans.
In East Germany, although the constitution theoretically provided for
freedom of religion, the Marxist-Leninist state placed formidable
obstacles before those seeking to exercise that basic right. Enormous
pressure was exerted on citizens to renounce religion. East Germans who
practiced their religion were denied educational and professional
opportunities, for example. Consequently, at unification the majority of
East Germans were either not baptized or had left their church.
In the 1990s, polls in the new Länder revealed that more
than 70 percent of East Germans did not believe in God. Young people
were even less religious. Some polls found that only 16 percent of East
German schoolchildren believed in God. An entire generation had been
raised without the religious rituals that traditionally had marked
life's milestones. Secular rituals had been substituted. For example,
the Jugendweihe (youth dedication) gradually supplanted the
Christian practice of confirmation.
After unification in 1990, there were nominally 30.2 million
Protestants and 26.7 million Roman Catholics in united Germany. Roman
Catholics and Protestants combined amounted to about 76 percent of the
German population and 71 percent of the country's total population.
Although less extreme than in the past, attitudes toward religion
continue to polarize German society. In the 1990s, especially in the
western Länder , attitudinal differences separate many younger
Germans with humanistic values (concern for the environment, the rights
of women and minorities, and peace and disarmament issues) from an older
generation who hold traditional religious values. Many others of the
postwar generations have accepted the values of popular culture and
consumerism and have left the churches because they no longer seem
significant. Millions of Germans of all ages, however, continue to
profess a religion for a variety of reasons, among them strong religious
beliefs, social pressure to conform, preservation of educational and
employment opportunities, support for essential church social-welfare
activities, and (in the western Länder ) the enduring appeal
of Christian rituals surrounding baptism, marriage, and burial.
As of 1995, it was difficult to determine to what extent Germans in
the new Länder would return to religion. In the early 1990s,
popular magazines featured stories about the "heathenization"
of Germany. Although such a provocative characterization of trends seems
exaggerated, the incorporation of the former East Germany did dilute
religious influence in united Germany. Conversely, however, the opening
of eastern Germany gave missionaries from the old Länder and
from around the world the chance to rekindle religious fervor. In the
old Länder , the churches have continued their vitally
important work of operating an extensive network of hospitals, nursing
homes, and other social institutions. The need for such services and
facilities is greatest in the five new Länder , and the
churches quickly stepped in to help.
More about <>Religion
in Germany
.
With about 28.2 million members, the Roman Catholic Church in unified
Germany is organized into five archdioceses, eighteen dioceses, three
diocesan offices, and one apostolic administration. Two of the
archdioceses are based in Bavaria (Munich/Freising and Bamberg) and two
in North Rhine-Westphalia (Cologne and Paderborn). More than 57 percent
of all German Roman Catholics live in these two Länder .
Another 28 percent live in the three Länder of Baden-Württemberg,
Hesse, and Rhineland-Palatinate. Only about 900 of the church's 13,000
parishes and other pastoral centers are located in the new Länder
. The number of Roman Catholics in East Germany declined from 2 million
shortly after the war to 800,000 by 1992. Serving these Roman Catholics
are two dioceses, one in Brandenburg (Berlin) and the other in Saxony
(Dresden).
Between 1970 and 1989, the number of Roman Catholics attending Sunday
mass in West Germany declined from 37 percent to 23 percent. Between
1970 and 1990, the number of annual baptisms fell from about 370,000 to
around 300,000. Approximately 470,000 Roman Catholics officially left
the church between 1985 and 1990. In the same period, about 25,000
returned to the church, and another 25,000 converted to other religions.
Despite the diminishing numbers of Roman Catholics, the church tax
enables the Roman Catholic Church to remain strong financially. In 1992
the church's share of tax revenues amounted to approximately DM8.5
billion. An additional DM8 billion was received in the form of
government subsidies, service payments, property, and contributions.
Much of this support is returned to society through an extensive network
of church-operated kindergartens, senior citizen centers, and hospitals.
The main Roman Catholic charitable organization is the Deutscher
Caritasverband, which had about 400,000 employees in 1992.
As the FRG has become an increasingly secular society, the
centuries-old traditional authority of the Roman Catholic Church in
matters of morality has declined, especially among German youth. Many
German Roman Catholics routinely ignore the church and in particular the
pope's positions on such key issues as birth control, premarital sex,
divorce, and abortion. For years the number of ordinations in Germany
has declined. To address this issue, most German Catholics favor
permitting priests to marry, and many support the ordination of women.
Periodically, independent reformist clergymen challenge the church
hierarchy and doctrine. Often they do so with the support of many German
Catholics. In the 1970s, Hans Küng, a theologian at Tübingen
University, used his position and charisma to criticize the idea of
papal infallibility and other dogmas. In the early 1990s, major
differences of opinion between the laity and church authorities were
revealed by a clash between a reform-minded priest and the archbishop in
Paderborn, the most conservative German diocese. For beliefs deemed
contrary to Vatican policies and dogma, Father Eugen Drewermann was
defrocked by Archbishop Johannes Degenhardt. In the tradition of Luther,
Drewermann continued to express his unorthodox views outside the
church--at universities and in the media, including talk shows. A 1992
survey indicated that among all Germans, Drewermann was more popular
than Pope John Paul II.
More about <>Religion
in Germany
.
In the mid-1990s, most of the country's roughly 30 million
Protestants were organized into twenty-four member churches of the
Evangelical Church in Germany (Evangelische Kirche in Deutschland--EKD),
headquartered in Hanover. Later in the decade, the church's headquarters
is scheduled to relocate to Berlin. The mainline Protestant churches
belong to one of three groups: Lutheran (ten); Reformed, or Calvinist
(two); and United, or Lutheran-Calvinist (twelve). The largest number of
congregations is in Saxony, Berlin, Brandenburg, Lower Saxony, Bavaria,
Thuringia, and Baden-Württemberg. Protestant clergy are permitted to
marry, and women are actively engaged in the ministry. One of the most
prominent women in the EKD and in Germany in the mid-1990s was Maria
Jepsen, bishop of Hamburg.
In the early 1990s, about 5 percent of German Protestants attended
weekly services. Annual baptisms declined from about 346,000 in 1970 to
around 257,000 in 1990. Of the 257,000 baptisms in 1990, only about 12
percent took place in the former East Germany. Out of 219,000
confirmations in 1990, about 10 percent involved East German youth. Like
their Roman Catholic counterparts, Protestant churches are well
supported by taxes and contributions. The EKD also runs numerous
hospitals and other social institutions and is a vitally important
member of the country's system of social welfare. The main Protestant
charitable organization is the Diakonisches Werk; it has about 350,000
employees.
In East Germany, Protestant churches became a focal point of
opposition during the 1980s. This was possible because of an agreement
with the authorities in 1978 that granted the churches a degree of
independence. Opposition groups, composed of believers and nonbelievers
alike, subsequently were able to meet at the churches, where they
discussed peace issues and how East Germany could be reformed. In 1989
these churches, in particular those in Leipzig, became staging points
for the massive demonstrations that led to the collapse of the communist
regime.
More about <>Religion
in Germany
.
The free churches in Germany include about a dozen affiliated but
independent churches and congregations that emerged from Protestant
renewal movements, primarily in the nineteenth century. Some free
churches practice baptism, and others accept a simple public declaration
of faith. Prominent among the former are Baptists and Methodists, who
set up religious communities in Germany in 1834 and 1849, respectively.
Methodism was brought to Germany by immigrants returning from the United
States. Since 1854 a third group, the Free Evangelical Congregations,
has practiced baptism of believers, without making it a precondition for
membership in the congregation.
Although the various free churches follow different practices, they
differ from the two main religions in Germany in that they are
independent of the state. The free churches, seeing themselves as
"free churches in a free country," seek no special treatment
from the state and are funded almost exclusively by members' voluntary
contributions.
The emergence of these independent churches was accompanied by their
persecution and denunciation as sects. For this reason, overcoming
prejudice has been a long and arduous process. After World War II, the
free churches were cofounders of the Study Group of Christian Churches
in West Germany and West Berlin. They used this organization as a forum
for fraternal interaction with other churches.
The tenets of the free churches stress the importance of the New
Testament, freely expressed belief in Jesus Christ and a life of service
devoted to him, personal piety, and the sanctity of human life.
Conscientious objection to military service is a part of the teachings
of some free churches. Many free churches emphasize the autonomy of the
local parish and prefer to be called a community rather than a church.
Since 1926 the original members of the Free Churches in Germany have
cooperated with one another through the Meeting of Evangelical Free
Churches. These churches are the Association of Evangelical Free Church
Congregations, the Association of Free Evangelical Congregations, and
the Evangelical Methodist Church. Five additional churches have guest
membership status: the Christian Study Group Mülheim/Ruhr, the Sacred
Army in Germany, the European-Festland Fraternal Uniate, the Church of
the Nazarene, and the Association of German Mennonite Communities. These
eight free churches have a combined membership of approximately 195,000,
organized in about 1,500 parishes or communities. Almost all these
churches are legal corporate bodies.
In recent years, the free churches' interaction and cooperation with
the established Protestant churches have intensified. A few such
activities include missionary work, Bible groups, and humanitarian
efforts such as "Bread for the World."
More about <>Religion
in Germany
.
Despite continuing although lessening differences in living standards
between the old and new Länder , in the mid-1990s German
social structure consists mainly of a large, prosperous central stratum
containing about 60 percent of the population. This stratum includes
mid-level civil servants, most salaried employees, skilled blue-collar
workers, and a shrinking pool of farmers. A smaller wealthier group
consisting of an upper-middle class and an upper class offsets the
poverty experienced by a poor lower class. Hence in terms of social
indicators such as education, average income, and property ownership,
Germany ranks among the world's leading countries. In terms of income,
for example, in 1991 the average German family had a net monthly income
of DM4,905, second highest among members of the EC.
Social Structure
Most of the workforce is employed in the services sector. West
Germany completed the transition from an industrial economy to one
dominated by the services sector in the 1970s, and by the late 1980s
this sector employed two-thirds of the workforce. In contrast, when the
Berlin Wall fell, East Germany still had not made this transition.
Because more of the workforce was engaged in industry and agriculture
than in the services sector, its socioeconomic structure resembled that
of West Germany in 1965.
Rainer Geissler, a German sociologist, has examined his country's
social structure in light of the economic changes that have taken place
in the postwar era. Because of the growth of the services sector and the
doubling of state employees since 1950, he has discarded earlier
divisions of German society into an elite class, middle class, and
worker class, with a small services class consisting of employees of all
levels. He has replaced this division with a more nuanced model that
better reflects these postwar changes. As the economy of the new Länder
is incorporated into the western economy, its much simpler social
structure (elite, self-employed, salaried employees, and workers) will
come to resemble that of the old Länder .
According to Geissler, at the end of the 1980s West Germany's largest
group (28 percent of the population) was an educated salaried middle
class, employed either in the services sector or in the manufacturing
sector as educated, white-collar employees. Some members of this group
earned very high salaries; others earned skilled blue-collar wages. This
professional class has expanded at the expense of the old middle class,
which amounted to only 7 percent of the population at the end of the
1980s. A less educated segment of the services sector, or white-collar
employee sector, amounted to 9 percent of the population. Geissler
divided the working class into three groups: an elite of the
best-trained and best-paid workers (12 percent); skilled workers (18
percent), about 5 percent of whom are foreigners; and unskilled workers
(15 percent), about 25 percent of whom are foreigners. A portion of this
last group live below the poverty line. Farmers and their families make
up 6 percent of the population. At the top of his model of the social
structure, Geissler posits an elite of less than 1 percent.
Germany - The Elite
During the centuries when Germany was a collection of medium-and
small-sized states, wealth and power were concentrated in the hands of
the nobility, landed gentry, and wealthy merchants in the cities. With
the collapse of the German Empire in 1918, the nobility and landed
gentry suffered a major setback, but they still retained much power and
influence. During the interwar years, however, much political power
devolved to representatives of other classes. A vivid illustration of
the transfer of power was former army corporal Adolf Hitler's assumption
of the German presidency following the death of General Paul von
Hindenburg in 1934.
The old propertied and monied elites suffered an additional loss of
power after World War II. In the new worker-dominated GDR, they saw
their property confiscated and their power evaporate. West German
society was transformed by the rapidly expanding social market economy
and the migration of millions of displaced persons from the east, many
of whom were well educated and capable. Some of the old elite and their
offspring retained positions of influence (most notably in the military
and the diplomatic corps), but to an extent greater than ever before,
the elite class became open to society as a whole.
According to Geissler, Germany's elite numbers just a few thousand,
less than 1 percent of the population, but its influence far outweighs
its numbers. The elite consists of persons occupying key positions in
such social sectors as business, politics, labor unions, the civil
service, the media, and the churches. Membership in the elite is based
on performance and is rarely inherited. For this reason, Germany's elite
is pluralist in nature because members of lower social strata can enter
it by rising to the top of a social sector. The openness of elite
positions varies. Sons of workers routinely come to hold high positions
in labor unions or in the SPD, but rarely in banking or the diplomatic
corps. A vital criterion for advancement is a university degree, most
notably a law degree, because about one-third of Germany's elite
consists of lawyers.
Entry into East Germany's elite was determined almost exclusively by
ideological considerations. Small and entrenched, the East German elite
has been characterized as monopolistic, in contrast to that of the West
German elite, where numerous groups shared or competed for power. Most
of the GDR elite has lost power since the fall of the Berlin Wall. As a
result, a new elite similar to the pluralistic elite of the old Länder
is forming in the new Länder .
Germany - The Self-Employed
The self-employed provide a service on their own or are the owners of
firms that provide a service or a product. In West Germany in 1989, the
self-employed constituted 8.8 percent of the workforce, compared with
16.0 percent in 1950; their decline was even steeper in East Germany,
from 20.4 to 2.2 percent over the same period. The self-employed are a
heterogeneous group, encompassing shipping magnates and seamstresses and
artists and gas station owners. As a result, the earnings of the group's
members vary considerably--some members are wealthy, most rank in the
upper middle or middle class in terms of income and social prestige, and
some (about 7 percent of this group) are poor. Excluding farmers, annual
household income of the self-employed in the old Länder in
1991 amounted to about DM150,000, almost triple the average household
income.
As property owners and food producers, farmers are a small but
significant part of the self-employed. In both Germanys, the number of
farmers fell dramatically in the postwar era: in the west, from 5
million (or 10 percent of the population) in 1950 to 864,000 (or 1.4
percent) in 1989; in the east, from 740,000 in 1951 to only 3,000 in the
early 1990s.
A typical agricultural enterprise in the old Länder is a
small- or medium-sized farm worked by the owner, assisted by one or two
family members. Some farmers are wealthy, while others only earn a bare
subsistence. Farmers' average household income is lower than that of
most other self-employed but is about 25 percent higher than the
national average.
Germany - Salaried Employees
The number of salaried employees grew greatly in the postwar era in
West Germany, from 16 percent of the workforce in 1950, to 33 percent in
1974, and to 42 percent in 1989. Salaried employees work in three main
areas: commercial, technical, and administrative. In 1989, 68 percent of
salaried employees worked in the services sector and 32 percent in
industry.
Geissler divides salaried employees (including civil servants) into
two groups: a lower group that performs simple routine tasks
(hairdressers, salesclerks, bus drivers, and low-level civil servants
such as letter carriers) and that in 1989 accounted for 9 percent of
West Germany's population; and an upper group with advanced education
and responsibility, often unsupervised, that performs complex tasks
(accountants, teachers, lawyers, and engineers) and that accounted for
28 percent of the population. The jobs of the upper group often involve
much stress, and half its members have complained of it, compared with
less than one-fourth of skilled workers.
In 1988 the households of salaried employees in West Germany earned
on the whole 36 percent more than workers' households. Studies have
found that despite their modest social prestige and income, only 13
percent of the lower group of salaried employees regard themselves as
workers. Salaried employees as a whole see themselves as belonging to
the middle class. According to various studies cited by Geissler, the
social animosity that prevailed between salaried employees and workers
in the first half of the twentieth century has evolved into a more
subtle sense of belonging to different groups. This feeling of
distinctness is most strongly felt by salaried employees far removed
from the workbench, for example, those in banking.
Generally speaking, salaried employees tend to believe that they must
look out for themselves on an individual basis, rather than
collectively, as is more common among workers. The higher salaried
employees rise in their profession, the more likely this is to be the
case. In consequence, a smaller portion of salaried employees are
members of labor unions than are workers.
Germany - Civil Servants
Although West Germany became primarily a services-sector economy in
the 1970s, blue-collar workers remain a vitally important segment of the
workforce, even though they are outnumbered by salaried employees. At
the end of the 1980s, workers accounted for two-fifths of the workforce
in West Germany, a drop from three-fifths in 1900 and slightly more than
one-half in 1960. The social market economy and powerful trade unions
greatly improved workers' working conditions, job security, and living
standards in the postwar era. Between 1970 and 1989, for example, their
average net earnings increased 41 percent in real terms, more than any
other group except for the self-employed (not including farmers) and
pensioners. In the 1980s, about 43 percent of skilled workers and 29
percent of unskilled or partially trained workers lived in their own
houses or apartments; automobile ownership and lengthy vacations (often
abroad) had become the rule.
As a result of these changes, German workers no longer live
separately from the rest of society as was the case in the nineteenth
century and for much of the twentieth century. The gradual, so-called
deproletarianization has caused some sociologists to maintain that it is
no longer accurate to speak of German workers as a separate social
group. Geissler is aware of the much-improved living standards of the
workers and the gradual disappearance of a proletarian lifestyle, but he
maintains that workers still constitute a distinct group because their
earnings are lower than average, their work is physically demanding and
closely supervised, and their children's opportunities for social
advancement are not as good as those of most other groups. In addition,
most workers still regard themselves as members of the working class,
although a growing percentage see themselves as middle class.
According to Geissler, the working class is composed of three
distinct subgroups: elite, skilled, and unskilled or partially trained
workers. In the mid-1980s, about 12 percent of the population lived in
the households of the worker elite, 19 percent in those of skilled
workers, and 16 percent in those of the unskilled.
The worker elite, which is composed of supervisors and highly trained
personnel, enjoys better pay than the other groups. Its work is less
physically demanding and resembles that of salaried employees. Only
one-third of the sons of the worker elite remain workers, and about
one-half of the group see themselves as members of the middle class.
Skilled workers have completed a set course of vocational training.
This group has expanded in recent decades and in the early 1990s
outnumbered the unskilled, which even as late as 1970 accounted for 57
percent of workers.
Unskilled workers perform the poorest paid and dirtiest tasks.
Foreigners account for about 25 percent of this group and German women
for about 38 percent. A portion of this group lives below the poverty
line. In addition to their other burdens, the unskilled are most likely
to become unemployed and involved in criminal activity.
Germany - The Poor
Upward social mobility, or the ability or chance of offspring to
improve their social position relative to that of their parents,
expanded in both Germanys during the postwar era. The growth of the
services sector was the primary cause of this expansion. The large,
well-trained workforce required by this sector was supplied by a greatly
expanded education system. As a result, many Germans received a better
education than had their parents.
The postwar era saw the formation of a large, newly educated middle
class, which grew at the expense of the small traditional middle class,
many of whose members were merchants and the owners of small firms.
Joining this older middle class was difficult because membership
required capital, property, and other kinds of assets. For this reason,
it was a relatively closed class, and its members were usually the
offspring of existing members. By contrast, joining the new professional
middle class depended on academic training, something readily available
in postwar West Germany, where education was inexpensive and financial
aid was easily obtainable.
One study measuring social mobility in the postwar decades used a
six-level model to track Germans born between 1930 and 1949. It found
that 20 percent had moved up to the next higher level, 10 percent had
moved up two levels, and 2 percent had moved up three levels. Some
downward mobility was recorded as well. For example, 1 percent had
dropped three levels.
Opportunities for upward social mobility varied, however, according
to one's place in society. Blue-collar workers, for example, did not
show as much social mobility as other classes, although their mobility
increased somewhat in the late postwar decades. A commonly used index to
measure social mobility is the percentage of sons remaining within the
social stratum or milieu of their fathers. West German studies have
shown that in 1970 only 5 percent of blue-collar workers' sons managed
to move up into better paying, higher status professions in the services
sector. By 1979 the percentage had more than doubled to 11 percent. The
percentage of sons of lower-level salaried and public-sector employees
moving into elevated professional positions had increased from 12 to 22
percent in the same period.
Another study examined the likelihood of different groups securing a
position in the two top levels of the services sector. The first and
upper level accounts for about 10 percent of total employment and
consists of positions in medicine, law, higher education, upper levels
of administration, and the like. The second and lower level accounts for
about 15 percent of employment and consists of positions in teaching,
mid-level management, retailing, computers, and the like. The study
found that about two-thirds of those employed in the top level and
nearly three-fifths of those in the second level are the offspring of
persons employed in these levels. Only about 20 percent of the sons of
workers are employed in these levels. Access to the top level is very
restricted, with 4 percent of the sons of skilled workers and 2 percent
of the sons of unskilled workers employed there. Almost no farmers' sons
move into the top levels.
Geissler has found three occupational categories particularly
conducive to upward mobility: the self-employed, the nonmanual service
providers, and the worker elite. Self-recruitment in the three
categories is relatively low. Geissler holds that this indicates that
the offspring of those so employed are finding higher status positions.
In contrast to these groups, 93 percent of farmers are the sons of
farmers; farmers' offspring who leave the farm usually become either
skilled or unskilled workers.
As of the first half of the 1990s, social mobility trends in the new Länder
had not yet stabilized. Both upward and downward mobility are greater
than in the old Länder . The widespread disqualification of
the GDR elite meant downward mobility for many. The rapid transformation
of the social structure through the replacement of a command socialist
economy with a social market economy is also causing much social
mobility, especially between generations. Children often do not work in
the same sector as their parents. A new social class of entrepreneurs is
being formed as the new Länder become integrated into the
western economy.
Germany - The Search for a New National Identity
In the aftermath of unification, Germans are searching for a new
identity. There appear to be at least two distinct German identities,
and obstacles to their speedy fusion seem formidable.
In the postwar period, West Germany became an upwardly mobile,
success-oriented society. By 1990 a broad and prosperous middle-class
and upper-middle-class society had developed. Although they still worked
hard to earn the vacation and working conditions among the best in the
world, West Germans sought to create a "leisure society."
There was a movement, for example, advocating the adoption of a four-day
workweek. Work was intrinsically less important to West Germans than to
East Germans; instead, they prized personal fulfillment, recreation,
health, and the natural environment.
Through a remarkable transformation, West Germans had rehabilitated
themselves, had become internationally oriented, and had assumed a
leading role within the larger European community. Members of the older
generation, especially those "blessed by a late birth" (too
young to be Nazis), were self-assured and proud of the Federal
Republic's political, economic, and social achievements. Starting in the
1960s, the younger generation discovered new freedoms and exercised
them. In the 1970s and 1980s, youth- and student-led protests were
mounted against nuclear weapons and nuclear power plants and in favor of
peace, disarmament, and environmental protection.
By the early 1990s, most of the 1960s generation had been assimilated
into the German establishment, but its experiences in challenging
authority and winning concessions produced evolutionary changes in
German society, economy, and culture. This generation's influence could
be seen in the huge candlelight vigils staged by people of all ages to
protest right-wing violence and xenophobia.
On the other side of the fortified border, East German society was
decidedly working class, with comparatively minor class distinctions.
Where there were significant income differentials, the extra money was
of little consequence in an economy marked by shortages of most consumer
goods. The state apparatus provided security in the form of guaranteed
employment, free education and health care, and subsidized low rent.
Homelessness was unknown in the GDR. Other social ills such as violent
crime, drug abuse, and prostitution also were much less prevalent than
in the west.
In terms of their attitude toward state authority and the family,
easterners manifested values characteristic of westerners in the late
1950s and 1960s. On the factory floor or the collective farm, conditions
were often primitive and the workweek long (forty-three or more hours).
The workforce, too, was reminiscent of an earlier Germany, with greater
numbers employed in smokestack industries or in fields and mines, and
far fewer in the services or information sector. One of many revelations
after unification was the information illiteracy of easterners.
With few external options or diversions, East Germans identified with
home and family more than their counterparts in the west. Deprived of
the means and liberty to travel outside communist Eastern Europe, they
formed what some sociologists called a "niche society,"
retreating into an inner circle to find a degree of privacy.
For three generations, East Germans had been indoctrinated in the
thought processes of two forms of totalitarianism in succession: nazism
and communism. With the collapse of communism, Germans living in the new
Länder had few values and beliefs, aside from personal ones,
with which to identify. Embittered by the seemingly imperialistic
imposition of all things West German, some easterners developed "an
identity of defiance" (Trotzidentität ).
In the initial stage of union, Germans focused on the profound
differences that had evolved in the two states since the end of World
War II. In the Federal Republic, one of the world's wealthiest
countries, quality-of-life issues played key roles in defining one's
place and identity in society. Home ownership, travel experiences, and
leisure activities of all kinds were translated into powerful status
symbols.
In stark contrast, the state owned practically all property in East
Germany. Expectations of improving individual or family lifestyles were
modest. Overall, the eastern Länder were decades behind the
west in most categories measuring standard of living. Coming from a
society grown accustomed to measuring itself and others by the yardstick
of material prosperity, it was not surprising that West Germans felt
more in common with their neighbors to the west, in whose countries they
frequently traveled.
In some respects, the former GDR stood in relation to the FRG as a
colony to an imperial power, and it was not long before westerners and
easterners began acting out the roles of "know-it-alls"
(westerners) and "whimpering easterners." Within several years
of the opening of the Berlin Wall, the former East Germany was
transformed from a full-employment society to one having more than 1
million unemployed and hundreds of thousands of part-time workers.
Forced resocialization has weighed heavily on eastern Germans'
self-esteem. The cleft between east and west is sufficiently deep and
wide to make easterners appear to be foreigners in their own land, or at
best second-class citizens. By August 1992, the situation had
deteriorated to the point where a headline on the cover of Der
Spiegel , the influential weekly magazine, summed it up in three
words: "Germans Against Germans."
In modern European history, the merging of two fundamentally
different social, political, and economic systems such as those that
evolved in the two Germanys has no precedent. Fortunately for the newly
united country, most Germans still rely on the traditional traits of
diligence, orderliness, discipline, and thrift, and these shared values
ultimately should resolve the problems associated with the merger of two
states and societies at vastly different levels of development and
achievement.
Germany - Social Welfare, Health Care, and Education
THE DEVELOPMENT OF SOCIAL POLICY in Germany has followed a unique
historical path. During a long process of growth and social
experimentation, Germany combined a vigorous and highly competitive
capitalist economy with a social welfare system that, with some
exceptions, has provided its citizens cradle-to-grave security. The
system's benefits are so extensive that by the 1990s annual total
spending by the state, employers, and private households on health care,
pensions, and other aspects of what Germans call the social safety net
amounted to roughly DM1 trillion (for value of the deutsche mark--see
Glossary) and accounted for about one-third of the country's gross
national product (GNP--see Glossary). Unlike many of the world's
advanced countries, however, Germany does not provide its citizens with
health care, pensions, and other social welfare benefits through a
centralized state-run system. Rather, it provides these benefits via a
complex network of national agencies and a large number of independent
regional and local entities--some public, some quasi-public, and many
private and voluntary. Many of these structures date from the nineteenth
century, and some from much earlier.
The legislation that established the basis of this system dates from
the 1880s and was passed by imperial Germany's parliament, the
Reichstag, with the dual purpose of helping German workers meet life's
vicissitudes and thereby making them less susceptible to socialism. This
legislation set the main principles that have guided the development of
social policy in Germany to the present day: membership in insurance
programs is mandated by law; the administration of these programs is
delegated to nonstate bodies with representatives of the insured and
employers; entitlement to benefits is linked to past contributions
rather than need; benefits and contributions are related to earnings;
and financing is secured through wage taxes levied on the employer and
the employee and, depending on the program, sometimes through additional
state financing.
These insurance programs were developed from the bottom up. They
first covered elements of the working class and then extended coverage
to ever broader segments of the population and incorporated additional
risks. Over time, these programs came to provide a wide net of
entitlements to those individuals having a steady work history.
By international standards, the German welfare system is
comprehensive and generous. However, not everyone benefits equally. In
the mid-1990s, the so-called safety net was deficient for the
lower-income strata and the unemployed. It was also inadequate for
persons needing what Germans term "social aid," that is,
assistance in times of hardship. In 1994, for example, 4.6 million
persons needed social aid, a 100 percent increase since the 1980s.
Germans who had been citizens of the former German Democratic Republic
(GDR, or East Germany), which became part of the Federal Republic of
Germany (FRG, or West Germany) in 1990, tend to be overrepresented in
each of these groups.
Women are more at a disadvantage than any other social group. This
fact stems from the bias of German social insurance programs in favor of
a male breadwinner model; most women receive social and health
protection by virtue of their dependent status as spouse. Hence, despite
the existence of a comprehensive interlocking social net, women face
inequalities in accruing benefits in their own right because of periods
spent rearing children or caring for an elderly parent. Divorced women
also fare poorly because of the welfare system's provisions, as do
widows, whose pensions are low.
In addition to these problems or shortcomings, Germany's social
welfare and health programs have had to contend with the unification of
the former West Germany and East Germany in 1990. West Germany's
approach to social insurance, health insurance, unemployment insurance
(which did not exist in the former GDR), accident insurance, and social
aid and assistance has been applied to East Germany. This fact has meant
that the complex and heterogeneous organizational and financial
arrangements present in the former West Germany to deliver health and
social services have had to be built up in the former East Germany, in
many cases entirely from scratch.
The need for this extension of social welfare programs follows
logically from the former East Germany's transition to a free-market
economy in which employment, health care, and social insurance benefits
have always been highly contingent upon each other. In the absence of an
East German democratic tradition and attitudes supportive of the new
institutions and, as well, of adequate private organizational resources
and skilled manpower, Germany's attempt to integrate two entirely
different systems of social protection, education, and health care
purely by means of law, administrative provisions, and financial
resources is bound to produce problems for years to come.
In the mid-1990s, representatives of Germany's political parties,
businesses, unions, and voluntary social services agencies continued to
wage a vigorous debate over social policy. At issue is the role to be
played by state and/or nongovernmental voluntary charitable agencies,
churches, and other social service providers and how to find a
politically acceptable mix of public and private institutions. Ever
since the nineteenth century, especially during periods of economic and
social crisis, there has been a recurrent demand to shift from
insurance-based programs to a universal flat-rate and tax-financed
program in order to secure a minimum income for all. However, there has
never been sufficient political support for eliminating insurance-based
programs. In the postwar period, business groups and the Christian
Democratic Union (Christlich Demo-kratische Union--CDU), with the
exception of the left wing within the CDU, tended to support the
continued segmentation of the labor force into separate insurance-based
programs for various occupational groups. In contrast, the labor unions
and the Social Democratic Party of Germany (Sozialdemo-kratische Partei
Deutschlands--SPD) tended to support unitary programs for the entire
labor force.
The great costs of unification have raised the possibility of ending
the steady expansion of social welfare programs that had been going on
for more than a century. The current conservative governing coalition
has proposed reductions in benefits to finance unification. Other
factors such as the increasingly competitive global economy and
structural changes in the labor market have also raised questions about
the continued affordability of German social policy. As a result, the
government is increasingly listening to employers who insist that their
share of employee benefit payments be reduced in order that German
business remain competitive in a global economy.
The integration of the two entirely different education systems that
emerged after the 1945 division of the country has also raised many
controversial issues. No consensus has emerged on whether Germany should
adopt the unified school system found in the former East Germany or the
heterogeneous three-tiered system of the former West Germany. Nor is
there consensus on whether to increase the number of school years by one
year for students in eastern Germany or to reduce the thirteen years of
schooling in western Germany to twelve years. A greater uniformity
within the country's education system is also needed because the
plethora of school tracks and the diversity of curricula and qualifying
examinations might indeed endanger the mobility of students and teachers
within Germany and within Europe in general.
Germany - Social Insurance and Welfare Programs
