Causes and changes in family poverty in Germany, 1962 to 2009

Team: Mara Boehle
Leader: Prof. Dr. Christof Wolf
Department: Dauerbeobachtung der Gesellschaft (DBG)

Abstract

Today, the decision to have children and the number of children is generally regarded as a central element of social inequality. Children not only lead to a loss of prosperity, but also increasingly represent a factor that causes poverty. Families - although ‘under the special protection of the state order’ according to the Basic Law - are an increasingly central, almost ‘traditional’ risk group for poverty. While political and public awareness of the risks of family poverty has (only) grown in recent times, the proportion of poor families in Germany has been increasing since the 1970s and has stabilised at an above-average level for several years. To date, however, there have been no studies that satisfactorily explain why this situation has arisen. Empirical research has so far dealt with the topic descriptively and without reference to theory or has focussed on individual, predominantly (life course-related) individual determinants in short-term comparisons over time.

The DFG project systematically analyses the reasons for the persistence and increase in the above-average risk of poverty among families from the 1960s to the present day. This is done on the basis of a theoretical and empirical multi-level model that understands the economic situation of families as a function of individual and structural factors in interaction with temporal changes in the German social structure. The starting points are the economic, (intra-)familial, demographic and political-institutional change processes occurring during this period - such as the flexibilisation of the labour market, the change in family forms, the increase in childless couples and the restructuring of the socio-political support system. The central questions are: To what extent is the increase in family income poverty attributable to structural factors and to what extent to individual factors? Has their influence changed over time? And what relative role is played by the compositional effects that emerged during the observation period, such as the increase in the proportion of single parents and childless (dual-earner) couples?

The hypotheses of the project are tested on the basis of microcensus data (supplemented by macro indicators) for the years 1962 to 2009. The long time series and the breadth of analytical characteristics of the microcensus trend file enable the investigation of (long-term) changes in influencing factors; the obligation to provide information and the representative annual samples mean that there is no underrepresentation of low-income households and individuals (compared to other data sources such as SOEP or EVS); the size of the sample also offers the possibility of differentiated subgroup analyses.

Runtime

01.05.2011 - 31.10.2014

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