Work-life balance, the compatibility of family and career, has become an important societal and labor market policy topic. In particular, the questions about earning behavior of women with children and the equal division of labor in partnerships are at the center of the current discussion. As the main responsibility for household and childcare still remains predominantly with women, despite equalization of education levels as well as increasing convergence at the level of occupational equal opportunity, it is mainly they, who, in the situation of a desire to earn, are confronted with the problem of work-life balance and are disadvantaged with respect to occupational career chances.
At the center of these analyses is therefore the earning behavior of couples with children, which is time-restricted due to the required care, and must be negotiated between both partners. The significance of various influencing factors on the realization of an equable distribution of gainful work among couples is also examined. These are, in addition to socioeconomic and familial components, above all the partnership context as well the occupational basic conditions. Differences between West and East Germany are also taken into consideration. The microcensus 2005 was used as the data basis, which, with the ad-hoc module on work-life balance, for the first time enabled an investigation of these question on the basis of official microdata.
In 2008 and 2009 this work was sponsored in the context of a DFG-Project.
Bohr, Jeanette (2014): Realisierungschancen egalitärer Erwerbsmodelle: Analysen zur Erwerbsbeteiligung in Partnerschaften mit Kindern auf Basis des Mikrozensus. GESIS-Schriftenreihe, Band 14, Köln: GESIS.
