Changing Patterns of Labour-Market Sequences in West Germany

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European Sociological Review, Vol. 9 No. 1, May 1993 ©Oxford University Press 1993

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Differen tiation of L ife- Co urses ? Changing Patterns of Labour-Market Sequences in West Germany PETER A. BERGER, PETER STEINMULLER, AND PETER SOPP Based on retrospective data from the 'Socio-Economic Panel' (SOEP), this paper deals with changes in the labour-force courses of West German men and women. Reformulating parts of the 'individualization thesis'—widely discussed in German sociology—in terms of observable (dis-)continuities in the life-course, it concentrates on sequences of positions inside and outside the active labour-force. Using indicators for stability and heterogeneity and a typology of gender-specific labour-force courses, we find extraordinarily high amounts of stability and low heterogeneity in the 1950s and 1960s. But in the 1970s, there was decreasing stability and increasing variation, especially for the younger men, which breaks the dominance of the 'normal male labour-force course'. The 1970s and 1980s seem to mark a new period of de-standardization and 'stabilization of instabilities' on the female side, too, because similar tendencies of less stability and more heterogeneity are found within the younger cohorts of women. But there is also a growing importance of continuous labour-market sequences amongst the younger women, perhaps leading to a sharper 'polarization' between family- and work-orientated life courses. ABSTRACT

STANDARDIZATION OR DE-STANDARDIZATION OF LIFE-COURSES?

At present, the revolutionary developments in the former 'socialist' societies of Eastern Europe and the rapid 'incorporation' of the GDR into the FRG are making issues such as the direction and speed of social change, the openness of modern societies, and the processual and dynamic character of social structures in general more important. But concepts such as individualization, differentiation, and pluralization have already inspired many controversies in West German sociology since the early eighties.1 In this context, the historical impact, the scope, the speed, and the consequences of individualization and differentiation are some of the most interesting topics. Do these supposed trends only represent the 'normality' of modernization, meaning relatively slow, continuous,

and minor changes? Or do we—perhaps as an unforeseen consequence of incremental changes—have to expect rather fundamental discontinuities in Western industrial societies, too, where traditional modes of social and system integration, such as families, strata, or classes, seem to vanish? Are we experiencing a sort of (reflexive) 'modernization of modern societies',2 transforming industrial societies into individualized 'risk societies' and marking the entry into 'another modernity' (Beck, 1992, 1991)? We will not try to find answers to these almost philosophical questions. The aim of the present paper is somewhat more modest: we will analyse some changes in the life-courses of (West) German men and women, focusing on their paths through positions inside and outside the active labour-force. Our leading questions may be stated as follows: are processes of

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destabilization, destandardization, and individualization in life-courses—especially of younger people—only short-term outcomes of labour-market problems and deregulation policies in the 1970s and 1980s, and hence not adequate descriptions of social change in the long run? Or does the stabilization of instabilities indicate a long-term trend towards more differentiated or individualized lifecourses? To deal with these questions empirically, we reformulate some aspects of the 'individualization thesis' in terms of observable continuities and discontinuities in the labourforce courses of successive birth cohorts. We believe this aspect to be an important one, because looking at continuities and discontinuities in the labour-force courses of different cohorts is closely related to one of the most interesting topics in recent life-course research: the question of standardization or destandardization in modern life-courses (cf. Buchmann, 1989; Heinz (ed.), 1991; Kohli, 1986; Mayer (ed.), 1990; Rindfuss etal., 1987). In modern welfare-state societies, the lifecourse has become the dominant institution of social and system integration, supplementing, overlapping with, and in part substituting for the traditional and mainly synchronic modes of integration—such as social class and family— in a diachronic way (cf. Beck, 1986: 211; Kohli, 1985). Individuals' life-courses and biographies therefore seem to reflect directly the constraints and opportunities built into educational systems and produced by labour-markets and welfarestate bureaucracies (cf. Mayer and Miiller, 1986; Mayer and Schoepflin, 1989). Institutional and cultural mechanisms of chronologization and synchronization tend to produce many similarities and regularities, and modern lifecourses can appear to be the results of real standardization processes, leading to typical collective life-course patterns, e.g. being class or gender specific (cf. Featherman et al., 1989; Mayer et al., 1989; Mayer and Blossfeld, 1990; Mayer et al. (eds.), 1991). In a more formal sense, life-courses are structured by the timing of events, of interruptions and passages, by the duration of phases or statuses, and by the sequences of events and held positions (cf. Glaser and Strauss, 1971;

Hagestad, 1991; Levy 1991). Life-course research has demonstrated quite well how all these elements are influenced by demographic factors, labour-market processes, and changes in the educational system (e.g. Blossfeld, 1989). Furthermore, life-courses and biographies are shaped through cultural norms or social expectations, though these are sometimes tacit, and they have often become explicit objects of bureaucratic regulation and social policy (e.g. age-limits for retirement, limits for the duration of unemployment benefits, and so on). At the same time this multitude of structuring factors and regulating mechanisms transforms the modern life-course into a very complex social fact (Mayer, 1986: 164), especially sensitive to regional, historical, or social variations. And in spite of the many regulating mechanisms operating to produce standardized life-courses, this complexity of the life-course puts forward questions concerning the impact of those norms and mechanisms in everyday life and the scope of supposed standardization processes. Circumstances such as the economic crises in Weimar Germany, the consequences of World War II or, more recently, of German reunion, interrupt normal life-courses in often rather dramatic ways, making 'irregular' biographies normal even in a purely statistical sense. Certain activities of the welfare state generate altered or even new life-course options for the individuals involved. And the members of different birth cohorts are confronted with unequal opportunity structures with respect to educational and labour-market chances. Furthermore, trends towards mass prosperity, the expansion of higher education, and the rising labour-force participation of women (cf. Mayer et al. (eds.), 1991; Miiller et al. (eds.), 1983; Miiller, 1986) as well as increasing job mobility (Carroll and Mayer, 1986: 333) or shifts from materialistic to post-materialistic value orientations (Inglehart, 1989)—common to so many industrial societies—can be seen as longterm changes that may transform the patterns and shapes of life-courses. Finally, another reason for looking more closely at the degree of homogenization and standardization of life-courses can be derived from ongoing processes of functional

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differentiation, which generate a structure of relatively autonomous sub-systems, each following its own rationality (e.g. J. Berger, 1988; Luhmann, 1984). In its consequences for the members of modern societies, this seems to lead to sharply separated spheres of activity, splitting the life-course into part-time biographies, specific for certain organizations, domains, or sub-systems. This forces individuals to co-ordinate and synchronize the different tasks and options on their own. They have to integrate them into their biographies without the orientations and securities that traditional cultural models and stable modes of social interaction once offered (cf. Beck, 1986; P. A. Berger and Hradil, 1990). The high sensitivity of modern life-courses to historical influences and to processes of differentiation and modernization is our general theoretical reference-point. When reconstructing changing patterns of labour-market sequences from the late 1920s, with their political and economic crises, up to the West German welfare-state society of the early 1980s, we therefore expect to see the effects of specific historical circumstances as well as an overall trend to more differentiated life-course patterns. Especially for the younger cohorts, our empirical results will support the thesis that changed structural conditions and new cultural norms in the 1970s and early 1980s have led to higher degrees of heterogeneity and differentiation within the life-courses of both men and women, but at the same time seem to narrow the gap between gender-specific lifecourse patterns. In addition, we will show that the widespread assumption of a continuous trend towards more and more standardization and homogeneity in life-course patterns may be, at least in the West German case, an overgeneralization of a very distinct period in the history of the FRG, namely the period of rapidly growing prosperity and an expanding labourmarket at the end of the 1950s and in the 1960s, commonly known as the 'Wirtschaftswunder' (economic miracle). However, differentiation and individualization are as likely not to appear as linear and continuous countertrends to standardization or homogenization. They are ambiguous processes with several not necessarily

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synchronized steps. 'Typical* and standardized modern life-course patterns, which were expected to substitute for more traditional forms of social integration, are themselves going to become less standardized and more differentiated. In the long run, this seems to constitute a new stage in processes of individualization, yet conversely it may also give rise to new standardizing mechanisms in the future. THE DATA-BASE AND INDICATORS FOR MEASURING STABILITY AND HETEROGENEITY OF LABOUR-MARKET SEQUENCES

Data-base and Design To analyse changes in the patterns of life-courses through the labour-force, we use data from the 'Socio-Economic Panel' (SOEP). This panel study started in 1984 with roughly 12,000 people in about 6,000 households, and has been repeated every year since. It is now directed by a Research Group of the 'Deutsches Institut fur Wirtschaftsforschung' (DIW) in Berlin (cf. Hanefeld, 1987; Projektgruppe, 1990). In this paper, we are only dealing with (West) German respondents of the first wave (/i = 8983), who were asked to report retrospectively their positions inside and outside the active labourforce for every year between the ages of 15 and 65 up to 1984. The following positions, to which we will refer as 'labour-force status' or 'position', 3 were given: —educational training (school, night-school, university); —vocational training (apprenticeship, retraining, further training); —military service (including captivity and alternative social service); —full-time employment (including professional soldier); —part-time and irregular employment; —unemployed; —housewife/h ouse-husband; —retired; —other. In a similar way, we will speak of labour-force courses or labour-market sequences as far as

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individual movements between those positions and/or remaining in one of these statuses are concerned. Besides the interest in individual movements between positions in the centre of the so-called 'work society'—i.e. regular, payed full-time employment as well as self-employment—and the statuses at the periphery of labour-markets or outside the active labour-force (cf. Kreckel, 1989), we concentrate on labour-force courses for two main reasons. First, the information gathered in the SOEP does not allow a detailed retrospective reconstruction of occupational or job mobility on a year-by-year basis.4 This is possible only for labour-force status and for some aspects of family status (cf. Blossfeld/Jaenichen, 1990). Second, problems concerning the validity and reliability of retrospective data seem to be considerably less significant if we use clear-cut categories, like 'employment' or 'unemployment', that represent socially well-defined and relatively stable institutionalized positions in the everyday life of individuals. Taking positions within and outside the active labour-force as constant reference-points—yet bearing in mind, that this is a somewhat heroic assumption 5 —we use a cohort design, consisting of five-year birth cohorts from 1901-5 to 1951-5. We omitted older people from our sample, because there were too few of them, and the respondents born after 1955, because they have not been at risk in the labourmarket for long enough to show labour-force courses comparable with those of elder cohorts. Five-year birth cohorts seem to be large enough to give reasonable numbers for calculating proportions, especially when it has to be done separately for each sex (cf. Levy, 1977; S0rensen, 1990). At the same time they are narrow enough not to confuse too much heterogeneity and variations resulting from specific historical periods. To avoid the problem of comparing labour-market sequences of different length we decided to split the sample up into three age-groups of equal length (20-9, 30-9, 40-9). We thus obtained three overlapping dimensions of time: historical time, birth cohorts, and age-periods. We will mark all three of them in the corresponding figures and tables.

Indicators of Stability and Heterogeneity In contrast to many other studies of life-courses, which frequently restrict themselves to the timing and duration of life-events or life-phases, we will concentrate on the sequences of positions and passages. Cohort-specific patterns of sequences will then be studied in two ways. First, we separate 'stable' or continuous sequences from 'unstable' or discontinuous ones. This leads to the derivation of indicators for stability and heterogeneity of (patterns of) courses (cf. Figure \a/la), characterizing age-groups and cohorts and allowing inter-cohort comparisons. In constructing these indicators, a sequence of events is understood as a temporal succession of statuses, distinguishable from others in terms of the temporal ordering of events or status passages. Due to the rather complex questionnaire there are some gaps in the information on labour-force courses. One can find ambiguous and sometimes contradictory answers. But most of these problems could be solved, because the accurate timing of status changes and the exact durations of phases play only a minor role in our analyses. Problems concerning missing values for some years or more than one answer for the same year are more important to our design. Looking at the sequences of events or statuses, we therefore used rules of classification, assuming the dominance of employment. For example, a person reporting full-time employment and being a housewife for the same age periods was treated as 'employed full-time' for these years. Phases of educational or vocational training and phases of unemployment, however, were always taken into account. In the case of left- or rightcensored information for particular courses within a given age-group, information from the preceding or following age-group was used as far as it was available. It was then possible to look for 'stable' individuals, meaning men or women who did not report any changes in their labour-force status during a particular age-period. The relative frequency of these 'stable' individuals within a specific cohort and age-group gives a measure of 'stability' for the respective subpopulations. It will increase as more individuals retain their positions, and decrease with the

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number of people changing their positions in this cohort during the given age-period. The term 'heterogeneity', in contrast, refers to the number of different sequences observed within a particular sub-population. The two measures for heterogeneity are based on the possible number of different sequences, which is limited by the number of men or women within a single cohort and age-period. The unweighted heterogeneity (h) is the ratio of the number of observed different courses—stable or unstable—to the total number of persons within the same cohort/age-period combination. It is calculated as h = ( C - 1 ) / ( P - 1), where C is the number of different sequences, and P represents the number of persons. This indicator would take the value of 1 if all individuals showed different sequences, and 0, if they had all followed the same course.6 However, an indicator of heterogeneity should also be sensitive to the distribution of persons. For this, we adopted a measure of heterogeneity, suggested by Peter Blau (1977: 78) and originally weighted it by the number of individuals who were members of different categories or groups. In our case, it is used to take into account the number of persons showing the same labour-market sequences within a particular cohort/age-period combination. This weighted HETEROGENEITY (H) is calculated as H= 1 -^(jjj/P) 2 , where/?, stands for the given number of persons following a specific course /, and P again represents the number of persons. 7 This formula is a measure of the probability that two randomly chosen individuals of the same subpopulation will show different sequences, and would be greater the more different sequences occur and/or the more equally people are distributed amongst these sequences. We use these measures of heterogeneity because transition rates and the probabilities of events—the main focus of event-history or survival analysis—as structural or aggregate properties do not tell us very much about how the men and women concerned can perceive different patterns of chances and risks in their daily lives. There seems to be an analogy with the perception of occupational mobility: while the flows into certain positions can be

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recognized from the position of the lay actor, the same is not true for the outflows, which have to be reconstructed by an external observer (cf. Mayer and Miiller, 1976: 115). Yet, according to Blau (1977: 78), our last indicator in particular can be interpreted as a measure for the perceived heterogeneity between social categories, because the relative proportions of group sizes determine the chances of meeting and knowing members of other social categories. The weighted HETEROGENEITY therefore not only represents structural properties of the sub-populations as aggregates, but also points to the perceptability of different labour-market sequences from the viewpoint of the individual cohort and age-group members. Crude as this indicator may be, it can at least give some hints about the experiences men and women will have 'travelling through' the social space of labour-force positions.8 A Typology of Labour-Market Sequences Finally, leaving the level of these formal indicators, it may be appropriate to attempt to find typical courses, characteristic of the different age-groups along the birth cohorts. In our present context, we will try to combine the sometimes very puzzling variety of sequences into a smaller number of gender-typical labourforce courses. Doing this, we are able not only to describe the cohorts and age-groups in terms of stability or heterogeneity ratios, but also to identify the specific kind of labour-market sequences which will perhaps dominate the lifecourses of the men and women concerned. To mark the difference between the more 'regular' types of labour-force courses and discontinuous sequences, we adopt a distinction between 'order' and 'disorder' used by Rindfuss et al. (1989). 'Order' is seen as continuity and linearity in the sequences of positions and events, following culturally defined and legitimized paths. In this sense, a 'regular' lifecourse is based on widely accepted cultural norms as well as on corresponding regulations and constraints. But the explicit reference to at least some of the dominant cultural norms regulating life-courses and biographies, necessary in constructing our typologies, obviously raises some difficulties

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for inter-cohort comparisons. Cultural definitions and normative expectations of a 'regular' or 'orderly' life-course may change considerably through history. To construct typologies covering a relatively long historical period, it therefore seems appropriate to start from the observed frequencies of different sequences, supposing a certain dominance for the most frequent ones. But in doing this, one always has to remember the age and cohortspecific social constructions of 'normal biographies', and their influences on the particular patterns of labour-force sequences. Despite all their puzzling variety, in most cases the observed sequences seem to represent a considerably smaller number of specific cultural models. This is why a historically sensitive typology of life-courses has to pay attention to both sides: to the observed frequencies, representing normalities in a statistical sense, and to the underlying, e.g. gender-specific, cultural models, regulating life-courses in a normative sense. Our gender-specific typologies are therefore based on the observed sequences within a cohort/age-period combination, and not on all the permutations of events and passages in the sub-populations which might be possible in a logical sense. The particular types of labourforce courses are labelled according to the last position held in the age-period of interest. Sequences which could not be classified into one of the categories described below are considered as 'discontinuous', showing only rather 'atypical' and 'disorderly' sequences as a common characteristic. Tables Al and A2 in the appendix include the observed sequences for each age-group and sex in the column labelled 'comb(ined) courses'. In the first column, the names given to the type of labour-market experience are shown, and the rows give the distribution of respondents according to agegroup and birth cohort. For men, we can distinguish three types of labour-force course. 'Training' covers all sequences of constant positions in the educational system as well as persons moving into a stable educational or training phase during the first age-period (20-9 years). 'Retirement' (in this case early retirement) is

only relevant in the last age-decade (40-9 years), where it is a marginal type. For all age-periods, 'employment' represents the most important type of male labour-force course: it contains stable full-time employment or the entry into this position, continuous part-time work, and military service during the age-period analysed. Information about the proportion of men showing stable full-time employment is given in Figure \b. Female labour-force courses cannot be classified in the same manner, because on the side of women, two competing models for 'normal' life-courses exist, one being more family-orientated, the other more workorientated. 'Employment' means nearly the same as on the male side. But sequences from a housewife position into employment and the training sequences are added, because treating the latter separately would give numbers too small to form a category. 'Retirement', which was only used for the last age-period studied, means the same as for men. 'Part-time employment' includes continuous part-time employment sequences and moving from fullto part-time employment statuses. It is the first typical female response to the contradictory demands stemming from the domains of family and work. By moving between these spheres in a daily rhythm, these women seem to live a double life-course. The next gender-specific type, labelled 'housewife', covers all women who reported this status during the entire ageperiod, as well as those moving directly from educational or employment positions into this status and remaining there for the rest of the given age-period. Because many women showed this type of labour-force course, we included additional information not only on the proportions of constant full-employment sequences, but also on constant housewife sequences in the corresponding Figure 2b. The last category of typical female sequences we will call 'interruption': combining interrupted employment sequences followed by returns into statuses of paid work, it is meant to comprehend the second frequent form of integrating family and work domains, by dividing female biographies into phases of work in the family or the household and work for money.

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In a more methodological sense, this last type demonstrates most clearly the advantages of the retrospective longitudinal data used here. This typical solution to balancing family and work cannot be identified from cross-sectional data alone (cf. Lauterbach, 1991), nor is it possible to analyse historical changes in the weight, scope, and importance of such sequential solutions. Only by leaving aggregate level characteristic of cross-sectional analysis and analysing the particular sequences on the individual level can we look for inter-cohort differences in labour-force experiences. Such differences may indicate—as we presume following the thesis of individualization—an increasing number of 'irregular' sequences or, pointing in the same direction, a decreasing dominance of certain types of 'normal' or 'standard' courses between statuses inside and outside the labour-force. CHANGING LABOUR-FORCE COURSES

Looking at the results of recent research on labour-force participation patterns for German men and women,9 we expect to find that World War II exerted rather strong effects on the labour-force courses of men, resulting in many discontinuities and a high level of heterogeneity. Subsequently, male life-courses should once again show a great amount of stability and homogeneity, especially in the cohort of the 'standard employment relationship', neither massively recruited to military service nor influenced by the later expansion of the educational system. Educational expansion will in turn lead to loss of stability and an increase in heterogeneity for the youngest cohort of men. This is also the cohort where the entries into the labour-market more often resemble contingent carriers or longer lasting 'transitional phases' (cf. Galland, 1990), where many individual movements occur between the different positions in the core, on the periphery, and outside the labour-force. In contrast to men, World War II should have less impact on the life-courses of women. Yet, throughout the entire historical period we are studying, we suppose less stability and more heterogeneity in female labour-force courses in

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general. The reason for this is the double-sided cultural model observable in their labour-force participation patterns. While the male labourforce courses in West Germany seem to be strongly regulated by the norm of stable and permanent full-time employment, women are forced to chose between full-time or part-time employment and the 'retreat' to an 'alternative role' (Offe and Hinrichs, 1984) as a housewife in the case of marriage and/or motherhood. Therefore, passages between family or household and labour-market activities should occur more often, and this should be true for all cohorts. Looking at inter-cohort differences, we have to keep in mind the rising average age that marks the transition from training to employment, the tendency to leave the parental home earlier (cf. Mayer and Schwarz, 1989), and growing part-time employment, as well as increasing unemployment rates in the younger cohorts. Therefore, we expect some loss in the continuity and stability of women's labourmarket sequences. However, this trend towards increasing heterogeneity might be counterbalanced by those more frequently followed labour-force courses, representing a continuous labour-force participation after the first entry into the labour-market. Whether this will lead to more similarities between male and female life-courses, and whether this will give rise to a more clear-cut segregation between familyand work-orientated life courses for women—to which we will refer as 'polarization'—will be one of the topics discussed in the rest of this paper. Male Labour-Market Sequences In every birth cohort, men at age 20-9 show less 'stable' or continuous labour-market sequences, and hence more heterogeneity, than at the other ages (Figure la). Obviously, this period of young adulthood is, and always has been, a phase of life with many status passages, creating many different sequences between positions of educational or vocational training, military service, and employment. Yet, as assumed above, especially the men born between 1911 and 1925 seem to have experienced rather discontinuous life-courses in their early years, showing less stability and correspondingly very high heterogeneity rates. Resulting from

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C H A N G I N G PATTERNS OF LABOUR-MARKET SEQUENCES IN WEST GERMANY Age 20-29 years

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Key: Constant full employment 20-

Discontinuous courses 'Retirement' 'Training'

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economic depression in the late 1920s and War II at an early age were able to 'settle down' military service during World War II, this is also in their post-war labour-force courses. They true for the higher age-groups of the older could establish high levels of stability and cohorts, indicating a strong effect of this specific continuity in their later life-courses, although historical period. their qualificational level remained relatively low Turning to the typology of male sequences compared to older or younger cohorts (cf. (Figure \b), the highest proportions of Miiller, 1978; Blossfeld, 1989). discontinuous sequences can be found for the A large section of the men born between 1931 1911-15 cohort, because at age 20-29 its and 1935 could start their labour-force courses members were involved in labour market crises with a higher level of stability, partly due to the and at age 30-39, in World War II. Treating lack of military service throughout the first agethe passages including training, employment, period from 20 to 29. Including only a small and military service as 'normal', for the men, number of discontinuous sequences (Figure \b; cohorts born in the periods 1916-20 and 1921-5 cf. Table A1), the later life-courses of these men show a relatively small amount of discontinuous were mainly shaped by rapidly growing courses. But at the same time, only few members prosperity and job security. No other cohort of of these cohorts were able to follow a course men in (West) German history was able to reach of stable employment, as indicated by the these high levels of stability and continuity. And proportions of constant full employment in no other cohort shows such low levels of Figure la. As the measures of heterogeneity heterogeneity or differentiation in its labourpoint to a somewhat more even distribution of force course patterns. It therefore seems the individuals between a smaller number of appropriate to call it the 'cohort of the normal different sequences between the ages of 20 and male labor-force course', implicitly used as an 29 and for the cohort born 1921-5, this empirical or normative reference-point in so demonstrates very clearly the overwhelming many discussions on the standardization of lifedominance of military service for the life-courses courses. At the same time, it represents an of these men. exceptional case within the successive birth Yet, after the times of economic crisis and cohorts. The extraordinary degree of continuity and war, leading to rather restless courses in their earlier years, the male members of these cohorts homogeneity for this cohort becomes more experienced great continuity in their working evident, not only when comparing it with the lives between the ages 30 and 39, which war cohorts, but also with the subsequent corresponds roughly to the late 1950s and early cohorts. The re-establishment of military 1960s on the axis of historical time. This is also service, the beginning of educational expansion, the case at ages 40-9, representing the late 1960s and rising unemployment rates at the end of the and the early 1970s, where particularly high rates 1970s produce new, but in some sense only of stability combined with extraordinarily low 'normal', opportunities and risks for those men. heterogeneity rates can be observed. A similar Consequently, all our indicators as well as the tendency, shifted to later ages, occurs for the distributions within our typology of sequences, older cohorts, and the indicators for stable where more discontinuous sequences and less labour-force participation, which can be derived sequences with constant full-time employment from the typology (Figure \b), point in the same occur, point towards increasing instability and direction. This supports conclusions obtainable rising heterogeneity (Figures la/lb), especially from cross-sectional, age-specific participation for the ages 20 to 29, but in the higher agerates. Even looking at the individual sequences groups, too. Not only is there a growing variety or status passages on a disaggregated level— of distinguishable labour-force courses within and thereby getting somewhat closer to the the younger cohorts and ages, and a cohort members' viewpoint on their life-courses corresponding loss of significance for and biographies—the male members of the continuous employment sequences and other cohorts involved in economic crises and World stable courses, but also as indicated by the

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increase of the weighted HETEROGENEITY (//), the distribution amongst the ever-more-different labour-force courses is becoming more even at the same time. This indicates a decreasing predominance of the 'normal male life-course'. Hence, as far as the life-courses of young West German men are concerned, our assumption of a new phase of differentiation and destandardization, starting in the late 1960s and early 1970s and following a period of extremely high continuity and homogeneity, seems to be correct. Female Labour-Market Sequences Leaving aside the strong periodic effects of economic crises and war on male labour-force courses for a moment, women's stability rates tend to be smaller than the corresponding rates for men in most cohorts (cf. Figures \a and 2a). Furthermore, at least within our frame of reference, female life-courses seem to be less sensitive to specific historical influences than those of men, showing less fluctuations in the indicators of stability and heterogeneity in the succession of birth cohorts. There is only a small rise in heterogeneity for the years 1936-49 and the youngest age-group, linked with a slightly increased number of stable housewives at the same time and age (Figure 2b). This picture gets somewhat clearer if we look at the typology: according to this, the years from 1941 to 1954 were those with the largest proportions of discontinuous sequences in all age-periods (Figure 2b; cf. Table A2). Therefore, we may conclude that war and economic crises also influence female life-courses. But because there is no clear predominance of one single type of labour-force course, as is the case with the men, such influences are not as easily observable in terms of deviations from the most frequent or dominant type as on the male side. As in the case of men, the labour-market sequences between the ages of 20 and 29 point to less stability, more heterogeneity, and more discontinuity in the life-courses of these younger women. At the same time, sequences of stable full-time employment seem to be more frequent than continuous work in household and family, distinguishing this age-period from the later ones, where the reverse is true. This rising

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importance of a stable housewife status in higher ages leads to calmer life-courses for those older women. But it is counter-balanced by an agespecific increase of sequences, containing stable part-time employment as well as passages into continuous part-time employment out of other statuses. Discontinuous labour-force courses as well as part-time employment can be described as 'typical' female solutions, facing the often contradictory demands of work and family. Looking at Figure 2b, these forms of temporary labour-market integration have indeed become rather frequent, especially for the older agegroups, which show growing proportions of part-time employment sequences since the early 1960s (ages 30-9) and the beginning of the 1970s (ages 40-9) respectively (cf. Table A2). This corresponds clearly with the decrease in stable sequences and the obvious increase of heterogeneity in the age-period 30-9, not only caused by rising part-time employment, but also by a growing significance of discontinuous labour-force sequences. Comparing the sub-groups as aggregates reveals some further interesting gender differences: the unweighted heterogeneity (/i) shows no significant differences for the agegroups 30-9 and 40-9, with the exception of the war and the immediate post-war periods. But the weighted HETEROGENEITY (H), which additionally takes into account the distribution of individuals along the different sequences, clearly indicates the lack of a single predominant sequence on the female side (Figures \a/2a). As can be seen in the typology (Figure 2b), the main reason for this is the housewife status and sequence, which remains important beyond the age of 30 for all cohorts, and constitutes the duality of female life-courses. Although the labour-force participation of women has risen steadily over recent decades (which also seems to lead to greater status inconsistency for women),10 and although continuous housewife sequences were reduced in the succession of birth cohorts, gender differences in the courses through the labour-force are still evident, at least as far as the higher age-groups are concerned. Coming finally to the age-period 20-9, we expected to see some of the consequences of

54

CHANGING PATTERNS OF LABOUR-MARKET SEQUENCES IN WEST GERMANY Age 20-29 years 1

0.8-

0.6-

0.4-

0.2-

Key: I

] Stability o

weighted HETEROGENETTY

v

unweighted Heterogeneity

1901/5 11/15 1921-34 31-44

Age 30-39 years

Age 40-49 years

0.8-

0.8-

0.6-

0.6

0.4-

0.4-

0.2-

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1901/5 11/15 1931—44 41-54

21/5 31/5 51-64 61-74 Birth cohorts Historial time

21/5 31/5 41-54 51-64 Birth cohorts Historical time

41/5 71-84

1901/5 11/15 1941-54 51-64

21/5 31/5 61-74 71-84 Birth cohorts Historical time

FIGURE 2a Stability and heterogeneity in the labour-force courses of women

41/5 61-74

51/5 71-84

55

EUROPEAN SOCIOLOGICAL REVIEW Age 20-29 years

Key: n

Constant housewife

—B— Constant full-time Discontinuous courses 'Part-time Employment' 20-

'Interruption' I

I 'Retirement'

|

| 'Housewife'

I

j 'Employment'

1901/5 11/15 21/5 31/5 41/5 51/5 1921-34 31^*4 41-54 51-64 61-74 71-84 Birth cohorts Historical time

Age 30-39 years

Age 40-49 years

60-

40-

20-

1901/5 11/15 21/5 31/5 41/5 1931^44 41-54 51-64 61-74 71-«4 Birth cohorts Historial time FIGURE 2b

1901/5 11/15 21/5 31/5 1941-54 51-64 61-74 71-84 Birth cohorts Historical time

Typical labour-force courses of women (in %)

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CHANGING PATTERNS OF LABOUR-MARKET SEQUENCES IN WEST GERMANY

educational expansion and the labour-market crises since the 1970s more clearly. Here we find an increase in the variety of sequences within the younger cohorts of women (h), and less concentration on certain sequences as well (H) (Figure 2a). But in contrast to the male side, this is not accompanied by a clearly visible decrease in 'stable' or continuous sequences in general, because at the same time sequences of continuous full-time employment and 'regular' passages from training to employment become somewhat more frequent among the younger women (Figure 2b). Adding the reduced numbers of 'normal' housewife sequences to this picture, we see a growing significance of normal labour-force courses amongst younger women which are quite similar to the 'normal' labourmarket sequences of men. In sum, since the 1950s and 1960s, when 'irregular' or discontinuous sequences were rare amongst younger women, and the normal female life-course, characterized by an early entry into the status of housewife and mother, was the cultural model followed most frequently, a 'break' in the typical female lifecourse patterns seems to have occurred. 'Typical' housewife life-courses have decreased, while life-courses leading into or continuing within the active labour-force have become more widespread. For the older women, this is happening through more and more entries into part-time employment, still growing in the 1980s (cf. Hoist and Schupp, 1990) and transforming their later life phases into a more complex, double life-course with 'double burdens' (cf. Kriiger and Born, 1991). For the younger women, it has led to more labour-force courses resembling in many aspects those standard labour-market sequences men experienced throughout the period of the 'standard employment relationship'. As far as younger men are concerned, the predominance of a 'normal' male labour-force seems to have vanished, giving way to more complexity and heterogeneity in their lifecourses, which can hardly be characterized in a substantial or typological manner. Therefore, the only way seems to be a negative description, stating that there is a growing number of rather different courses, which deviate more or less

from the 'male standard model'. On the side of women, however, the tensions between the two cultural models for a 'typical' female life-course did not disappear, although for younger women shifts from 'normal' housewife courses towards 'normal laour-force courses' can be observed. For women, it therefore seems appropriate to speak of a tendency towards 'polarization' or 'dualization' between the two life-course models (cf. Huinink, 1989; Mayer, 1991: X), a polarization which, however, leaves some space in between for other ways of combining work v and family.11 THE STABILIZATION OF INSTABILITIES

Debates on the individualization and differentiation of life situations, on the standardization or de-standardization of lifecourses, tend to split into philosophical discourses on long-run social changes on one side, and a hardly comprehensible amount of sophisticated empirical research on various features of life situations, life-styles, and lifecourses on the other. Reformulating some aspects of the individualization thesis in terms of observable continuities or discontinuities, characteristic of the labour-force participation patterns of successive birth cohorts of German men and women, we tried to avoid the disadvantages of both strategies. Using longitudinal data, we introduced some indicators of the stability of the individuals' lifecourses and for the heterogeneity or differentiation in terms of labour-market sequences. As far as the FRG is concerned, these indicators were quite useful in demonstrating the decreasing stability of the labour-market sequences of younger people as well as the growing variety of courses through the labourforce in the younger cohorts. Furthermore, it should have become clear that the 1950s and 1960s can hardly be seen as representing a kind of 'normal' or 'standard' situation in the history of a modern society like the FRG. With extraordinarily high levels of stability and very low levels of heterogeneity, those years mark an exceptional historical period, shaped by the West German 'Wirtschaftswunder' and giving

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rise to a rather male-dominated model of 'normal' labour-force courses. In contrast to this period of stability, the 1970s re-introduced more discontinuities and increasing heterogeneity into the life and labourforce courses of younger men and women. In a more general sense, this might be interpreted as a new stage in the continuous interplay of standardization and destandardization, because those processes which are neither unilinear nor synchronized now operate on a very high level of prosperity, including more social security and—especially among younger people—rising levels of educational and vocational qualifications. However, processes of de-standardization and differentiation go on to work in a genderspecific manner. While on the side of younger men, they have led to a growing and sometimes rather confusing variety of labour-market sequences, which can only be described in terms of 'deviations' from the male standard model, two models still exist for the female side. One seems to lead to work-oriented life-courses which were previously more typical of men, the other to 'typical' female life-courses, including not only continuous work in household and family, but also part-time or sequential forms of labour-market involvement. Yet, especially for the younger and better qualified women, work-oriented life-courses are now more frequent, and, while more often resembling the male standard life-courses, they also seem to have become more pronounced. Thus, we choose the term 'polarization' to sum up some of the more recent trends in the patterns of female labour-force courses. Dealing only with retrospective data up to the year 1984, we did not follow the further lifecourses of the respondents in the analyses presented here. Nevertheless, we are quite sure that processes of de-standardization and differentiation of life-courses have not simply come to an end in the second half of the 1980s. Quite the reverse; there is some evidence for ongoing labour-market de-regulation, for problems concerning the match between supplied and demanded qualifications, or for further changes in the labour-market behaviour of women.12 And referring to the particular

57

historical sensitivity of life-courses again, German reunification, as the most recent historic event, will surely have some new and presumably destabilizing effects on the lifecourses of German men and women (cf. P. A. Berger, 1991). Finally, a last and more theoretical argument for ongoing processes of de-standardization could be put forward, perhaps leading to the somewhat paradoxical situation of a stabilization of instabilities. Leaving the macrolevel of structural and deterministic argument and moving down to the level of the individuals who 'travel' through the social structure and thereby gain everyday knowledge of the options and restrictions built into various positions (cf. Levy, 1977: 70; Levy, 1991), we will remind the reader of some assumptions we made when we constructed our measures for stability and heterogeneity. Stability was derived from the idea of a certain continuity men or women would show in their statuses inside and outside the labour-force. And the weighted HETEROGENEITY was not only a measure of distributions, but was also supposed to mark differences in the opportunities to meet other people showing labour-market sequences different from the distinct path one is following. Individuals will surely remember whether they followed more 'regular' or more discontinuous labour-force courses, and they will learn from their own biographies as well as from the perceived labour-market sequences of others (e.g. that discontinuities in labour-force courses are not as dangerous as traditional standards may suggest). Through the process of cohort norm formation (Riley, 1986: 154), by which members of a particular cohort respond to common experiences and develop common behaviour patterns and norms, instabilities and discontinuities will become more 'normal' for those men and women, indicating threats or insecurities as well as new opportunities for realizing one's own life-plans.13 In a metaphorical sense, this seems to mark a shift from a 'train model' of life-courses with a relatively small number of different trains, fixed tracks, and timetables, to a 'car model' of life-course patterns, where individuals and families can and have to choose between

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CHANGING PATTERNS OF LABOUR-MARKET SEQUENCES IN WEST GERMANY

different routes, departure times, and travelling speeds. Of course, there are constraints and unintended consequences within this individualized life-course system too. And the stabilization of instabilities will bear new risks and disadvantages for those people lacking the necessary 'means of transportation' or unable to adapt to rising speeds. But the experience of discontinuities offers chances of learning, too. This may help the individuals to cope with the new challenges and risks of an individualized life-course regime. However, temporal aspects of social inequalities, e.g. the duration of phases of poverty or particular sequences of social statuses, and critical life-course transitions, the ability to choose the 'right' course, to avoid risky status passages or to leave dangerous phases like unemployment 'in time', will gain ever more significance.

6.

7.

NOTES 1. For example in the discussion on the significance of classical sociological categories such as classes or strata (Beck, 1983, 1986; Berger, 1986, 1987; Berger and Hradil, 1990; Hradil, 1987, 1990; Mayer and Blossfeld, 1990); on the pluralization of family- and householdforms (Beck and Beck-Gernsheim, 1990; Burkart et al., 1989; Nave-Herz, 1988); on the erosion of the 'standard employment relationship' and new balances between work and leisure time (e.g. BergeT, 1990; Bonfl and Plum, 1990; HOrning et al., 1991; Lane, 1989; Osterland, 1990); on the crisis of 'work society' and of 'organized capitalism' (Offe, 1987; Lash and Urry, 1987). 2. This was the theme of the meeting of the West German Sociological Association in 1990(cf. Zapf (ed.), 1991). For more detailed discussions on the 'reflexive' modernization of modern societies cf. Beck, 1991; Giddens, 1991; Lash, 1990. 3. Note here that the German terms 'Berufstatigkeit' and 'Erwerbstfitigkeit', used in the questionnaire and translated as 'employment', cover all sorts of economic activity, ranging from unskilled workers to highly qualified employees and civil servants, from the liberal professions to small businessmen and owners of large companies. 4. Yet, because of the panel character of the survey, this is possible in a prospective way, using longitudinal data-sets from the SOEP (e.g. BergeT and Sopp, 1992). 5. Of course, there were important changes in the resources, the opportunities, and the restrictions attached to certain positions: e.g. becoming unemployed had very different consequences in the Weimar Republic from today; recruitment for military

8.

9.

10.

11.

12.

service during World War II is hardly comparable with the situation in the 1970s or 1980s; to be a housewife used to be linked with rather different patterns of formal and informal rights and duties. But such semantic problems, quite well known in international and historical comparative research, would surely intensify when using more complex and sometimes socially or even politically contested categories or secondary classifications like classes or strata (cf. Berger, 1988; Bourdieu, 1987). It may be useful to look at the 326 men in our sample born between 1941 and 1945: in the age-period 20-9 years one can find 64 different sequences, both stable and unstable. The unweighted heterogeneity is then calculated as /i = ( 6 4 - l ) / ( 3 2 6 - l ) = 0.19. Let us assume a total of 210 persons within a given cohort/age-period combination. If they were equally distributed amongst three sequences, the weighted HETEROGENEITY would be H= 1 - ((70/210) 2 + (70/210)2 + (70/210)2) = 0.67. The same number of persons, equally distributed amongst six sequences would result in / / = 1 - ((35/210)2 + (35/210) 2 + (35/210)2 + (35/210)2 + (35/210)2 + (35/210)2) = 0.83. An unequal distribution (like 190:10:10) amongst three sequences would give H= l((190/210) 2 + (10/210)2 + (10/210)2) = 0.18, thus indicating a certain dominance of one particular sequence. In addition, our indicators for heterogeneity allow us to take into account transitions between more than two positions as well as backward movements; this is often rather difficult and sometimes impossible using statistical techniques of event history analysis (cf. Blossfeld et al., 1989; Diekmann and Mitter, 1990: 432). Using data from the 'German Life History Study' e.g. Blossfeld, 1989; Lauterbach, 1991; Mayer (ed.), 1990; Mayer et al. (eds.), 1991; Tolke, 1989; based on the SOEP e.g. Blossfeld and Nuthmann, 1989; Pischner and Witte, 1988. Because the retrospective part of the questionnaire in the first wave of the SOEP was designed as a multipleresponse set of questions, it is possible to analyse the frequencies of 'double statuses': the younger the cohorts of women, the more often they report a double status at the same time, i.e. housewife and employed part-time, houewife and unemployed, or even housewife and employed full-time. This seems to point to a growing ambiguity and uncertainty about the social (self-)definition of a woman's status. As for men, however, no such tendencies can be found. Tendencies towards polarization between more family or household-orientated forms of living and more work-orientated patterns can also be found in the differences between certain milieux and regions (modern vs. traditional; urban vs. rural; modern, service-orientated vs. industrial areas) in the FRG (cf. Burkart et al., 1989). Some otheT results of our present work with six waves of the SOEP indicate that the labour-force participation of younger women is growing further, while that

EUROPEAN SOCIOLOGICAL REVIEW of men continues to decrease (cf. Hoist and Schupp, 1990). 13. Riley(1986: 154) refers to the ideas of Karl Mannheim (1928) on the 'problem of generation', where he was looking for the link between formally described positions in a generation (or cohort) and the concrete forms of group formation and experience. For a similar argument on the normalization of certain lifecourse events—in their case, divorce—through rising frequencies of these events and the corresponding lifecourse patterns cf. Diekmann and Klein, 1991: 288.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS This paper was written in the context of a research project on temporal aspects of social inequalities and social structures ('Verzeitlichung sozialer Ungleichheit'), funded by the 'Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft' and directed by Ulrich Beck. We are grateful to many colleagues for their comments on earlier drafts of this paper in German— especially to Gerhard Schulze, who gave valuable advice in constructing the indicators used in this paper—and to the reviewers of the ESR whose critical remarks were helpful in revising the original English version. Last but not least, we wish to thank Maria S. Rerrich and Angelika Vogt who corrected typical German mistakes in our English.

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DJI. Zapf W (ed.). (1991): Die Modernisierung moderner Gesellschaften. Verhandlungen des 25. Deutschen Soziologentages in Frankfurt am Main 1990, Frankfurt am Main/New York: Campus. AUTHORS' ADDRESSES Dr Peter A Berger Dipl.-Soz. Peter Sopp Ludwig-Maximilians-Universitat Munchen Institut fur Sociologie Konradstr. 6 D-8000 Munchen 40 Federal Republic of Germany Manuscript received: July 1991

62

CHANGING PATTERNS OF LABOUR-MARKET SEQUENCES IN WEST GERMANY

TABLE A1 Types of male labour-force courses (in % of birth cohort and age-period), indicators of stability and heterogeneity

Types Type 1 'EMPLOYMENT'

Age 20-9 years Age 30-9 Birth cohort 19.. Comb. Comb, courses 1-5 6-10 11-15 16-20 21-5 26-30 31-5 36-40 41-5 46-50 51-5 courses E-V-M-F 75.0 58.5 25.2 59.5 62.1 E-V-F E-M-V-F E-M-F E-F E-F-M-F V-M-F V-F M M-F F F-M-F

70.9 80.3 79.4 72.4 74.3 53.6

V-F M F

P

Type 2 'TRAINING'

E E-V E-M-V V M-V

P

1.9

3.4







2.4

4.0

2.0

3.1

2.5

3.4

Discontinual courses

23.1 38.1 74.8 40.5 37.9 26.7

15.7

18.6 24.5 23.2 43.0

Const, full employment

61.5 48.3

10.6

4.0

50.7 62.8 53.2 33.1 30.2

19.2

Stability

0.67 0.52

0.17

0.13 0.03 0.53 0.66 0.55 0.36 0.33

0.23

Heterogeneity

0.29 0.30 0.25

0.31 0.21

0.19 0.12 0.13 0.19 0.18

0.29

HETEROGENEITY

0.61 0.75

0.84 0.91 0.69 0.73 0.59 0.70 0.85 0.86

0.93

151

323

Type 3 'RETIREMENT'

N

52

118

126

1.4

214

296

274

451

326

358

Key: E = school, university; V = vocational training; M = military services; F = full-time employment; P = part-time employment; H = housewife/-husband; R = retirement.

EUROPEAN SOCIOLOGICAL REVIEW

years Birth cohort.. 1-5

6-10 11-15 16-20 21-5 26-30 31-5 36-40 41-5

42.3 30.5

63

Age 40-9 years Birth cohort 19.. Comb. courses 1-5 6-10 11-15 16-20 21-5 26-30 31-5

14.6 74.6 92.5 91.6 90.5 85.8 81.2

40.4 72.9 87.4 89.7 93.9 89.9 88.6

M F P

F-R R PR 18.8

3.0

0.8

10.6 7.1

5.1

7.1

10.6

38.5 70.3 86.1 87.3 91.6 89.5

87.8

0.42 0.32

0.15 0.75

0.40 0.76 0.89 0.91

0.95 0.91

0.91

0.28 0.27

0.17 0.14 0.07 0.06 0.06 0.07

0.09

0.20 0.16 0.10 0.08 0.06 0.05

0.08

0.75 0.85

0.64 0.49 0.19 0.20 0.24 0.29 0.39

0.72 0.49 0.26 0.24 0.16 0.20

0.23

0.92 0.91 0.90 0.85 0.80

214

296

274

450

319

59.6 25.4

0.9

13.2 70.6 89.7 89.5 87.2 84.0 77.7

126

14.2

3.2

36.5 27.1

151

9.5

2.0

85.4 25.4

118

8.4

1.7

57.7 69.5

52

7.5



52

118

151

126

214

296

Note: The columns labelled 'comb(ined) courses' in the tables Al and A2 only list the observed sequences combined into the types. The proportions for each type sum up the frequencies of this single sequences.

263

64

CHANGING PATTERNS OF LABOUR-MARKET SEQUENCES IN WEST GERMANY

TABLE A2 Types of female labour-force courses (in % of birth cohort and age-period), indicators of stability and heterogeneity

Types

Type 1 'EMPLOYMENT'

Type 2 'HOUSEWIFE'

Type 3 'PART-TIME EMPLOYMENT'

Type 4 'INTERRUPTION'

Age 30-9 Age 20-9 years Birth cohort 19.. Comb. Comb, courses 1-5 6-10 11-15 16-20 21-5 26-30 31-5 36-40 41-5 46-50 51-5 courses E-V 30.7 29.3 24.2 23.6 24.2 28.6 31.3 24.0 25.8 26.4 32.3 E-V-F E-F V V-F F H-F E-V-F-H 40.6 35.3 36.3 41.4 35.4 42.1 41.2 48.6 47.0 35.9 24.4 E-F-H E-H E-V-H V-F-H V-H P-H F-H H E-V-F-P 4 0 3.8 3.7 2.5 1.9 3.3 6.9 9.7 6.4 9.0 9 3 E-V-P E-F-P E-P V-F-P V-P F-P P H-P 6.4 E-F-H-F 3.4 2.2 2.8 4.5 2.2 2.6 3.4 6.3 6.1 E-F-H-P V-F-H-F V-F-H-P V-H-F V-H-P F-H-F F-H-P P-H-F P-H-P

Type 5 'RETIREMENT

Discontinual courses Const, full employment Constant housewife Stability Heterogeneity HETEROGENEITY

N

24.8 29.3 33.0 28.0 36.3 23.4

17.2

11.5

14.8 22.3

19.6

18.3

16.5 21.5

5.5

8.7

6.7

25.7 21.2

19.1

17.2 20.4 22.7 23.0

10.3

8.8

12.7

11.9

6.7

10.9

7.2

30.6

5.1

0.41 0.36 0.29 0.32 0.29 0.34 0.31 0.27 0.27 0.26 0.28 0.24 0.24 0.26 0.30 0.23 0.20 0.16 0.13 0.14 0.22 0.29 0.84 0;89 0.91 0.89 0.89 0.87 0.86 0.83 0.84 0.90 0.92 101 184 215 157 314 304 291 383 345 345 353

Key: E = school, university; V = vocational training; M = military services; F= full-time employment;

V-F W F H-F

V-H P-H F-H H

F-P P H-P

F-H-F F-H-P P-H-F P-H-P

EUROPEAN SOCIOLOGICAL REVIEW

years Birth cohort..

65

6-10 11-15 16-20 21-5 26-30 31-5 36-40 41-5

Age 40-9 years Birth cohort 19.. Comb. courses 1-5 6-10 11-15 16-20 21-5 26-30 31-5

24.8 26.6 20.9 26.1 28.6 26.2 25.5 24.4 22.3

22.8 30.4 24.2 28.0 32.7 27.5 28.3

1-5

F H-F 63.4 54.3 51.6 54.8 56.2 56.1 50.3 40.2 41.4

56.4 52.7 56.7 54.8

50.2 51.1

42.0

5.0

6.0

7.9

3.8

9.5

9.8

17.8



1.1

0.9

0.6

1.0

0.3

0.7

3.0

2.7

3.7

1.9

1.6

2.0

1.1

7.1

6.5

10.8

5.1

9.2

10.1

P-H F-H H 4.0

4.9

7.0

3.8

5.7

8.5

13.4 22.8

17.9

P H-P —

1.1

2.8

1.3

1.0

1.0

2.4

1.6

0.9

F-H-F F-H-P P-H-P F-R P-R H-R R 7.9

13.0

19.8 21.7

17.7

14.0

8.6

8.2

16.3 20.4 21.9 21.6

8.3

11.1

17.6

12.9

19.7

17.9

17.3

13.9 23.9 21.9 24.8 27.3 23.9 24.3

56.4 41.3 41.9 44.6 41.6 44.3 37.2 33.2 32.7

47.5 48.9 49.8 49.0 46.0 44.6

J9.1

0.78 0.66 0.62

0.64 0.78 0.80 0.78

0.78 0.73

0.75

0.13 0.13 0.09 0.13 0.07 0.09 0.73 0.70 0.70 0.69 0.70 0.74 101 184 215 157 315 305

0.11 0.77 276

0.67 0.66 0.69 0.63 0.62

0.58

0.15 0.14 0.15 0.15 0.11 0.08 0.10 0.09 0.15 0.64 0.77 0.79 0.75 0.76 0.74 0.80 0.83 0.84 101 184 215 157 315 305 290 386 336

P = part-time employment; H = housewife/-husband; R = retirement.