Education, Work, and Family Events in Women's Lives: Long-Term Developments and Recent Trends in East and West Germany

By Gwendolin Josephine Blossfeld

This book investigates how educational expansion, the trend towards the
service society and the German unification affect East and West German
women's life courses and family lives. It focuses on educational enrolment,
educational attainment level, labour force participation, career resources,
social origin, the educational match among partners as well as historical
periods and examines their consequences on women's entry into first motherhood
as well as partnership formation and dissolution processes. Using
longitudinal data from the National Educational Panel Study (NEPS),multivariate
methods such as event history analysis were applied. The findings
suggest that women's entry into motherhood during full-time education
is highly dependent on women's age, social origin and the policy measures
in a country.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Budrich Academic Press
• Release date: Mar 7, 2022
• ISBN: 9783966659383

Book preview

Gwendolin Josephine Blossfeld

Education, Work and

Family Events in

Women’s Lives

Long-Term Developments and Recent

Trends in East and West Germany

Budrich Academic Press

Opladen • Berlin • Toronto 2022

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Contents

1 Introduction

1.1 Contributions of the Book

1.2 Outline of the Book

1.3 The Life Course Perspective

1.4 The Historical Developments of Women’s Roles in Germany and Changes in Family Formation and Dissolution

1.4.1 The Preindustrial Family in Early 19th-Century Germany

1.4.2 The German Family in the Second Half of the 19th Century

1.4.3 The Age at First Marriage and the Birth of a First Child in the 20th Century

1.4.4 The Development of Female Employment Between 1882 and 1980

1.4.5 The Gain in Importance of Part-Time Employment Since the 1960s

1.4.6 Marriage, Birth, and Divorce Patterns of Women in East and West Germany

1.4.7 Summary

1.5 A Longitudinal Approach

1.6 The National Educational Panel Study (NEPS)

1.7 Event History Analysis

2 Living Arrangements and the Birth of a First Child in the Early Life Course: A Description Based on NEPS

2.1 Sequences of Partnership States Over the Early Life Course in East and West Germany

2.2 The Proportion of Women Who Have Ever Married Over the Life Course in East and West Germany

2.3 Women’s Partnership Status at First Birth and the Proportion of Childless Women

2.4 Summary

3 Entry Into First Cohabitation or First Marriage: A Longitudinal Analysis

3.1 Theoretical Framework and Hypotheses

3.1.1 Union Formation Processes and Educational Expansion

3.1.2 Union Formation and the Two Germanys Before and After German Unification

3.1.3 Further Important Factors Influencing First Union Formation

3.2 Definition of Variables

3.3 Results

3.4 Summary of Empirical Findings

4 Transition From Cohabitation to Marriage: Does the Meaning of Cohabitation Differ in East and West Germany?

4.1 Theoretical Framework and Hypotheses

4.1.1 The Meaning of Cohabitation

4.1.2 Different Dimensions of Time in the Analysis of Cohabitation

4.1.3 The Two Germanies Before and After Unification

4.1.4 Long-Term Change in Social Norms

4.2 Definition of Variables

4.3 Results

4.3.1 Descriptive Overview

4.3.2 Multivariate Analysis

4.4 Summary of Empirical Findings

5 Educational Homophily, Educational Homogamy, and the Impact of Mothers’ Role Models on Daughters’ Cohabitation and Marriage

5.1 Theoretical Framework and Hypotheses

5.1.1 Educational Assortative Mating: Do Opposites Attract or Does Like Marry Like?

5.1.2 Intergenerational Transmission of Gender Roles

5.1.3 Further Differences in Assortative Mating

5.2 Definition of Variables

5.3 Results

5.4 Summary of Empirical Findings

6 What Influences the Rate of Entry Into First Motherhood for Women Enrolled in Full-Time Education?

6.1 Theoretical Framework and Hypotheses

6.1.1 Cohort Differentiation and German Unification

6.1.2 Life Course Approach: Normative Timing and Normative Sequencing of Events

6.1.3 New Home Economics

6.1.4 Social Background

6.1.5 The Two Germanies Before and After Unification

6.2 Definition of Variables

6.3 Results

6.3.1 Descriptive Overview

6.3.2 Model Estimation

6.4 Summary of Empirical Findings

7 How Do Women’s Educational Enrolment, Educational Attainment Level, Labor Force Participation, and Career Advancement Affect the Rate of Entry Into First Motherhood?

7.1 Theoretical Framework and Hypotheses

7.1.1 Life Course Approach: Normative Sequencing of Events and Fertility Pressure

7.1.2 Economic Perspectives: Forms of Investment and Employment

7.1.3 The Two Germanies Before and After Unification

7.1.4 Age Dependency, Social Origin, and Marriage

7.2 Definition of Variables

7.3 Results

7.3.1 Descriptive Overview

7.3.2 Model Estimation

7.4 Summary of Empirical Findings

8 Educational Assortative Mating and Divorce

8.1 Theoretical Framework and Hypotheses

8.1.1 Women Marrying Up

8.1.2 Educational Expansion and Assortative Mating

8.1.3 Dimensions of Education

8.1.4 A Comparison of Divorce Between Women in Upward, Downward, and Homogamous Marriages

8.1.5 Further Differences in Marital Instability

8.1.6 Definition of Variables

8.1.7 Results

8.1.8 Summary of Empirical Findings

9 Conclusion

9.1 Central Findings

9.2 Implications of Research

9.3 Limitations of This Book and Suggestions for Future Research

10 References

Figures

Figure 1: Average age at first marriage and first child birth by calendar year and birth cohort in selected countries

Figure 2: Total fertility rate for Germany from 1901 to 2015

Figure 3: Age-specific fertility rates for East and West Germany in both parts of Germany after World War II. In the 1960s and early 1970s

Figure 4: Cumulative proportion of women who have ever lived (prior to any subsequent following first marriage) in a nonmarital cohabitation, West Germany

Figure 5: Cumulative proportion of women who have ever lived (prior to any subsequent following first marriage) in a nonmarital cohabitation, East Germany

Figure 6: Divorce rate in East and West Germany (1970–2018)

Figure 7: Unemployment rates for East and West Germany

Figure 8: Age at first birth in East and West Germany, from 1965 to 2016

Figure 9: Women’s mean age at first marriage in East and West Germany from 1950 to 2016

Figure 10: The multicohort sequence design of the German National Educational Panel Study

Figure 11: Female age structure in NEPS data at the time of the interview

Figure 12: Transitions between partnership states in Germany up to age 40 (birth cohort 1944–1953)

Figure 13: Transition between partnership states in Germany up to age 40 (birth cohort 1954–1963)

Figure 14: Transitions between partnership states in Germany up to age 40 (birth cohort 1964–1973)

Figure 15: Transitions between partnership states in East Germany up to age 30 (born 1944–1986)

Figure 16: Transitions between partnership states in West Germany up to age 30 (born 1944–1986)

Figure 17: Transitions between partnership states in East Germany up to age 40 (born 1944–1974)

Figure 18: Transitions between partnership states in West Germany up to age 40 (born 1944–1974)

Figure 19: Proportion of women who have ever married in West Germany, by birth cohort

Figure 20: Proportion of women ever married in East Germany, by birth cohort

Figure 21: Competing risks for the transition into a first union

Figure 22: Competing risks of separation or transition into a marriage from a first cohabitation

Figure 23: Survivor function for West German women’s transition from first cohabitation to marriage by month

Figure 24: Survivor function for East German women’s transition from first cohabitation to marriage by month

Figure 25: Competing risks for the transition into first union and different educational matches between partners

Figure 26: Plot of women in education who have not yet become mothers by father’s educational attainment level (survivor functions)

Figure 27: Plot of East German women in education who have not yet become mothers before and after German unification (survivor functions of women with fathers who have attained middle school qualification and vocational training)

Figure 28: Changes of entry into motherhood over the life course for East and West German women (survivor functions)

Figure 29: Changes in the rate of entry into motherhood over the life course by education in East and West Germany (survivor functions)

Figure 30: Changes in the rate of entry into motherhood over the life course for highly qualified women by different employment careers in East and West Germany (survivor functions)

Figure 31: Trade-off between the benefits from division of work and benefits from communication for different educational gaps within couples

Figure 32: Survivor functions for married women with a university degree who married educationally homogamous and downward

Tables

Table 1: Indicators on female employment, 1982–1980

Table 2: Trends in part-time employment by gender for West Germany, 1950–2020 (in percent)

Table 3: Proportion of nonmarital births in East and West Germany

Table 4: Family status of female respondents at the time of the interview by cohorts for the whole of Germany, East Germany, and West Germany (in percent)

Table 5: Women’s family status at first birth and the proportion of childless women for East and West Germany by birth cohort, up to a certain age

Table 6: Estimates of the rate of entry into first cohabitation or first marriage

Table 7: Median duration of cohabitation (in months) before marriage for various birth cohorts separately for East and West Germany

Table 8: Competing risk model for entry into first marriage or dissolution of first cohabitation

Table 9: Competing risk models for the transition into first union and different educational matches

Table 10: Women who have their first child during full-time education in East and West Germany

Table 11: Women who have their first child during full-time education by highest educational attainment level in East and West Germany

Table 12: Women who have their first child during full-time education before and after German unification by highest educational attainment level in East and West Germany

Table 13: Covariate effects on the rate of entry into first motherhood for women in full-time education

Table 14: Covariate effects on the rate of entry into first motherhood for all women up to the age of 30 years

Table 15: Overview of the legal regulation of parental leave in the GDR, the FRG, and the whole of Germany

Table 16: Birth of a first child for women in East and West Germany up to the time of their latest NEPS interview

Table 17: Women who have had a first child by highest educational attainment level in East and West Germany

Table 18: Event history models for entry into motherhood (dependent variable: conception of first child)

Table 19: Summary of expected benefits

Table 20: Summary of expected benefits

Table 21: Women’s divorce events in East and West Germany (only first marriages)

Table 22: Women’s divorce of first marriage for women with educationally downward, homogamous, and upward marriages

Table 23: Effects of control variables and husband’s and wife’s education on the divorce rate (only women’s first marriage)

Table 24: The effects of educationally homogamous and heterogamous marriages on the divorce of first marriage

Table 25: Effect of couple’s educational attainment level on the divorce rate for homogamous couples

Table 26: Effect of couple’s educational gap on the divorce rate for heterogamous couples

Table 27: Effects of women’s upward, downward, and homogamous marriage on the divorce rate (only first marriages)

Table 28: Effects of husband’s and wife’s education on divorce for upwardly married women

Table 29: Effects of husband’s and wife’s education on divorce for downwardly married women

Table 30: Effects of husband’s education and women’s downward and homogamous marriage on divorce for women with a university degree

[13] 

Acknowledgements

This book is a further development of my doctoral thesis written at Nuffield College, University of Oxford. The basic ideas on family formation processes (birth of a first child and partnership formation and marriage) and the divorce of a first marriage have been further developed and the latest data of the National Educational Panel Study (NEPS) has been used for longitudinal analysis.

While working on my dissertation, many people supported me with their exceptionally thorough and thought-provoking comments, and it is my great pleasure to thank them. First and foremost, I thank Professor Colin Mills who encouraged me to undertake a study on this topic, provided always expert advice, and gave his time to respond to my queries on particular theoretical and methodological issues. I would also like to thank Professor Duncan Gallie who was my College supervisor. He was always available to discuss the substantive progress of my work. I owe a special gratitude to Dr. Man Yee Kan, Professor Jonathan I. Gershuny, Professor Erzsébet Bukodi, Professor Melinda Mills, Professor Karl-Ulrich Mayer, and Professor Francesco Billari for their valuable comments on the key topics of my research. I wish to thank Dr. Sarah Willkins Laflamme and Dr. Hande Inanc who commented as colleagues on earlier drafts of my papers. I am also grateful for their support, feedback, and their comforting friendship. I am thankful to Nuffield College and to the Sociology Department at the University of Oxford for providing funding to present my papers at various international conferences and for the opportunity to participate in several very useful summer schools and workshops.

A big thank you also goes to my family, who always encouraged my achievements and research progress. I have been incredibly fortunate not only to live in Oxford, but also to enjoy the stimulating academic climate as well as the friends and colleagues at Nuffield College. In addition, I would like to thank my German friends Dr. Miriam Schmaus, Dr. Amrei Maddox, Nicola Sterler, Axel Schlosser, Ingrid and Stefan Menz, as well as Ingeborg and Manfred Egner for their supportive friendship throughout my academic career.

This research would not have been possible without the data of the NEPS and the advice of the Research Data Center at the Leibniz Institute for Educational Trajectories (LIfBi). LIfBi kindly provided access to the most recent panel data sets for my empirical investigations and introduced me to the management of this very complex dataset.

Finally, I would like to thank Jonathan Harrow for his competent proofreading, which helped me to express my thoughts more clearly.

[15] 

1 Introduction

Today, an individual’s life course consists of several domains such as education, family, and work. These domains are interlinked dynamically and embedded in a nationally specific institutional and historical context. Important life course decisions are often not taken in isolation, but are part of a more complex interdependence of developments in several life domains (Mayer 1990; Willekens 1999). Status changes in one of these life domains and changes in historical macroprocesses may initiate, delay, enable, accelerate, or even prevent status changes in a life domain of interest. In life course research, these status changes are called events (Mayer/Tuma 1990). Family life events are central to the lives of individuals and, in particular, to the life cycle of women. For example, a family event can be becoming a parent, getting married, or having a divorce. In this study, I focus on East and West German women’s family events over the life course depending on their educational participation and labor force experience over longer historical periods before and after German unification.

In recent decades, the dynamics of family life have undergone remarkable changes in modern societies. These changes can be described by demographic transformations such as declining fertility, rising ages at first birth and first marriage, as well as changing divorce rates (Calot 1998; Frejka/Calot 2001a, 2001b). They are closely connected with structural macro-developments such as educational expansion (Blossfeld/Blossfeld/Blossfeld 2016) and the trend toward a service economy (Becker/Blossfeld 2021). Moreover, they are associated with unprecedented shifts in the social norms and values defining the employment and family roles of men and women in advanced industrial societies (Beck/Beck-Gernsheim 1994; Giddens 1997; Grunow/Aisenbrey /Evertsson 2011; Lesthaeghe/Surkyn 1988; Mayer/Huinink 1990). In addition to these more general trends, Germany has experienced a unique development through its separation into a socialist and a capitalist state after World War II and the long-term process of German unification after the fall of the Berlin Wall. These specific historical events have resulted in unusual turbulences and unexpected continuities in the transformation of life courses, particularly in East Germany (Diewald/Goedicke/Mayer 2006a; Mayer 1990).

An important change for family events has been the educational expansion and the attendant lengthening of the time spent in education (Mayer, 1990). Over successive generations, the educational attainment level, particularly of women, has risen significantly (Blossfeld/Blossfeld/Blossfeld 2015; Breen et al. 2009; Breen et al. 2010; Shavit/Blossfeld 1993). In Germany, young women have now even surpassed young men among upper secondary school graduates (Abitur) and university freshmen (Autorengruppe Bildungsberichterstattung 2010, 2012, 2014, 2016, 2018). In addition to women’s higher educational [16] investments, there has been a marked trend toward upskilling and tertiarization of the occupational structure (Gallie 1998; Solga/Mayer 2008; Becker/Blossfeld 2021). Taken together, these changes have not only increased female labor force participation but also provided better career opportunities for women across birth cohorts. Thus, younger women have not only higher educational attainment levels and increasing rates of participation in paid work but also higher quality jobs than their mothers and grandmothers (Mayer 1990; Mayer/Huinink 1990).

From a life course perspective, increasing educational attainment across birth cohorts is connected not only with a gradual extension of educational participation for young qualified adults but also with a growing conflict between full-time educational activities and women’s family roles. Thus, increasing educational participation is expected to delay women’s entry into first marriage and first birth, particularly for highly qualified women. In addition, women’s increasing educational investments are assumed to be associated with a higher female labor force participation and, in the German normative and institutional context, with severe problems in balancing family and professional responsibilities (Grunow 2013). Of course, there have been great differences between the lives of East and West German women, because the socialist state in East Germany supported women’s full-time employment and provided extensive child care, whereas the West German welfare state privileged the more traditional male breadwinner marriage and the marriage of a male breadwinner with a female secondary earner through tax incentives and only moderate child care provision (Obertreis 1986; Trappe 1995; Trappe/Rosenfeld 2000). After German unification, the West German institutional structure was introduced in East Germany, but these different female life course models seem to be converging only very slowly (Diewald/Goedicke/Mayer 2006a).

There are many life course studies analyzing these changing relationships between education, labor force participation, and family events from the 1980s to the early 2000s. However, what is clearly missing is an analysis of the most recent developments. Data from the German National Educational Panel Study (NEPS) make it possible to analyze not only longer time spans before and after unification in East and West Germany but also the most recent developments in unified Germany.

To introduce the topic and research questions of this book, I have structured this chapter as follows. Section 1.1 introduces the aims of the book and section 1.2 gives an outline of its structure. Section 1.3 provides an overview of the life course perspective and its five general principles. Section 1.4 relates longterm historical developments in the roles of women in Germany, their particular changes in the socialist East and the capitalist West, as well as the developments after German unification to the following three family outcomes: first motherhood, first cohabitation and marriage, as well as first divorce. Sections 1.5, 1.6, and 1.7 give an overview of the advantages of the longitudinal [17] approach that this book adopts, and describe the properties of the data from the NEPS sample in this analysis along with the longitudinal methods applied.

1.1 Contributions of the Book

The overall aim of this book is to make significant theoretical and empirical contributions to the growing literature on the field of family sociology more generally and on the interdependence of education, work, and family events in women’s life courses in Germany in particular. It makes seven innovative descriptive and analytical contributions.

First, the literature on Germany today reveals no comprehensive long-term historical description of the specificities of family development in Germany over the last two centuries that also embraces the most recent changes after German unification while comparing different family events such as union formation processes, fertility behavior, and divorce in East and West Germany. I therefore describe in detail the long-term developments and the most recent trends in family formation and dissolution processes in East and West Germany.

Second, there is also no long-term descriptive analysis of the sequences of partnership states and their relationship to fertility events over the early life course of women in successive birth cohorts in East and West Germany. Using novel longitudinal data from the NEPS, I therefore follow up women’s sequences of different partnership states over the early life course across birth cohorts in not only East and West Germany but also Germany as a whole. I also describe the change in the timing of entry into marriage over the life course for different birth cohorts in both parts of the country. Finally, I focus on women’s partnership status at first birth and the proportion of childless women across successive birth cohorts in East and West Germany.

Third, previous research on Germany has focused on women’s entry into marriage (Strohmeier 1993; Wagner/Franzmann 2000), and there have been only very few attempts using longitudinal data to analyze competing forms of living arrangements such as first cohabitation and first marriage in East and West Germany (Brüderl 2004; Nazio 2008). As I shall show in section 1.4, both Germanys experienced an increase in the age at first marriage along with a decline in marriage