Youth in a changing context: The role of the family in East and West Germany

Specific diflerences infamily structure and family life between theformer GDR and FRG, as well as current changes due to the unification process, are outlined to illustrate the role ofjamiizies in linking the sociopolitical and economic changes to adolescent development.

Youth in a Changing Context: The Role of the Family in East and West Germany Sabine Walper

The dramatic changes Germany has experienced since the political and economic breakdown of the former GDR in November 1989 provide a major challenge to the adaptive and integrative potential of the social institutions and the citizens involved. Undoubtedly, this process hits East Germany more than West, but still affects the latter. As politicians face the demanding task of chan- neling and molding the legal, economic, and social unification of the demo- cratic West and the formerly socialist East, social scientists are called on to contribute to this endeavor by monitoring how this transformation affects the living conditions, values, expectations, life-styles, and well-being of the social groups and individuals in both parts of the previously separated country.

The challenge is twofold. First, unification allows for cross-cultural com- parisons between both parts of Germany that were previously impeded by the highly restrictive research policies in the former GDR. During the socialist era, investigations in youth development and family life were strongly censored by the government (Friedrich, 1991) and many findings were buried or met with reprisals if they challenged official views. Whatever cast doubt on the success in promoting the “comprehensively developed socialist personality” was banned from public distribution. The opening of the safes has given access to such unpublished reports and thus allows us to look back at social and psychological conditions during the old regime. Given the lack of true comparative studies in the past, this helps to identify differences between both parts of Germany

I would like to thank Sarina Keiser for helpful comments on the manuscript and Jim Youniss for his careful editorial work and suggestions for improving the chapter.

NEW DIREC~ONS FOR CHIU) DEVELOPMENT, no. 70. w~nter 1995 o ~ o u e y g w publishm 3

4 FAMILY ADAPTATIONS IN EAST AND WEST GERMANK

that are rooted in the past and may be attributed to previous differences in the social, cultural, legal, and political systems. In the following selective review of research findings, I point to some such differences and related surprises.

Any current comparison between East and West Germany, however, has to deal not only with past differences that may still shape people’s motives, think- ing, and behavior, but also with effects of the recent experiences and changing life circumstances due to the unification. This takes us to the second point.

Unification has often been welcomed as a “natural experiment” or “critical life event” (Behnken and others, 1991, p. 21) providing a unique opportunity to study reactions to drastic changes in life circumstances on the macrosocial level. Such transformation processes have always fascinated social scientists because they are assumed to reveal the interplay between contextual demands and options and the individuals’ or groups’ adaptive potentlal in the “social construction of reality” and developmental trajectories (Berger and Luckmann, 1967; Noack, Hofer, and Youniss, 1995). Glen Elder’s (1974) seminal work on effects of the Great Depression on children’s and adolescents’ psychosocial development and life COUE is a major example. It has been followed by some recent studies on the German transformation process (Noack, Hofer, Kracke, and Klein-Allermann, 1994) that similarly seek to identify contextual changes and focus on settings where social transformations become manifest. Here, we look at the family as a major social institution and context for individual development that figures prominently in coping with losses and gains resulting from social changes.

As part of this research agenda, a major aim is to identify social risks and undesirable developments involved in the current changes. Injustice in the distribution of resources and options may impede the unification process by undermining its acceptance (Montada, 1994). Similarly, the loss of control in occupational planning and political participation may lead to anomic tenden- cies. Such risks are particularly visible in the recent increase of violence among young people, especially at the extremist right wing of the political spectrum (Hurrelmann and Pollmer, 1994; Oesterreich, 1993; and Chapter Five, this volume). Here we take a closer look at economic and social changes, which should help identify potential losers and winners in unification

I begin by pointing out differences in family life and parentxhild relations between the former GDR and FRG. I then turn to losses and gains following the unification, particularly changes in the economic situation of children and families, and processes of social differentiition that are likely to leave the East German population in an unfavorable “newcomer” position. Finally, 1 describe adolescents’ future expectations and related changes in life-outlook in the East, closing with recommendations for future research.

Family Development and Structure According to current norms and political commitment, the family is highly esteemed in both parts of Germany as the basic unit of importance for social functioning. Nonetheless, before unification there were important differences

YOUTH IN A CHANGING CONTEXT 5

in the social, legal, and economic frame that influenced the timing and sequencing of family development, the role division among partners, the stability of marriages, and the subjective importance of one’s family as reference point, social support system, and context for recreation and privacy.

Family Formation. Family formation occurred earlier in the former GDR than in the FRG. In 1988, the mean age at first marriage in the GDR was 25.0 years and 22.9 years for males and females, respectively, compared to 28.0 and 25.5 years for men and women in the FRG (Statistisches Bundesamt, 1992). Similarly, first children were born earlier in East than in West Germany Special financial support for young families and the regulations for housing supply in the GDR were major factors that promoted early marriage and childbearing (Nave-Hen, 1994). Because housing was extremely scarce and almost entirely in public hands, and because young families (mamed couples and single mothers) had high priority in the distribution of apartments, family formation often was the most successful strategy for leaving the parental household.

In addition to economic factors and family policies, the relative lack of options for developing a postadolescent life-style contributed to early family formation in the East. Opportunities for travel were restricted to other socialist countries and, hence, provided little incentive to postpone family responsibilities. Flexible options for moving in and out of the labor market, with occasional employment as part of an “alternative” life-style, were hardly available. In general, the institutional frame for sequencing education, job training, and employment left little room for variation in the GDR, thus leading to more uniform life course patterns than in the FRG.

Furthermore, the delayed family formation in West Germany is largely due to problems in combining work and child rearing that did not exist in the former GDR. Well-educated young women in West Germany increasingly post- poned childbearing to finish their education and get settled in an appropriate occupation (Grundmann, Huinink, and Krappmann, 1994; Toelke, 1989). In the former GDR, on the other hand, many students opted to have children early due to the high supply of child care and special efforts of the universities to help students combine their work and child-rearing tasks. In the late 1980s, 33 percent of female and 43 percent of male students already had children (Bathke, 1990; Buechner, 1992).

In general, the differences in timing of marriage and childbearing between young adults in East and West Germany.was well in line with the future plans of adolescents in both parts of the country, as documented by a large youth survey in 1990 (Behnken and others, 1991). The factual strategies, however, seem to have changed, as indicated by extreme drops in the marriage and birth rates in East Germany since the unification. Most likely, the loss of financial and housing privileges, the lack of economic security, and the recent reduc- tion of child-care facilities contribute to this postponement of family com- mitments. At the same time, increasing life-style options for youth in the East may lead to more similar patterns, with delayed childbearing in both parts of the country

6 FAMILY ADAPTATIONS IN EAST AND WEST GERMANY

Nonetheless, procreation ranks high in adolescents’ life goals, receiving the third highest rating in a list of eleven goals, right after having good friends and occupational success. Other goals, such as leading an exciting life and earning a high income, are less important. This holds even more for East Ger- man than for West German youth (Behnken and others, 1991). For most adults, the family has a more focal position in their personal lives. In a recent survey among mainly adults (age 16 to 69 years), partnership and children were chosen as the most important life domain far more often than one’s job and friends (IPOS, 1992). Partnership figured somewhat more prominently in the West than in the East (55 percent “most important” in the West versus 47 percent in the East), whereas children were deemed most important slightly more often in the East (29 percent versus 20 percent), particularly among women (39 percent in the East versus 27 percent in the West).

Unmarried Couples and Parents. Although marriage rates decreased in both parts of Germany, family formation increasingly began with unmarried cohabitation and childbearing, especially in the former GDK. In general, cohabitation is more prevalent among young people up to age thirty-five and is considered mostly a transitional phase in family formation, leading either to marriage or separation (Nave-Herz, 1994). Hence, it does not reflect enduring differences in life-style or social orientation but rather a lower desire for for- mal commitment in the relationship at a given time. This is also reflected in adolescents’ plans for the future. In 1990, only 11 percent of the adolescents in West and 8 percent in East Germany indicated that they do not intend ever to marry (Behnken and others, 1991).

In 1991,9.2 percent of all Germans aged twenty to twenty-five years lived with an unmarried partner. The figures are higher in the East (14.9 percent) than in the West (8.0 percent) (Bundesministerium far Familie und Senioren, 1994) and point to some structural differences. Among all unmarried cohabitating couples, the share of those with at least one previously married partner was higher in East (53.0 percent) than in West Germany (40.5 percent). Fur- thermore, the percentage of unmarried cohabitating couples with children is far higher in East than in West Germany (55 percent versus 18.6 percent). Ths also holds for couples in which both partners were never married before. Whereas only 10 percent of these already had children in the West, 52.9 percent of their counterparts in the East did. Most likely, the majority of the latter families are nuclear families (with biological children from both partners) that took advantage of the support and privileges for single mothers provided by social laws in the former GDR, such as longer paid leave from employment if the children were ill (Gysi, 1989).

Due to such strategies, in 1988 33 percent of all children were born out of wedlock in the former GDR, as opposed to only 10 percent in the FRG (Nave-Herz, 1994). Obviously, social policies in the GDR supported the family formation pattern of marriage before childbearing much less than did the FRG. It is quite likely that unmarried parents in the East are now particularly vulnerable to current stressors, especially economic problems, due to the uni-


fication. According to the tax laws, marriage would pay off financially, especially if one parent is not employed, but obviously this strategy has not yet been adopted. On the contrary, mamage rates in the East have dropped sig- nificantly since unification.

Maternal Employment. A key difference between the former FRG and GDR relates to maternal employment and public child care. The extent to which the socialization of children in the GDR was shared with public child-care institutions not only served ideological functions in promoting socialism but also allowed for higher employment rates for women. In the former GDR, 82 percent of all women between age fifteen and sixty-five were employed, as compared to 46 percent in the FRG (Bundesministerium filr Familie und Senioren, 1994). Thus, mothers were much more integrated in the labor market and achieved higher financial independence in the East than in the West. Even in 199 1, when many East German women were unemployed following unification, the employment rate of mothers with children up to age fourteen was 70 percent in East Germany, compared to 43 percent in West Germany (Nave-Hen, 1994).

Despite the high full-time employment rate of women in East Germany, the labor market was somewhat gender segregated, although to a lesser extent than in West Germany. In line with traditional notions of female domains, women were strongly overrepresented in the social services (91.8 percent), health services (83 percent), education (77 percent), and trade (72 percent). The share of women in leading managerial positions was about one-third in the GDR, but women’s earnings were overall 25 percent to 30 percent lower than men’s (Nickel, 1990). In 1988, women’s contribution to net family income in households with two employed partners was about 44 percent in the GDR and 38 percent in the FRG (Mueller, 1992). Thus, men were still the main breadwinners in two-parent families, even though the income differential was less pronounced in the GDR.

It seems that women’s self-selection into certain jobs was an accommodation to family demands that were still more strongly placed on women than on men. Role division in the family did not differ much from the typical gender- based pattern in the FRG. Data from the German Family Survey showed that half of the East German men spent only up to ten hours per week with household chores, whereas 56 percent of the women invested over twenty hours, two- thirds of them (20 percent of all women) even more than forty hours. In West Germany 70 percent of the men worked only up to ten hours in the household, whereas 37 percent of the women spent over forty hours and an additional 26 percent spent twenty to forty hours with housework (Dannenbeck, 1992a). Hence, housework remained a largely female duty not only for mothers, but for daughters (Krause, 1991). In both parts of Germany daughters are much more likely to be involved in household tasks than sons (Zinnecker and Fischer, 1992). For mothers in the East, housework often amounted to a full second shift (Meier, 1991). Deviations from the gender-typical pattern toward a sharing of family tasks occurred only for playing with children and supervising children’s homework (Dannenbeck, 1992b).


Somewhat surprisingly, this gender inequality was not publicly addressed as problematic. Rather, it seems that women in East Germany accepted the gven role distribution (Meier, 1991) and tried to adjust their employment demands by opting for jobs that allowed them to combine family and occupational tasks (Nickel, 1990). According to the IPOS survey conducted in 1991, 89 percent of the women in the East and 88 percent in the West were satisfied with the labor division in the household, and even among the employed, only 13 percent in the West and 10 percent in the East wished that their husbands would do more household chores (IPOS, 1992). Although part-time employment would be preferred by 69 percent of the women in the West and 45 percent in the East, particularly if there are children in the family, rebalancing the relative work load of both partners by withdrawing from the labor market does not seem to be women’s preferred strategy Young women in East Germany are strongly oriented toward combining education and employment with family life. According to a representative survey in 1990, only 19 percent of those aged fourteen to thirty-four agreed that women would rather be full-time homemakers if their husbands’ income permitted (Bertram and Kasek, 1991).

Public Child Care. In West Germany, maternal employment received much less public support than in East Germany Tne supply of child care was (and still is) especially scarce for children up to three years of age and for school-age chldren who leave school mostly between noon and 1 P.M. Public child care is available for only 3 percent of all children younger than three years (Andres, 19911, whereas about 60 percent of their age-mates in the former GDR were in state-provided child care with a mean daily presence of 8.3 hours (Zwiener, 1991). In the preschool years (age three to six), about 95 percent of all chldren in East Germany were in full-time public day care, and during ele- mentary school 82 percent of the children were in public after-school institutions (“Hort”), whereas such facilities were available for only 7 percent (full-time preschool day care) and 3.5 percent (after-school care) of their West German age-mates (Liegle, 1991). Only part-time kindergarten is well-accepted and provided for about 70 percent of the children of this age group in West Germany

Extensive and early extrafamilial child care has been critically discussed in the West, where private child care by the family was the politically and ide- ologically preferred option. Thus, it is not only the lack of child-care facilities that keeps West German mothers from the labor market, but also their higher skepticism about extrafamilial child care. Full-time day care, especially during infancy, is considered detrimental to children’s development by almost two- thirds of West German adults, whereas two-thirds in East Germany think it is not. Beneficial effects of full-time kindergarten are acknowledged by about 20 percent of West German adults but over 60 percent of East German adults (IPOS, 1992).

Since unification, a substantial number of child-care facilities in the East have been closed for economic reasons. Official children and youth organizations of the GDR, such as youth clubs for afternoon activities, the Young Pio- neers (which enrolled about 95 percent of the first graders) (Kirchhoefer,


1993), and the Free German Youth (which included 95 percent of all adolescents fourteen years old and older) were terminated. The lower reliance on family-based child care and the lower availability of mothers as homemakers in East Germany have resulted in higher numbers of chddren who do not have any afternoon care. According to data from a family survey, 20 percent of the eleven- to fourteen-year-olds in the East are on their own during the after- noons, as opposed to only 3 percent in West Germany. Among Eastern adolescents aged fifteen years and up, 31 percent are without care, compared to 10 percent in the West (Keiser, 1992a).

Divorce and Remarriage. Birth out of wedlock and a rise in the divorce rate contributed to the increase of single-parent families in both parts of Ger- many The divorce rate is somewhat higher in the East than in the West. In 1989, the divorce rate was 30.1 percent in the West and 36.9 percent in the East, showing stability after an increase up to the mid 1980s in both parts of Germany (Bundesministerium fir Familie und Senioren, 1994). Furthermore, the share of marriages with children among those who got divorced right before the unification was hgher in the East (68 percent) than in the West (50 percent) (Otto, 1991). In 1992, 19 percent of all families were single-parent families (Nave-Herz, 19941, a substantial but much lower number than in the United States. About 11.4 percent of all children and adolescents in the West and 18.7 percent of their peers in rhe East are raised by a single mother or (far less often) a single father (Schwarz, 1994).

Single-parent families received much attention in West Germany especially with respect to the high risk of economic disadvantage, custody and visitation regulations, divorce mediation, and therapeutic interventions to prevent negative psychosocial consequences (Sander, 1993; Menne, Schilling, and Weber, 1993). In the GDR, they were much less considered a social problem (Sturzbecher, 1992; Zeddies, 1993). This is partly due to differences in family ideology that focused not so much on the intact biological two-parent family but rather on love, mutual understanding, and respect as main motives of the parental partnership and as prerequisite to healthy child development (Bertram, Fnedrich, and Kabat vel Job, 1988). Furthermore, the greater economic independence of women in the GDR due to their mostly full-time employment put single-mother families less at risk for poverty than in the West.

Ths situation has markedly changed, rendering single-mother families in the East most vulnerable to h c i a l insecurity and hardship and increasing their economic dependence on the noncustodial parent. Fortunately single mothers with children up to age six need not rely on their former partner’s willingness to pay because child-support payments may be taken from paychecks and trans- ferred through the social service. However, this option is not always used, and irregular, delayed payments still are a problem for many single mothers.

Although no research in the GDR addressed the role of divorced fathers living outside the chldren’s household as providers of financial chld support, it is unlikely that many of them were continuously involved in the lives of their children because this was not supported by common family norrns. Changes

10 FAMILY ADAPTATIONS. IN EAST AND WEST GERMANY

in family law may now foster and even require increased contact, putting new demands on the previous partners and children.

Remarriage rates are also higher in the East, where 71 percent of all divorced men and women remarry, compared to 6 1 percent and 64 percent of the divorced men and women in the West in 1989 (Bundesministerium fur Familie und Senioren, 1994). Consequently, more children in the East than in the West live with a stepparent, typically a stepfather. For children born in 1975, it is estimated that 14 percent in the East and 10 percent in the West live in a remarried stepfamily before age eighteen, with an additional unknown number of children in cohabitating stepfamilies (Schwarz, 1994). As with single-mother families, little attention has been paid to the specific demands and problems of stepfamilies in the GDR. According to prevailing family norms, the new partner became the new social parent and had the option to apply for child custody These “reconstituted” families were supposed to resem- ble nuclear families because postdivorce family relationships were not struc- tured according to the concept of “binuclear families” (Ahrons and Wallisch, 1987). Nonetheless, some findings indicate that these families were somewhat more stressed than nuclear families (Kabat vel Job, 1991a; Behnken and others, 1991).

Family Socialization The high marriage, remarriage, and childbearing rates point to the prominent role of the family in the former GDR. Time available for family recreation, mutual support, and emotional involvement was scarce, given the longer work hours of both parents and prevalence of shift work 21 percent of the fathers and 16 percent of the mothers were in shift work (Buechner, 1992). However, East German families were quite successful in their socialization of children.

In a large school-based survey of adolescents in 1990,89 percent of the East German youth and 80 percent of their West German age-mates indicated high feelings of security in the famil? and three out of four boys and girls experienced strong affection and support in their family (Behnken and others, 1991). As to their feelings of protectedness and parental help with personal problems, East German youth even seemed to be better off than West German adolescents. They were more likely to seek their parents’ advice m educational and occupational choices (33 percent versus 18 percent) and attributed somewhat higher “counseling competencies” in questions of politics, life goals, efforts to improve one’s educational achievements, and strategies to realize one’s occupational plans (Behnken and others, 1991).

Another large youth survey conducted in 1991 supports these findings (Zinnecker and Fischer, 1992), showing a higher family orientation among East German than West German youth. In East German3 youth consult their fathers and mothers more often for advice in political questions and share feelings of happiness. Seventy percent of the adolescents in the East, compared to 59 percent in the West, spend their leisure time often or very often with their


parents (Oswald, 1992). Furthermore, 71 percent compared to 64 percent reported that their parents had “regularly” or “often” helped with personal problems during the past twelve months (Oswald, 1992). Parents are also considered more important to their current life by East German than West Ger- man adolescents; the latter are more likely to see their good friends or friendship groups as very important. The stronger peer orientation of West German adolescents is also shown in the finding that they more often have a really good friend and are more often integrated in a friendship clique than their East German age-mates (Oswald, 1992).

In general, however, similarities prevail. In both parts of the country, mothers are judged as more important than fathers and play a more prominent role as advisor in matters of love and fiendship, religion, fashion, and personal secrets (Zinnecker and Fischer, 1992). Mothers are better informed than fathers about personal concerns and leisure activities. Girls especially keep their mothers well-informed. East German mothers have a stronger position as political experts than West German mothers, which corresponds to a higher degree of political interest among East German girls.

Older studies in the former GDR also support a positive orientation to family Despite age-related difficulties with adults, the majority of adolescents felt treated more fairly in the family than in other social contexts (Kuehnel, 1991), were stably oriented to their parents and showed high agreement with parents concerning adolescents’ behavior (Schmidt, 1991). Furthermore, a good relationship with mother or father was highly predictive of adolescents’ life satisfaction (Kabat vel Job, 1991b) and perceived parental attitudes had a strong impact on adolescents’ political orientation, especially if the family was characterized by high parental competence and a positive climate (Keiser, 199 la).

A recent study comparing East and West German youth (Kracke, Noack, Hofer, and Klein-Allermann, 1993) supports the latter findings with little evidence for differences between families in both parts of Germany To some extent, however, parental influence emerged as lower in the East, a fmding that may be due to the higher employment rates among East German mothers because East German mothers resembled West German fathers in’ their influence on adolescents’ attitudes. Because the study was conducted after the unification, the lowered influence of East German parents may also reflect the recent sociopolitical changes that put parents in the same “novice” position as their adolescent children.

Time series data suggest that parent-adolescent relationships in the GDR became somewhat less satisfactory between 1970 and 1988 (Kabat vel Job, 1991b). However, the differences are not striking. In 1970,71 percent of fourteen- year-olds and 64 percent of sixteen-year-olds were completely satisfied with their relationships to their mothers and an additional 24 percent of fourteen-year-olds and 30 percent of sixteen-year-olds said they were satisfied, “with certain exceptions.” In 1988, adolescents indicated about 16 percent less com- plete satisfaction, but 16 percent more indicated moderate satisfaction. About


5 percent felt little or no satisfaction at both points in time. Interestingly, since the early 1970s, adolescents have become less willing to follow their parents’ model in their own later partnership and child rearing, a finding that may be seen as a subtle indicator of dissatisfaction with parents or may point to an increasing independence in attitude formation.

The general evidence, however, indicates that families in the GDR offered a niche in the larger social context allowing for privacy, social support, and retreat from public control and demands. Future research will determine the degree to which this function can be preserved or gets lost with current changes in the larger social context.

Ambivalent Changes: Losses and Gains After the fall of the Wall, a number of studies were launched to investigate reactions to the German unification, particularly on adolescents and children (Behnken and others, 1991; Deutsches Jugendinstitut, 1992). Like adults in both parts of the country, adolescents indicated some ambivalence with respect to the high speed of the unification. In mid 1990, 71 percent of the youth in the West and 72 percent in the East preferred a gradual growing together of the former GDR and FRG (Behnken and others, 1991). According to a survey of ninth graders in larger cities, 74 percent of the West German adolescents and 59 percent of their East German peers indicated that the process of unification happened too fast (Deutsches Jugendinstitut, 1992).

Unification has clearly hit the East more than the West in terms of changes in life circumstances, loss of orientation, and insecure expectations for the future. As to the personal relevance of events and changes due to the unification, a survey in spring 1991 showed that 30 percent of the West Germans but only 8 percent of the East G e m did not feel concerned (Kirchhoefer, 1992). About 40 percent in both the East and the West saw only positive changes (such as family unifications, freedom to travel, avadability of goods on the market), whereas 52 percent in the East and 29 percent in the West were aware of negative changes. Every fifth East German was personally hit by negative critical life events due to the unification, but no such effects were evident for West Germans.

In this study, adolescents and young adults in East Germany were also asked to rate a list of twenty-nine unification-related events according to their personal emotional impact (Zinnecker and Fischer, 1992). The fall of the Wall on Novem- ber 9, 1989, received highest ratings, but was directly followed by increased unemployment and closing of companies as the second and third most important events. Unification in October 1990, the improved availability of goods from the West, and the rising prices shared sixth to eighth place. Necessary changes in job training and unemployment in the family ranked 1 1 and 12.

Seven areas of change could be identified in these perceptions: political highlights, new contacts in the West, availability of money and goods of the West, conflicts in school and neighborhood, economic decline, dissolution of


organizations, and political conflicts in the personal context (Kirchhoefer, 1992). On a more aggregated level, the experience of positive and negative changes were two independent dimensions. These perceptions of gains and losses differed across social groups within East German youth: positive experiences were more prevalent among male adolescents, those with less education, and adolescents who either visited the West for some time or had friends who moved to the West. Negative consequences of the unification such as economic decline, political conflicts, and dissolution of the major youth organizations were more often experienced emotionally by female and older adolescents, by young adults and parents, and by the substantial group (22 percent of Eastern adolescents) whose parents were hit by unemployment during the previous two years. In another study by the German Youth Institute (Deutsches Jugendinstitut, 19921, girls proved to expect more negative consequences of the unification for their personal life than boys, most likely due to their reduced chances on the labor market.

Economic changes are of major concern because they point to new inequal- ities in unified Germany The working population in East Germany experienced marked redundancies and layoffs since the unification that are not appropri- ately captured by the official unemployment statistics due to the high amount of part-time work. Women in the East were hit harder by unemployment (19 percent), whereas the unemployment rates for men do not differ much between East and West (9 percent). This experience is new to the East German population because unemployment was virtually nonexistent in the GDR, and it brings with it individual and family stress. Preliminary results of a health survey suggest that unemployed adults in East Germany show more signs of resignation than the employed, have fewer plans for their leisure time, and indicate an increasing use of medication for sleeplessness, pain, and restlessness (Assmann and Rossa, 1992). According to interviews, women are somewhat more able than men to use the free time for their family, hobbies, and social activities (Voigt and Hill, 1992). Nonetheless, adolescents’ accounts of their family situations after unification show that parents’ unemployment, occupational demo- tion, and loss of status often result in a more tense family climate with increasing conflicts and less time and support given to the children.

The economic changes are also reflected in poverty rates. Most commonly, the poverty line is estimated as less than 50 percent of the average per capita income, either for each part of Germany separately or for unified Germany (Hanesch and others, 1994). If poverty is estimated relative to the income distribution within East Germany, poverty rates almost doubled between 1990 and 1992 (Hanesch and others, 1994). This criterion for individual standards in the East and West shows overall low poverty rates for the East due to less variation in household income than in the West. Accordingly, East Germany started with only one-third (3.3 percent) of the West German poverty rate (10.2 percent in 1990). If a common poverty criterion is used (as it seems more appropriate now given the stronger similarities in price structure), the far lower income resources in East Germany become evident: the poverty rate


was twice as high in 1992 than in the West (14.8 percent versus 7.5 percent). This difference was even more marked in 1990 (21.1 percent versus 7.3), before incomes were consciously raised in the East to meet the higher prices (Hanesch and others, 1994).

Whatever poverty line is used, children fared poorly. According to the common criterion, 22 percent of all children in the East and 12 percent of the children in the West lived 1992 in poverty High-risk groups in West Germany and especially in East Germany are children in single-parent families and children with two or more siblings. For single mothers in the East, the risk of financial hardship increased to over 30 percent in 1992, largely due to high unemployment among mothers. Most likely, these families experienced dramatic changes in their living conditions and were more vulnerable to stress due to the loss of an additional earner. Such consequences for single-mother families are also suggested by adolescents’ written accounts of their unification experiences, which point to the lack of economic security, fear of unemployment, and stress in dealing with the new demands of comparing prices and reducing expenditures in a market economy (Keiser, 1992b). However, more research focusing on differences in family structure is definitely needed.

Given that East Germans were hit by far more stressful changes in their life circumstances than West Germans, it is surprising that resentment against unification is even higher in the West than in the East (Deutsches Jugendin- stitut, 1992). This points to a second facet of stressors related to the unification: the social differentiation between the “established West and the new “arrivers” in the East.

East and West: Mutual Perceptions The unification of Germany is not a mamage between equal partners. Politi- cally and economically, the West is in a much more powerful position and has adopted few features of the East German legal and social system. Transfers of financial resources, laws, and technological and economic expertise run from the West to the East.

This situation is likely to promote a differential in prestige that is also reflected in patterns of attitudes and contact between East and West Germans. From the fall of the Wall to 1991,96 percent of East German adolescents had visited the West, 63 percent for at least several days. Among their age-mates in the West, 66 percent had not visited the East during that time, and half of the remaining 34 percent had been in the East for only one day (Zinnecker and Fischer, 1992). Obviously, youth in the East are much more interested in the other part of Germany than their peers in the West. Furthermore, their experiences differ markedly. Whereas 69 percent of the Eastern travelers report more positive than negative impressions, 78 percent of the West Germans who visited the East focused on the negative.

These Nerences corresponded with attitudes toward peers from the other part of Germany. Whereas 29 percent of the East German youth think that

Youm IN A CHANGING CONTEXT 15

friendships with peers from the West would be very pleasant, the reverse holds for only 12 percent of West German youth (Zinnecker and Fischer, 1992). However, the findings are not entirely consistent. A recent comparison of 619 adolescents from East and West Berlin concerning their mutual perceptions suggests more skepticism among Eastern youth (Krettenauer and others, 1994). They viewed themselves more positively than their age-mates from West Berlin, but no such difference between the perception of self and others was obvious among adolescents from West Berlin. More positive self-perceptions in the East pertained primarily to personality characteristics such as modesty, prosocial orientation, and compromise. If adolescents from East Berlin saw their Western peers as more positive, they did so in terms of independence and assertiveness.

Although the latter finding concerning special advantages and disadvan- tages fits the general social stereotypes, the positive view of self among East Berlin youth must be interpreted with caution. Most extreme negative judgments came from fifteen-year-olds, who also indicated the highest degree of social anomia and the lowest prosocial orientation toward the poor. Thus, it is possible that their judgments about self and their Western peers reflect some defensive self-enhancement.

Adolescents’ Future Perspectives Despite the various stressors that confront adolescents and adults in East Ger- many neither their social-political expectations nor their personal life outlook is pessimistic. According to survey data from 1990 (Keiser, 1991b), 65 percent of the East German adolescents and 58 percent of their West German age- mates view the future societal development optimistically East German youth believed more in economic upswing (59 percent versus 17 percent in the West), in the solution of ecological problems (73 percent versus 36 percent), and in politicians’ readiness to pay attention to the people’s opinion (57 percent versus 48 percent). At the same time, however, they womed more about unemployment (53 percent versus 33 percent), drug abuse (54 percent versus 40 percent), and right-wing extremism (42 percent versus 35 percent), whereas both were similarly concerned about aggression and violence (46 percent versus 42 percent).

A similar mixture of optimism and worries is found for East Germans’ expectations for their personal future. Every fourth East German adolescent (but only 17 percent of the Western youth) expected positive outcomes in their personal future, but at the same time, they feel less able to plan in advance and have more doubts concerning their educational and occupational success (Keiser, 1991b). A large survey of adolescents and young adults found that particularly girls and young women in the East have a more ambivalent view of their future (Zinnecker and Fischer, 1992), which coincides with the pronounced risks they face in the labor market. In a study of ninth graders, only 34 percent of the girls in the East are optimistic about their futures, as opposed


to 60 percent of the boys in the West, who represent the other extreme (Deutsches Jugendinstitut, 1992). Girls and women are also particularly concerned about negative changes in family life such as unemployment, parents’ occupational stress, and distressed family relations (Keiser, 1992b) and expect the unification to have negative effects on their personal lives (Deutsches Jugendinstitut, 1992).

In the past, there were obvious differences in the life .course of East and West German youth and young adults. Behnken and Zinnecker (1992) note three such specific characteristics of East German life courses (see also Zinnecker and Fischer, 1992). First, the timing of certain transitions, such as assuming responsibilities at home, starting to go to discotheques, achieving financial independence from parents, and living with a partner, was earlier in the East than in the West. Second, the status passages are more strictly age-graded in the East than in the West. For the majority of transitions into adolescence and adulthood, there are wider age variations in the West than in the East. This holds particularly for leaving school, finishing one’s first occupational training (including university education), the first romantic love relationship, and the transition to parenthood. Wider age variations in the West were observed only for the first experience of unemployment and (though not very pronounced) for the onset of regular smoking. Third, the social network of peers is more stable across time in the East than in the West.

As a consequence, the future was much more predictable for youth in the former GDR than in the FRG, whereas a more open and individualized life planning was typical for the West. By now, however, the picture is different. West German adolescents and particularly young adults indicate more often than their East German peers that they have clear ideas about their future. A trend toward a firmer image of one’s future with increasing age was observed only among West German adolescents and adults. In East Germany, these perspectives stagnated, which corresponds to the fact that young adults are hit particularly hard by the current changes in life circumstances. Interestingly, older adolescents (age seventeen to twenty years) and females indicate that they spend much time and effort trylng to find out about their options and preferences in deciding about their future (Zinnecker and Fischer, 1992).

One of the major questions to be answered is the extent to which previous socialization experiences and present support systems prepare East Ger- man children and youth for coping with the increasjng demands they face. Current life stressors due to the unification and new developmental tasks in educational and occupational planning, life-style decisions, and social relations require a previously unknown amount of individualized planning. At the same time, former advisors such as parents risk losing their expert positions. It is unknown to what extent parent-child and parent-adolescent relations are vulnerable to parents’ loss of competence in selecting and modeling appropriate life-course patterns. More general features of the relationshp, such as mutual trust, affection, and support, may be more important. However, even the latter are likely to be affected. In the former Eastern system, the family derived


much of its role as social niche or "haven in a heartless world from pervasive public control. Now, as public and private domains merge, there may well be a loss of cohesion and family-centeredness. Furthermore, as suggested by research on economic deprivation and family stress (Elder, Conger, Foster, and Ardelt, 1992; Walper, 1988; Walper and Silbereisen, 1994), economic insecurity and unemployment may undermine the emotional climate in families, trig- gering conflicts and tension. However, in struggling with hardship and insecurity, the family may remain quite important for mutual assistance, even if the relationships are strained. Future research will have to determine the extent to which family life will be affected by the diverse contextual changes.

Due to the increasing demands for individualized life planning, it would seem that East German adolescents are particularly vulnerable to disturbances in the process of individuation. If their parents lose expertise and authoriy and family relations become disrupted, they may seek guidelines and support outside the family or choose a detached, independent orientation for which they may not yet be prepared. Thus, strengthening families will be a major task of social policies and educational services to support parents in the socialization of youth. At the same time, however, extrafamilial support systems and educational institutions are increasingly called on to join families in fostering the development of children and adolescents. They may have to fill in where families fail and provide the necessary learning experiences for coping with the demands of a complex, changing society As we may learn from the East Ger- man experience, families need not be weakened if their major function, the socialization of children, is substantially shared with other institutions.

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SABINE WALPER is associate professor of psychology at the University ojMunich.

Youth in a changing context: The role of the family in East and West Germany

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