Description
Book SynopsisThrough careful examination of the lives of East Germans in the decade after the fall of the Berlin Wall, this book details how a very sudden and very radical system change alters the interweaving of individual agency with institutions and social structures in shaping life-course trajectories.
Trade Review"One of the first, most comprehensive assessments in the English language of how two different systems and institutions have shaped the lives of East Germans and how East Germans have dealt with the transition to the new Federal Republic of Germany... Their findings should finally lay to rest the notion of the unmotivated East German and suggest rather the dominant role of massive economic restructuring and work-related position in understanding how East Germans have fared through transition."—
H-Net Reviews"At the beginning of the 1990s many people thought that the economic problems of East Germany would soon be a thing of the past, that Germany would quickly be unified in economic terms. It turned out that the process of economic integration has been much more difficult than expected. This book analyzes the unusual turbulences and unexpected continuities in the transformation of life courses under conditions of sudden system change. It will be a milestone in life course research."—Hans-Peter Blossfeld, Otto-Friedrich-Universität, Bamberg, Germany
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After the Fall of the Wall provides a masterful account of how institutional transformation has affected the life chances of the citizens of the former East Germany...The contributions in this volume document, with impressive detail, the extent of disruption in the East German economy after reunification."
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American Journal of SociologyTable of ContentsContents @toc4:Contributors xxx List of Figures and Tables xxx Preface xxx @toc2:chapter one After the Fall of the Wall. Living Through the Post-Socialist Transformation in East Germany xxx @tocca:Karl Ulrich Mayer @toc2:chapter two Society of Departure: The German Democratic Republic xxx @tocca:Karl Ulrich Mayer @toc2:chapter three A "Ready-Made State": The Mode of Institutional Transition in East Germany After 1989 xxx @tocca:Anne Goedicke @toc2:chapter four Old Assets--New Liabilities? How Did Individual Characteristics Contribute to Labor Market Success or Failure After 1989 xxx @tocca:Martin Diewald, Heike Solga, Anne Goedicke @toc2:chapter five Firms and Fortune. The Consequences of Privatization and Reorganization xxx @tocca:Anne Goedicke @toc2:chapter six Lost in Transformation? Disparities of Gender and Age xxx @tocca:Heike Trappe @toc2:chapter seven The Rise of Meritocracy? Class Mobility in East Germany Before and After 1989 xxx @tocca:Heike Solga @toc2:chapter eight Family Formation in Times of Abrupt Social and Economic Change xxx @tocca:Johannes Huinink, Michaela Kreyenfeld @toc2:chapter nine Community Lost or Freedom Gained? Changes of Social Networks After 1989 xxx @tocca:Martin Diewald, Jorg Ludicke @toc2:chapter ten Spirals of Success and Failure? The Interplay of Control Beliefs and Working Lives in the Transition from Planned to Market Economy xxx @tocca:Martin Diewald @toc2:chapter eleven Comparing Paths of Transition. Employment Opportunities and Earnings in East Germany and Poland During the First Ten Years of the Transformation Process xxx @tocca:Martin Diewald, Bogdan Mach @toc2:chapter twelve The Quest for a Double Transformation. Trends of Flexibilization in the Labor Markets of East and West Germany xxx @tocca:Martin Diewald @toc2:chapter thirteen Unusual Turbulences--Unexpected Continuities. Transformation Life Courses in Retrospective xxx @tocca:Karl Ulrich Mayer, Martin Diewald, Anne Goedicke @toc4:Appendix: The East German Life History Study xxx Notes xxx References xxx Index xxx
