The emergence of Sub-Replacement Family Size Ideals in Europe

Period fertility started to drop significantly below replacement in most Western European countries during the 1970s and 1980s, while most fertility surveys, value studies and opinion polls have found that the number of children considered ideal for society or for one's own family has remained above two children per woman. These surveys have led to the expectation that, sooner or later, period fertility would recover in Europe. The most recent data from the Eurobarometer 2001 survey, however, suggest that in the German-speaking parts of Europe the average ideal family sizes given by younger men and women have fallen as low as 1.7 children. This paper examines the consistency and the credibility of these new findings, which – if they are indeed indications of a new trend – may alter the current discussion about future fertility trends in Europe.     

Social Budgeting in Transition Economies

The first part of this paper portrays social budgeting as a pivotal tool in national social governance. The second explains the meaning of social budgeting, which, essentially, consists of two elements: a database and a set of interdependent tools for projecting social protection revenue and expenditure. The third part discusses the particular needs of the transition economies with respect to the financial planning of social protection, and it is argued that countries need models for social budgeting as a technical, non-ideological tool in order to prudently run social protection systems which are income redistribution mechanisms of potentially vast dimensions. The fourth part broadly explains the modular structure of the model, the advantage of this structure being that modules can intelligently be used as stand-alone submodels. It also further discusses the particular advantages of social budgeting in countries in transition and includes a number of examples of technical adjustments that would have to be made to the model structure when applying it in the context of transitional economies. The two main reasons for such adjustments are identified as the fast change of their socio-economic fabric over the past decade and the (related) changes in the collection and flow of data. The fifth part briefly presents social budget modelling projects implemented in central and eastern Europe, particularly focusing on the examples of Ukraine and Poland. Scenario simulations and policy experiments are presented and discussed. The conclusions summarize the advantages of social budgeting, using the ILO Social Budget Model (or a variant of it) in national and international contexts, and indicate the conditions required for successful implementation.     

Wirkungen von Führungskräfte-Coachings in der Sozialen Arbeit

The article analyses effects and changes of executive personnel in social work, who joined coaching trainings. Base of data are 18 Interviews with managers. Coaching training is realized effective for improving personnel management with regard to.     

Qualifikation von Ausbildungssupervisoren in der Sozialen Arbeit – Kontexte,Methoden und Erfahrungen

This article moots the issue of how to support students of social work and social pedagogy to develop the prerequisites for a professional exercise within their future vocational role by dint of supervision. Academical training has to offer spaces for reflecting the relationship between clients and their assistants and for the student’s self-development as well. Methodical settings are reflected for the vocational training of students. Of what kind are the relationships between knowledge transfer, practical guidance and supervision? This article pleads for supervision as an educational program and specifies the qualifications for supervisors.     

Multiple-discrepancies theory versus resource theory

The explanatory value of two theories expounding the quality of life are compared and discussed. To make this comparison possible, it is necessary to distinguish between rather clear theoretical assumptions and avoid a mix of theories: the variance explained by comparisons (multiple discrepancies) is compared with the variance explained by resource. Data obtained from the Vienna Student Survey (n=350) are presented. Although multiple-discrepancies theory (MDT) does explain far more variance than the resource approach, critical comments and proposals complete the study.     

Quality of life in a European Perspective: The EUROMODULE as a New Instrument for Comparative Welfare Research

In this article, a new survey instrument for comparative welfare researchand social reporting is described, the EUROMODULE. It has been set up inintensive discussions among experts from several nations engaged inquality of life research and social reporting. By combining indicatorsof objective living conditions, subjective well-being, and quality ofsociety, with this new survey central aspects of the quality of life ofEuropean citizens can be investigated. The EUROMODULE initiative aimsat strengthening efforts to monitor and systematically analyze thecurrent state and the changes in living conditions and quality of lifein Europe in a comparative perspective. So far, data for eightEuropean countries are available.     

Better Safe than Sorry? The Effects of Income Risk and Unemployment Risk on Wages

We study the effects of income risk and unemployment risk on individual wages simultaneously. Starting point for the empirical analysis is a portfolio model for the labor market. This model shows positive wage effects for both risks but also a negative interaction effect. Using German administrative panel data we estimate the effects of the income risk, the unemployment risk and their interaction on individual wages separately for men and women in East and West Germany. We find the expected positive wage effects for both risks as well as a negative interaction effect. The marginal effect of income risk on wages is positive, whereas the marginal effect of unemployment risk is negative.     

THE RISE OF THE EAST AND THE FAR EAST: GERMAN LABOR MARKETS AND TRADE INTEGRATION

We analyze the effects of the unprecedented rise in trade between Germany and “the East” (China and Eastern Europe) in the period 1988–2008 on German local labor markets. Using detailed administrative data, we exploit the cross‐regional variation in initial industry structures and use trade flows of other high‐income countries as instruments for regional import and export exposure. We find that the rise of the East in the world economy caused substantial job losses in German regions specialized in import‐competing industries, both in manufacturing and beyond. Regions specialized in export‐oriented industries, however, experienced even stronger employment gains and lower unemployment. In the aggregate, we estimate that this trade integration has caused some 442,000 additional jobs in the economy and contributed to retaining the manufacturing sector in Germany. This is almost exclusively driven by the rise of Eastern Europe, not by China. We also conduct an analysis at the individual worker level, and find that trade had a stabilizing overall effect on employment relationships.