A comparative study on the socio-economic status and political participation of working women in Germany before and after unification.

• Main Authors: Dy, Catherine C., Galiza, Gladys R., Hao, Giselle Marie A.
• Format: text
• Language: English
• Published: Animo Repository 1997
• Subjects: Women in public life > Germany; Other International and Area Studies
• Online Access: https://animorepository.dlsu.edu.ph/etd_bachelors/10250
• Institution: De La Salle University

Indeed the role of women in Germany and in any other society for that matter had considerably changed. Gone are the days when they just stayed home and wait for their husbands to arrive during the day's work. Nowadays, women are allowed to combine motherhood while keeping their respective careers thus enabling them to be economically independent and economically advanced. However, although a lot has been improved in the recent decades, many still remains to be done. We cannot really deny the fact that women are still subject to discrimination and thus this hinders the advancement and emancipation of every woman not only in the working area but in all spheres of life. This study seeks to address this awareness issue and to examine carefully what brought about the changes in the role of working women in Germany. Its main thrust is to provide an overall view concerning the socio-economic status and the political participation of German working women by separately discussing first the role of German working women in the context of a divided Germany (Federal Republic of Germany and the German Democratic Republic) and then discuss further the political and socio-economic condition of German women in the workplace after the unification. Moreover, this paper explained the different social benefits and privileges provided to German women in their work as well as the different factors that hinder their advancement. In conducting this study, the researchers made use of documented materials such as books, thesis, special reports and others as means of gathering information regarding the said topic. Moreover, in order to augment the data obtained from the document research, a series of in-depth interviews were also conducted. This was done so as to get a clearer and more definite information concerning the subject of study and at the same time, to be able to verify the validity of the data obtained from the library research. All the information that the researchers gathered from these two methods were analyzed by explicitly explaining and comparing the socio-economic status of German working women in employment and comparing the socio-economic and education, and their political participation in the context of a divided Germany, which refers to the Federal Republic of Germany and the German Democratic Republic, and the unified Germany. The situation of German working women must be approached in this manner since the democratic socialism that reigned in the German Democratic Republic for many years and the development of a Western-style democracy in the Federal Republic led to a very different life experiences for each German women living in every German welfare states. On the other hand, the unification also brought about a radically new phase in the life of women particularly women of the former German Democratic Republic since they were the first ones who lost their jobs, as well as the benefits, privileges and rights which were granted to them before. These data were verified and further explained in the in-depth interviews. Since most of the respondents were German women workers themselves, they willingly shared their knowledge and relayed their experiences on how is it to work in Germany before and after unification.