Socio-economic Developments since the Mid-1970s

Abstract

Economic growth, full employment, the predominance of standard employment relationships for male workers and the overwhelming acceptance by married women of their roles as wives and mothers rather than as paid workers constituted the foundation of the German welfare state. Until the beginning of the 1970s these elements created the impression of being positively interrelated. The overwhelming majority of experts did not anticipate that unemployment as a societal and economic problem could resurface or that the period of full employment would only be short-lived. Moreover, the achievement of full employment in 1960 had led to the widely-held belief that a full employment economy was the norm. Political actors were convinced that economic prosperity and full employment — on the basis of standard employment relationships — could be guaranteed through the correct use of the various instruments of macroeconomic management. Yet, in the mid-1970s the foundations of the German welfare state began to erode, a process which continues to this day.