Abstract
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This dissertation investigates the repercussions of the East German transformation on the labor market entry. Although having already begun an apprenticeship before German unification, they were not yet integrated into the East German employment system. Using data collected by the Max Planck Institute for Human Development, namely from the studies "Life Courses and Historical Change in the Former German Democratic Republic" and "East German Life Courses After Unification", comparisons were made between the labor market entries of East German cohorts born 1971 and 1959-61. While the youth of the 1971 birth cohort, armed with East German training certificates, had to overcome the transition into the labor market during the East German transformation, the 1959-61 cohort had already entered the labor market in the GDR.
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With this comparative analysis, justice has been made to the complexity and dynamics of labor market entry as well as to the interdependence of the processes of labor market entry and social structural changes. The following analyses are made in this dissertation: 1) The conditions for accomplishing the patterns of labor market entry, realized by the majority, 2) the time it takes for each individual labor market entry event to be accomplished, and 3) the materialization of different patterns of labor market entry. Clarification of the mechanisms between labor market entry and (a) the conditions, events and experiences which lie in the past, (b) the other spheres of life, and (c) the social changes are brought about. The combination of these different analytic perspectives enable an adequate exploration of the changes in labor market entry while structural changes in society are going on.
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The empirical analyses have revealed altogether a complex picture of the changes of the processes of labor market entry during the East German transformation. The youth cover longer, less direct paths from the educational or training system to the employment system, increasingly absolve multiple apprenticeships and spend more time in the higher educational system, so that the boundaries between education or training and work become even more blurred. It must be emphasized that the youth are not equally affected by the social changes. The reduction of employment opportunities, the closely linked gender-specific segmentation of the labor market as well as the different resources available present an indelible structure of the mechanisms of social inequality upon labor market entry during the East German transformation.
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