Resilience and unemployment: A case study of East German women

What is it about?

Unemployment is one of the key issues in German politics today. Nowhere is this more apparent than in the former East Germany. This paper examines the impact that this exceptionally high unemployment in the new German states has had on East German women since reunification. It reflects, in particular, on the potential influence of their experience of life in the GDR in developing coping strategies to deal with the effects of unemployment, an ongoing resistance to unemployment and, most significantly, to a male-breadwinner ethos.

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