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Research estimating the outcomes of higher education in Germany has widely ignored the private educational sector. This study focuses on labour market returns in terms of the income of graduates from private higher education institutions in Germany. Using data from the National Education Panel Study (NEPS) the results of the Bayesian regression analysis indicate a moderate wage premium for private students compared to students who are enrolled in public higher education institutions regarding the first employment. Despite the predominant role of public universities in Germany, graduates of private higher education institutions receive similar advantages on the labour market as their counterparts in other countries, although private education in other countries is more prestigious.

Changes in wages and other job characteristics during an individual's career are often the result of job mobility. Using a sample of Bavarian university graduates, this work analyses the effects that employer changes have on men's and women's wages. For this, employer changes are grouped into three categories in order to account for different circumstances. Partly in contrast to previous research, the results show significant and positive effects of job mobility, irrespective of gender and of the type of employer change. However, financial returns are lower in case of changes for personal reasons and -- at least when absolute instead of relative changes are analysed -- for women. This can be explained largely by different circumstances which personal employer changes occur in and which women experience. The results are discussed with respect to the specifics of the German labour market structure and to gender segregation on the labour market.

Previous research suggests that household tasks prohibit women from unfolding their full earning potential by depleting their work effort and limiting their time flexibility. The present study investigated whether this relationship can explain the wage gap between mothers and nonmothers in West Germany. The empirical analysis applied fixed-effects models and used self-reported information on time use and earnings as well as monthly family and work histories from the German Socio-Economic Panel (1985-2007, N = 1,810; Wagner, Frick, & Schupp, 2007). The findings revealed that variation in reported time spent on child care and housework on a typical weekday explains part of the motherhood wage penalty, in particular for mothers of very young children. Furthermore, housework time incurred a significant wage penalty, but only for mothers. The authors concluded that policies designed to lighten women's domestic workload may aid mothers in following rewarding careers. (Contains 3 tables and 1 figure.)

Focusing on new demands posed by social and economic change, and applying a pattern-based approach, this study examined constellations of increasing labor market uncertainties (understood as threat) and increasing job-related learning tasks (understood as positive challenge). We investigated whether and how the groups of working individuals behind these constellations would systematically differ in socio-demographic characteristics and psychological resources and adjustment. Results derived from two corresponding data sets from Germany and Poland (German data set: N=1448; Polish data set: N=1584). Discriminant analyses revealed very similar results in both countries. As expected, respondents with a "Negative change" pattern (high uncertainty/low learning) differed from the "Positive change" group (low uncertainty/high learning) in that they showed higher levels of psychological resources (e.g., change-related self-efficacy), adjustment (e.g., work satisfaction), and socioeconomic status. Respondents with a "Complex change" pattern (high/high) mainly differed from those with a "No change" pattern (low/low) in that they showed more change-related exploration. Additional analyses revealed that the "Positive change" pattern is particularly prevalent in high positions (i.e., managers and professionals). Taken together, the results illustrate that constellations of change-related demands are systematically distributed within the working population as a function of socio-demographic background and psychological make-up. (Contains 1 figure and 5 tables.)

This article focuses on three countries with distinct policies toward motherhood and work: Germany, Sweden and the United States. We analyze the length of mothers' time out of paid work after childbirth and the short-term career consequences for mothers. In the United States, we identify a career punishment even for short time-out periods; long time-out periods increase the risk of a downward move and reduce the chances of an upward move. In Germany, long time-out periods destabilize the career and, the longer the leave, the greater the risk of either an upward or downward move. In Sweden, we find a negative effect of time out on upward moves. Hence, even in "woman-friendly" Sweden, women's career prospects are better if they return to paid work sooner rather than later. (Contains 12 notes, 5 tables, and 4 figures.)

Via a simultaneous analysis of different life course pathways (marital, occupational, and childbearing histories) and different outcomes, this article addresses the question When does childlessness matter in late life and how? Survey data from Amsterdam (N = 661) and Berlin, Germany (N = 516) are used. Lifelong childlessness results in smaller networks among men and women in Amsterdam and Berlin, and in the Dutch sample it leads to higher income levels. Dutch men who have never had children and Dutch women who have outlived their children have relatively low life satisfaction levels. In Germany, marital history is a more powerful predictor of life satisfaction in old age than parental history. The findings attest to the importance of distinguishing lifelong childlessness from outliving one's children and of considering the consequences of childlessness for a variety of life domains. (Contains 8 tables.)

Purpose: Studying academic careers can be particularly useful for discussions about new forms of professional careers. This conceptual paper seeks to shed light on academic careers by discussing the (changing) multiple contexts governing academic careers. Design/methodology/approach: A neo-institutional framework for analysing academic careers is developed that treats them as outcomes of overlapping institutions belonging to the different social contexts in which academics simultaneously act. This approach allows one to locate academic careers in the context of new and traditional career literature and to address changes in the institutional context of academic careers. Findings: Shows how traditional structures and mechanisms of academic careers are interwoven with the overall patterns of national higher education systems and their societal embeddedness. Empirical evidence was found that academic careers are becoming more boundaryless. But evidence was also found that academic careers are more bound to the organisation due to recent changes in university policies and practices. Research limitations/implications: The paper is limited to the discussion of overlapping institutional contexts governing academic careers. Further international comparisons could deepen understanding of specific formal and informal rules. Future macro-micro research enables one to show how the career models can be traced to the career experiences and practices. Micro-macro research allows one to see how the aggregate outcomes of individual actions can be traced to the overall performance of a given higher education system. Originality/value: This conceptual paper proposes a neo-institutional framework for analysing academic careers. This approach is useful for cross-national comparisons, the study of emerging new career models and practices in academe, and the study of macro-micro-links in career research.

This article investigates the function served by embarking on a teaching career in the Latin school system for recruitment to the clergy in early modern Sweden. The study is restricted to the eighty-nine teachers serving at Pitea Grammar School in Northern Sweden in the period from 1650 to 1849. The investigation pays considerable attention to the impact of the system of double evaluation of teaching merits that was introduced by the School Act of 1724. When applying for low-and medium-rank pastorates, teachers' experience counted twice as much as ministers' did. The study examines how this system influenced the social recruitment of teachers to the Latin school, as well as the recruitment of teachers to clerical positions. The hypothesis is that the double evaluation system opened a career for candidates without a clerical background. Aimed at compensating for low salaries and providing a secure old age, the double evaluation system should have encouraged the teachers to seek clerical promotion. By analysing the teachers' participation in synodal meetings, the study sheds some light on the question as to whether the teachers actually prepared their clerical careers when serving in school. However, the Latin school offered different opportunities for different categories of teachers. The principal and assistant principal were better paid than the ordinary teachers, and consequently the article pays special attention to differences in social background, study merits and career opportunities between the two categories. Furthermore, the status of the different teacher categories is related to the status of the ministry in order to explain why teachers stayed in school or changed careers. The conceptual tools of this study were developed by Ralph H. Turner in 1960, when he discussed the differences between British and American educational systems. Contest mobility signifies an open and inclusive system, where elite status is granted to the most qualified contenders. Sponsored mobility refers to an exclusive system of controlled selection by which young recruits are inducted into the elite. In 1988, Anthony J. La Vopa showed that sponsored mobility dominated the clergy in eighteenth-century Germany. This study investigates the recruitment policy of the Swedish clergy, with special reference to the role of the Latin school. The Swedish clergy comprised one of the four estates of the national Parliament and, in order to maintain the status of the clerical estate, the clergy developed certain strategies. One strategy is manifested in clergymen's preference for taking ministers' daughters as their wives. Another strategy is indicated by a high rate of self-recruitment, meaning that many clergymen were sons of ministers. From the perspective of the clerical estate's recruitment policy, the self-recruitment rate is of vital importance. Ministers could promote their sons' clerical careers by tutoring them and employing them as curates and assistants. Sponsored by their fathers, the sons of the clergy most frequently managed to take a Master's degree, which was a formal requirement for receiving a pastorate. Previous research has shown that the self-recruitment rate was very high among the Swedish clergy. This is also the case with the Harnosand Diocese, where the city of Pitea was situated. In this huge diocese, covering the entire northern half of present-day Sweden, the self-recruitment rate was 40%, while 30% of the clergy came from the peasantry, and 25% from the "middle classes". In comparison with Germany, the self-recruitment rate was not conspicuously high, and taking into consideration the great contribution from the peasantry, the recruitment policy of the clergy in Northern Sweden qualifies for the designation contest mobility. Consequently, the Latin school system, through which all future ministers were prepared for their clerical careers, served as an open and inclusive instrument of recruitment. There were huge variations in income between the two teacher categories, the principal earning between two and four times as much as his lower-ranked colleagues. The difference in status is also indicated by the differentiated insurance contributions to the clergy's poor relief funds. An analysis of three different revisions of the size of the contributions from 1787 to 1806 shows that the teachers in grammar schools were usually divided into two different categories. The principal and assistant principal used to be placed among the higher clergy, while the regular teaching staff always belonged to the lower clergy. The distinction between two categories of teachers is not founded only upon financial status; there was also a significant difference in study merits. Before 1724, nine of thirteen deputies and principals had taken their Master's degree, while only two of twenty-two ordinary teachers held the same merit. After 1724, the difference is less remarkable. Obviously, the favourable system of merit evaluation increased the recruitment of teachers with Master's degrees. The teachers of Pitea Grammar School did not have a clerical background as often as the clergy of Harnosand Diocese (27% and 39%, respectively). The teachers came more frequently from the "middle classes", while the peasantry was more weakly represented. Consequently, the teachers' social backgrounds were more diverse and secular, especially after 1724. This leads to the conclusion that the grammar school served as an alternative career for those of a secular background. The present study does not verify the hypothesis concerning an increasing transition from teaching to clerical positions after 1724. On the contrary, of a total of forty career changes, twenty-two took place before 1724 and only eighteen after, a difference even more marked when related to the increasing number of teachers serving in Pitea Grammar School. Before 1724, three out of five teachers left school for a clerical position, while only one out of three shifted careers in the later period. No principals or assistant principals accepted lower clerical positions, and even most of the career-changing staff were promoted to a vicarage, almost exclusively after 1724. Consequently, the double evaluation system seems to have offered staff teachers greater opportunities for receiving a vicarage. Many teachers prepared their clerical careers when serving at school. They used to fill in temporarily for the clergy in Pitea parish, and in some cases they were on leave to serve as acting vicars in distant parishes. This means that ordination could be offered during teaching service, but many teachers were already ordained ministers before starting their teaching careers. The synod served as a meeting place for the teaching and preaching branches of the clerical estate. Well trained in theology and classical languages, the teachers often gave the Latin oration and served as opponents at the disputation over the synodal dissertation. During the nineteenth century their participation gradually declined, a development indicating the gradual separation of the clerical and teaching professions. The year of 1849 represented a milestone, when the double evaluation system was abandoned. At the same time teachers' salaries and retirement conditions were regulated. Secondary schools no longer served as waiting rooms for clerical promotion, and teaching was recognized as a profession in its own right.

This paper examines the implications for academic careers of the apparent global trend towards marketisation and managerialism in higher education with reference to the UK and Germany. It discusses how university employers might exercise greater control over their employees, privileging research and international publication, and fragmenting the traditional unity of the academic role. The effect is to challenge the values of academic communities, subject individuals to greater uncertainty, competition and insecurity, and influence the shape and direction of academic careers. The paper notes how today's academic careers could be understood in terms of Kanter's three forms of career as well as the boundaryless and protean career. However, it argues that these approaches do not address the key issue in both the UK and German cases: the changed locus and exercise of power within the employment relationship. It concludes that, to understand how careers are changing, this power relationship and the context of career in general have to be taken into account.

Analyzes the importance of vocational education in the careers of six cohorts born in the Federal Republic of Germany between 1919 and 1961. Questions how the behavior of the cohorts regarding vocational training and further education changed over a period of four decades. (CMK)

Investigates the sociological backgrounds of German lawyers of the Holy Roman Empire through an analysis of the dissertations and disputations written during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Focuses on their university education, family circumstances, and careers. Creates an information data bank to carry out the project. Predicts further research possibilities for the study. (RW)

Abstract: To increase the long‐term benefits of global mobility for multinational corporations, international assignments and intraorganizational careers must be strategically integrated. However, systematic research on former expatriates' career success upon returning to their home organization remains scarce. Hence, this study transfers findings from the career literature to the repatriation context to identify the predictors of objective and subjective repatriate career success. Integrating traditional and protean career theory, we investigate data from 295 repatriates of publicly listed German organizations. Applying partial least squares structural equation modeling, we reveal that objective career success upon repatriation is affected by international assignment characteristics with human capital implications, repatriation support provided by the organization, and the individual's self‐directed career management. Objective career success, organizational repatriation support, and self‐directed career management further affect subjective career success in terms of career satisfaction. Hence, substantiating an impact of both traditional and protean career factors on repatriate careers, our results lay the groundwork for repatriation strategies that combine organizational and individual career management. In this way, multinational corporations can go beyond managing repatriate elites to make better use of all globally experienced employees. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although governments and higher education institutions across Europe are promoting agendas for widening the educational participation and increasing the social mobility of young people from lower socio-economic groups, very little has been written about the experiences of these individuals when seeking and entering employment. We aim to address this gap. Using a qualitative research approach, we explore the career expectations, experiences and limitations of first-generation university engineering students and graduates in Germany. The article draws upon the work of Pierre Bourdieu to demonstrate how social and cultural capitals instilled by parents and social peers are invaluable in developing personal and professional networks and eventual entry into the engineering professions. A lack of, or underdeveloped, capitals can inhibit career opportunities and ultimately the social mobility and professional choices of graduate engineers. Our research discovered that university graduates from less advantaged backgrounds face a 'class ceiling' at university, in obtaining an internship and then when gaining entry to and working in the engineering profession; they encounter 'sticky steps' at each stage of their career ladder. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this article we present expatriate management policies and practices of 136 large multinational companies (MNCs) based in four different countries: Germany, Japan, the United Kingdom, and the United States. The findings we focus on include staffing, selection, training, and success. By analyzing our own results as well as comparing them to previous findings, we examine the changes in expatriate practices over time. In the managerial and research implications sections, we share additional findings and our thoughts about future issues and trends in expatriation. © 2009 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Job rotation, i.e. a lateral transfer of an employee between jobs within a company, is frequently used as a means to develop employees, learn about their abilities as well as to motivate them. We investigate the determinants and performance effects of job rotation empirically by analyzing a large panel data-set covering the German banking and financial services sector. In particular, we study (i) how prior individual performance affects the propensity to rotate and (ii) how performance changes after the rotation. We find that while both, low- and high-performers rotate, lateral moves are more frequent among low performers. However, those having been rotated between jobs achieve a higher performance in subsequent years as compared to other non-rotating employees in a comparable position. Interestingly, this effect is driven by high performers, whereas for low performers, we find no significant relationship between job rotation and future performance. The results thus suggest that firms should focus their job rotation programs on high performers and should not expect that low performers achieve performance gains when being rotated to a different function. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The (German) market for law professors fulfils the conditions for a hog cycle: In the short run, supply cannot be extended or limited; future law professors must be hired soon after they first present themselves, or leave the market; demand is inelastic. Using a comprehensive German dataset, we show that the number of market entries today is negatively correlated with the number of market entries eight years ago. This suggests short-sighted behavior of young scholars at the time when they decide to prepare for the market. Using our statistical model, we make out-of-sample predictions for the German academic market in law until 2020. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The 2013 Bundestag election saw a very high turnover in MPs. The FDP, which previously held ninety-three seats in the Bundestag did not get re-elected, and about 100 members had announced their retirement prior to the election. This article looks at whether the 217 new members have a significantly different sociodemographic and career profile to the re-elected members. While providing an insight into the sociodemographic profiles and career tracks of German MPs, the article finds that not much has changed in sociodemographic profiles and career tracks to the Bundestag. Changes in the occupational structure, however, signal that for more and more MPs politics is becoming a long-term career. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose -- This paper seeks to explore the personal motives of subsidiary CEOs in taking initiatives in multinational corporations. In essence, the paper proposes that subsidiary initiative-taking is strongly driven by the socio-political positioning of subsidiary CEOs, which consists of specific "social aspects" that account for the basic orientation that subsidiary CEOs maintain in initiative-taking, as well as "political aspects" that affect the ability of subsidiary CEOs to strategize and the ways they do it in the highly politicized processes of initiative-taking. Design/methodology/approach -- The paper is based on four exploratory case studies undertaken in German subsidiaries in France. Applying a matched pair approach it compares two subsidiaries run by parent country nationals (PCNs) with two subsidiaries run by host country nationals (HCNs). Findings -- The paper demonstrates that the nationality of the subsidiary CEO alone does not explain subsidiary CEOs initiative-taking behaviour. Other factors that make up the socio-political positioning of subsidiary CEOs, such as career aspiration, career orientation, access to resources and specific skills to form internal and local coalitions, as well as "external" coalitions with the headquarters, need to be considered as well. Research limitations/implications -- Given the qualitative research design and exploratory nature of the study there are limits to how far the findings can be generalized and applied elsewhere. More in-depth research is needed to further develop the socio-political perspective put forward here, especially to more closely analyze the interplay of actors' (CEOs') socio-political positioning approaches within different contexts of subsidiary initiative-taking. Originality/value -- The socio-political perspective proposed here goes beyond and extends existing IRHM approaches, which narrowly focus on the overarching impact of nationality as a predictor of differences in the behaviour of subsidiary CEOs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Functional elites of the GDR, the so-called cadres, formed a rather large and inhomogeneous stratum of the socialist society. Empirical evidence based on quantitative analyses of large prosopographical and biographical datasets unveils paradoxical patterns of social inequality underlying the processes of recruitment and career mobility of cadres. Hereditary aspects had a greater impact on the allocation of social status than expected and thwarted the socialist project. Not only did a New Class or "socialist intelligentsia" emerge, increasing social closure also reverberated a distinguishably "bourgeois" tradition. In the 1980s, workers and cooperative farmers belonged to the most disadvantaged social strata in the "Workers' and Peasants' State". While this could be observed for different sectors of the GDR society, economy in particular gave an instructive example. Factories and large industrial combines (Kombinate) were led by businessmen who often did not even have a documented worker's origin. Instead, and in the first place, they boasted required aspects of high cultural capital, such as academic and special vocational training, and were politically reliable with regard to SED state party alignment and honorary functions. Thus, even the descendents of "capitalist" entrepreneurs, persons with a National Socialist family background or persons with a personal NS past had fairly good prospects to embark on careers in the GDR economy. The paper briefly discusses statistical analyses of data on higher executive personnel such as director generals (CEOs), branch directors, and heads of department. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose - This paper aims to analyze the differences between assigned expatriates (AEs) and self-initiated expatriates (SEs) in management and executive positions. The basic research question is how far SEs and AEs differ with respect to their reasons for working internationally and regarding their career aspirations and orientations, and in what way their individual career management differs. Design/methodology/approach - A total of 159 expatriate managers completed an online questionnaire in German. The questionnaire covered psychological constructs and the participating managers' career histories. Findings - It is shown that SEs start their international careers at a younger age, have a higher organizational mobility, and expect higher benefits from international experiences for their future careers. Moreover, career orientation remains relatively stable in SEs over different age groups, whereas it declines for AEs with increasing age. Research limitations/implications - The study design is cross-sectional and based on self-reports, which makes causal explanations of the results difficult and increases the risk of common method bias. Practical implications - Specific personnel management requirements regarding SEs in contrast to AEs are pointed out especially in the fields of recruitment, retention and career management, which can help support companies in building up a pool of global managers. Originality/value - The paper adds valuable new insights to the literature on expatriate work and gives further evidence that SEs form a group that has been overlooked for a long time, even though it differs significantly from traditional expatriates who are sent abroad by their employing companies to return some years later. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The apparent triumph of economic rationality, the globalization of firms and the construction of the European Union all suggest that the ways of making top leaders in big German, British and French companies should be converging since these firms must cope with the same constraints. This argument, however appealing, overlooks the social dimension of the making of elites. A comparison of the heads of the 200 biggest British, French and German firms brings to light three contrasting national models for producing legitimate authority and thus sheds light on three quite different types of business elites. This is a far cry from a single European model, far indeed given that each of these three models for the making of a business elite has roots in each country's historical and social logics. This fact endows these models with stability and makes it quite hard for a European model to even gradually emerge. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• Cognitive ability and openness predict undereducation; conscientiousness does not. • Social origin is a main determinant of undereducation. • Undereducation is an important component of social reproduction. • Similar results for the United Kingdom and for Germany. A significant share of employees in Europe has less formal training than is required by their job; they are undereducated. We use harmonized panel data from the United Kingdom and Germany to investigate the skills and resources allowing the undereducated to develop careers in occupations supposedly beyond their reach. Our theoretical approach complements individual-centered labor market theory with an intergenerational mobility perspective which regards undereducation as a form of family status maintenance. Our empirical results show that persons whose (non-)cognitive skills exceed their formal education are more likely to be undereducated in the cross-section, and to enter undereducated employment or be promoted into it throughout the life course. Yet beyond individual merit, parental socio-economic status is a similarly-important predictor of these outcomes; our analyses even trace a significant share of the importance of (non-)cognitive skills to it. To complete our intergenerational argument, we finally demonstrate that undereducation acts as a pathway to the intergenerational reproduction of earnings inequality – more so, in fact, than the avoidance of overeducation. These results are remarkably similar across the UK and Germany, although some country differences suggest higher skill-induced career mobility in Britain and stronger origin effects in Germany. We discuss promising avenues for further comparative research in the conclusion. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article highlights the Berlin 2000 International Conference for Vocational Guidance. This major event is organized by the collaboration of Bundesanstalt fÄr Arbeit with the International Association for Educational and Vocational Guidance. The event entitled Guidance for Education, Career and Employment New Challenges, will be held from August 30 to September 1, 2000 in Berlin and will reflect the importance of changes that have occurred in the economy, technology and society, as well as the transformation of education, vocational training and the world of work in a lifelong process.