The Rise and Decline of the Male Breadwinner Model: Institutional Underpinnings and Future Expectations

Abstract

In this article, we provide a long-term East–West comparison of partnered women’s employment from the 1940s into the first decade of the new millennium in Germany, and focus on the nexus of gainful employment and family-related responsibilities in women’s lives. Based on an analysis of the institutionally and culturally shaped opportunity structures that define the conditions for partnered women’s employment, we identify distinct periods of support and derive hypotheses on cohort-specific developments. The empirical analysis largely confirms that a divergence between East and West German women’s employment patterns started as early as in the 1950s. East–West differences in labour market participation were strongest among women born around 1940. For successive cohorts of East and West German women, the employment patterns converged. Whereas the labour market participation of West German women gradually increased over time, the employment pattern of East German women adjusted to the West German pattern after unification, resulting in an increase of part-time employment and non-employment, in particular among mothers. The article concludes by discussing implications of these trends for the future of the male breadwinner model.