Dhe people in Germany are fundamentally optimistic about their personal future. They believe that their success is in their own hands. And they are convinced that their children will one day be better off than they are. This emerges from an as yet unpublished study by the employer-related Institute of the German Economy (IW), which is available to the FAS in advance.
Using data from the Socio-Economic Panel, the IW evaluated where people in Germany place themselves on the social ladder (on a scale of 1 to 10), what position they expect to have in ten years, and where they expect their children to be when they arrive are the same age as they are today. 41.9 percent of those surveyed see themselves in the bottom half of society today. Only 24.5 percent believe that they will still be there in 10 years. 84 percent of those surveyed expect that their children will one day be at least as well off as they are. Almost half (48 percent) assume that the children will be better off.
“Across all social groups examined, it has been shown that there is a fundamental optimism with regard to one’s own future social position,” writes study author Maximilian Stockhausen. But there are some differences. Younger people rate themselves lower in the present than older people, but are more optimistic about their future.
People with little education are particularly optimistic. They expect their own future to have a social status that is almost as high as that of people with medium education, and even a higher status for their children. People with a migration background, whether direct or indirect, currently rate themselves somewhat lower than those without, but they promise themselves a particularly strong social advancement.
People believe in advancement through their own performance
Stockhausen also explains the fundamental optimism in the German population with the fact that people have the feeling that they can determine their own fate. More than two thirds tend to agree with the statement that “it depends on myself whether I manage to climb the social ladder.” This belief is particularly strong among people with an indirect migration background, i.e. children of immigrants.
The evaluation also allows a closer look at who or what people hold responsible for their success or failure. Almost 90 percent agree with the statement that you have to “make an effort and be hardworking.” A similar number think that it depends on “good specialist knowledge in a specialist area”. Two thirds believe that you have to be “gifted and intelligent”. For most people, luck and a good school leaving certificate are also part of success. However, only around 20 percent believe that you have to be “ruthless and tough” and fewer than one in five agree with the statement that you have to be a man or come from a German family.
The numbers that the IW uses are from 2021, so they were collected in the middle of the corona pandemic. The extent to which special effects influence the results cannot be clearly stated. The study also does not yet show how the economic upheavals of 2022 have affected optimism in this country.
The question remains as to what is behind the Germans’ optimism about upward mobility. How much does one’s own wealth depend on that of one’s parents? A few years ago, according to an OECD study, the Federal Republic was considered to be at the bottom of the list among industrialized nations. However, the Ifo Institute in Munich contradicted this interpretation: Previous studies had found a significantly lower connection between parents’ and children’s income. In particular, the OECD only examined dependent employees. In Germany, however, self-employment is an important channel for economic advancement.
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