Research fields

Global environmental changes, such as the climate crisis, are creating new eco-social risks and exacerbating existing social imbalances.  At the same time, the ecological transformation requires society, including social security systems, to adapt. By adopting a socio-ecologically integrated perspective on these changes, social policy can meet the challenges with innovative solutions: New instruments and institutions need to be developed to counteract and prevent the social imbalances that are being exacerbated by the climate crisis and other ecological crises.  At the same time, a social policy with an ecological steering effect can promote sustainable societies and strengthen the welfare state through eco-social policy instruments and institutions. 

Research Field 2 addresses a critical question: How can social security systems effectively adapt to the changing world of work? As work transforms through digitalization, decarbonization, (de-)globalization, and demographic shifts, this research field examines the intersections of social and economic policies and their governance to ensure robust social security. The current research focuses primarily on both sectoral and company levels, exploring solutions and strategies to navigate the challenges posed by these shifts, striving to balance support for social and economic transformation with the maintenance of comprehensive social protection.

Core team:
Timothy Rinke, research field coordinator (DIFIS, University of Duisburg-Essen)
Jenny Hahs, researcher (DIFIS, University of Duisburg-Essen)
Prof. Dr. Martin Brussig (University of Duisburg-Essen)
Dr. Martin Dietz (Institute for Employment Research)
Prof. Dr. Werner Eichhorst (Institute of Labor Economics | University of Bremen)
Prof. Dr. Martin Werding (Ruhr University Bochum)

Research field 3 focuses on the interdependencies between migration, social policy and transnational activities as well as strategies and effects in this context. It addresses questions about the significance of various forms of cross-border mobility for the present and future of social security systems. The focus is on migration connected to Germany while at the same time taking into account international and transnational contexts as well as regulatory frameworks at international and EU-level.

Background and relevance of the research interest

From a socio-political and demographic perspective, the stable influx of different migrant groups offers the opportunity to stabilize social security systems. At the same time migration challenges modern welfare states. Systems of social security and patterns of inclusion have developed within nation states over decades and have produced specific characteristics, functional logics and access criteria at national level. This predominantly national regulatory framework does not fit well with global mobility patterns. Access to social security and entitlements are tied to criteria that are often difficult to fulfill for migrants. Their transnational biographies clash with nationally regulated social security systems.

At the same time, migration has diversified in many respects in recent years, both in Germany and many other countries.  People migrate for different reasons, with different goals and prospects of staying. Host countries are trying to control migration with increasingly differentiated legal categories, each of which is characterized by a specific set of rights and restrictions.

Whether a person has access to social security, labour law protection or entitlements to social benefits highly depends on their residence permit, length of stay, country of origin and employment history. Accordingly, the opportunities for inclusion and the risks of exclusion and precariousness also vary for different migrant groups with specific residence status characteristics.

The provision of/access to social security in transnational settings therefore poses considerable challenges not only for welfare states, but also for migrants. While migrants develop individual and transnational strategies to ensure their social security, modern welfare states must adapt their systems to the changing requirements of the migration society. They not only have to take into account the increasing relevance of international and EU law as well as bilateral and multilateral agreements. At the same time, they are under political pressure from a public debate in which the legitimacy of migrants' welfare state rights is regularly called into question.

Against this background, research activities, publications and transfer formats of the research field are structured according to three subject areas with their respective research questions:

• Transnational governance and regimes
• The local negotiation of social rights
• Migrant social security practices
  
  

As Germany will remain a country of immigration in the foreseeable future, it is important to better understand the connections and interdependencies between migration, socio-political inclusions/exclusions and transational strategies. In-depth knowledge in this field makes it possible to contribute to the development of social policy and admininistrative procedures that can adapt to the demands of today’s migration socicety.

Core team: 
Dr. Kirsten Hoesch, research field coordinator (DIFIS, University of Duisburg-Essen)
Prof. Dr. Ilker Ataç (Fulda University of Applied Sciences)
Prof. Dr. Helen Baykara-Krumme (University of Duisburg-Essen)
Prof. Dr. Felicitas Hillmann (Technische Universität Berlin)
Prof. Dr. Michael Sauer (Hochschule Bonn-Rhein-Sieg)
Dr. Thorsten Schlee (University of Duisburg-Essen)
Prof. Karen Shire PhD (University of Duisburg-Essen)

Social policies and social policy regulations are important sources of how life courses are socially shaped. Social policy regulation structures life courses temporally; social policies help people to deal with general and market-related life course risks, and they contain normative models of ‘good’ or ‘standard’ life courses as well as living arrangements.         
At the individual level, traditional social policy arrangements are challenged by the dynamics of life-course patterns. These include changes in the world of work, spatial and social mobility over the life course, and changes in life expectancy and partnerships, families, (other) private relationships, and networks.       
Furthermore, social policy regulation itself drives life course-related changes, e.g., the extension of working careers due to rising statutory retirement ages or the increasing privatisation and marketisation of social security.         
Against this background, research field 4 investigates questions in three main thematic fields, namely (1) provision and social protection of care work across the life course, (2) normative models of life courses and families/living arrangements in social policy regulation and (3) social services, their provision and their impact on life courses. In the following, potential research questions are listed:   

Thematic field 1:

How are attributions of responsibility for care work subjectively anchored and what are the structural implications of this in the family context, but also in the professional context?

What are the models that could enable the redistribution of care work and (more) collective responsibility for care?

Thematic field 2:

What normative ideas of life courses and (family) lifestyles are social policy measures based on?

To what extent do normative and legitimating standards of social policy change due to changing life course patterns?

Thematic field 3:

What are the long-term effects of social services on the life courses of the people who use them and how can these effects be measured?

How is social service work organised by the welfare state and how does this organisation affect those working in this sector and their life courses?

Core team:
Miriam Laschinski, research field coordinator (DIFIS, University of Bremen)
Prof. Dr. Karin Gottschall (University of Bremen)
Prof. Dr. Dirk Hofäcker (University of Duisburg-Essen)
Prof. Dr. Katja Möhring (University of Bamberg)
Prof. Dr. Simone Scherger (University of Bremen)

DIFIS research field 5 focuses on processes in social policy and examines how actors and institutions in the multi-level system influence social policy. In this context, research in Research Field 5 is based on the individual life situations of citizens and asks how social policy solutions can ensure the resilience of the welfare state. The research field is currently working on three main topics: Social work as a political actor, social policy at the municipal level and digital transformation.

Core team:
Marina Ruth, research field coordinator(DIFIS, University of Duisburg-Essen)
Prof. Dr. Antonio Brettschneider (TH Köln – University of Applied Sciences)
Prof. Dr. Constanze Janda (Deutsche Universität für Verwaltungswissenschaften Speyer)
Prof. Dr. Tanja Klenk (Helmut Schmidt University Hamburg)
Prof. Dr. Simone Leiber (University of Duisburg-Essen)
Prof. Dr. Sigrid Leitner (TH Köln – University of Applied Sciences)
Prof. Dr. Sybille Stöbe-Blossey (University of Duisburg-Essen)

Research field 6 is aimed at investigating various conflicts inherent to social policy. It takes two different perspectives: a retrospective and a prospective one, which help both better understand the history of German social policy and design successful interventions. The two perspectives require different scientific approaches and so the research field is provisionally divided into two modules.

Module 1, "Migration and social policy in Germany in historical perspective", examines the effects of migration on state social policy (e.g., in relation to social rights, social welfare, generosity, tax burden) as well as the associated social and political conflict lines (e.g., party system, political extremism, populism, desolidarization, inclusion and exclusion processes).

Module 2, "Experimental policy evaluation and attitudinal research", includes a survey experiment as well as a traditional laboratory experiment to investigate whether the public support for carbon dioxide (CO2) taxation depends on the further use of the collected funds such as investment into green technology or various redistribution schemes (e.g., "Klimageld"). In this module, we also explore how the stated preferences depend on the political affiliations, environmental attitudes and social demographics (in particular, income).

Core team:

• Dr. Olexandr Nikolaychuk, research field coordinator (DIFIS, University of Bremen)
• Prof. Dr. Bernhard Boockmann (Institute for Applied Economic Research at the University of Tübingen)
• Prof. Dr. Jeannette Brosig-Koch (Otto von Guericke University Magdeburg), external partner
• Prof. Dr. Sebastian Fehrler (University of Bremen
• Prof. Dr. Achim Goerres (Universitty of Duisburg-Essen)
• Prof. Dr. Paul Marx (Universitty of Duisburg-Essen)
• Prof. Dr. Markus Tepe (University of Bremen)
• AG Prof. Dr. Cornelius Torp (University of Bremen)
• AG Prof Dr. Herbert Obinger (University of Bremen)
• AG Prof Dr. Carina Schmitt (University of Bamberg)
• Prof. Dr. Martin Seeleib-Kaiser and FIS-Nachwuchsgruppe „Freizügigkeit und Sozialpolitik im historischen und internationalen Vergleich“ (University of Tübingen)
• Prof. Dr. Christiane Reinecke (Interdisciplinary Centre for European Studies at Europa-Universität Frankfurt)