Family change in Eastern and Western Germany: differences and similarities

Twenty years into German unification, one would have expected East-West differences in attitudes, living conditions and behavior to have gradually converged. While this holds for many areas of life, this does not apply to the family domain. Family structures and maternal employment patterns still differ radically between the two parts of the country. The panel study DemoDiff, monitored by the Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research in Rostock, is getting to the bottom of these differences.