Prof. Irene Dingeldey and Prof. Ulrich Mückenberger – both PIs of project A03: Worlds of Labour: Coverage and Generosity of Employment Law – received the "Top Cited Article"-Award of Wiley Publisher for the years 2022 and 2023. The article "Worldwide patterns of legal segmentation in employment law" is the scientific introduction of the special issue of the International Labour Review "Overcoming Legal Segmentation: Extending legal Rules to All Workers?" (February 2022).

ILO labour law through transnational social dialogues

Furthermore, the scientific volume dedicated to the 100th anniversary of the International Labour Organisation (ILO) has now been published by the prestigious Sorbonne publisher. It contains a chapter on the production of international labour norms via transnational social dialogues written by Ulrich Mückenberger.

Les dialogues sociaux transnationaux comme leviers des normes mondiales du travail, in: Dhermy-Mairal, Marine, Kott, Sandrine, Lespinet-Moret, Isabelle and Louis, Marieke (eds.) (2024): Mondialisation et justice sociale. Un siècle d’action de l’Organisation internationale du travail, Paris: Éditions de la Sorbonne, chapter 17.

On May 22, 2024, Prof. Marvin Suesse from Trinity College Dublin (Ireland) presented the central aspects and five case studies of his current monograph "The Nationalist Dilemma: A Global History of Economic Nationalism", published by Cambridge University Press. As part of the Jour Fixe series, the lecture was well attended not only by numerous colleagues from the University of Bremen and the CRC 1342, but also by many students from various faculties and study programs.

Publication:

Suesse, Marvin (2023): The Nationalist Dilemma: A Global History of Economic Nationalism, Cambridge University Press.

Abstract:

The Doctoral Researcher in the team of the Information Management Project (INF) wrote a cumulative dissertation titled "Multimodal and Collaborative Interaction for Visual Data Exploration". Gabriela obtained her PhD ("Dr.-Ing.") from the Faculty of Mathematics/Computer Science (FB 03) with a "summa cum laude".

Gabriela Molina León is a computer scientist and visualization researcher. Her thesis contributed to the CS fields of data visualization, human-computer interaction, and computer-supported cooperative work. In her dissertation, she investigated how different interaction modalities and devices can support data experts to visually explore and make sense of data, individually and collaboratively. Through a series of empirical studies applying mixed methods, Gabriela studied how experts interact and wish to interact with spatio-temporal data on tablets and large vertical displays at the workplace. Furthermore, she worked closely with social science researchers to support them in their work. They served as an example of real-world experts who interact with data in their everyday jobs.

The dissertation research was conducted partly during the first and second phases of the CRC 1342. Gabriela is one of the researchers who led the design and development of WeSIS. Accordingly, the first paper of her dissertation presented the lessons learned from the co-creation workshops conducted as part of the A01 project. Three of the four papers involved experiments that included social science researchers of the CRC as participants.

Gabriela Molina León was co-supervised by Prof. Dr. Andreas Breiter and Dr. Petra Isenberg (INRIA, France). As part of her research, she had a research stay in Paris, France, last year, which was co-financed by the CRC 1342 and the DAAD.

On Thursday, April 25, 2024, the "Praxisnacht des FB 8" of Faculty of Social Sciences took place at the University of Bremen from 6 pm to 10 pm. Over 250 students took part and received insights and tips on starting and planning a career from over 30 alumni. Among public authorities, NGOs and commercial enterprises, the Collaborative Research Centre 1342 “Global Dynamics of Social Policy” also took part.

After being welcomed by the Dean of Studies of Faculty 8, Prof. Dr. Julia Lossau, the students chose from four different occupational fields in three time blocks. These included Public Relations and Communication, Public Administration, Business, Media and Journalism as well as Research and Transfer.

The "Praxisnacht des FB 8 – Einblicke und Berichte" takes place every two years. It is aimed at students on Bachelor's degree courses in History, Geography, Integrated European Studies, Political Science and Sociology as well as students on Master's degree courses in Faculty 8.

Organization und contact person: Birgit Ennen [bennen@uni-bremen.de], University of Bremen

At this year's meeting of members on April 24, 2024, the board of the Collaborative Research Centre 1342 "Global Dynamics of Social Policy" was elected in a new composition. The members of the Equal Opportunities Committee were also elected.

The CRC 1342 is headed by a board elected by the CRC members. The board makes decisions by simple majority and has a quorum if at least two thirds of the board members are present. On the board of directors, the spokesperson is responsible for the administration and management of the CRC. The deputy spokesperson and the representatives of the project directors focus on the coordination of the projects, the cooperation between the projects, and on the central database project.

The members of the board and further information can be found [here].

The EOC is a consultative member of the CRC 1342 board and advises CRC members on all recruitment procedures within the CRC. The EOC advocates gender equality and the reconciliation of professional and family activities. It also advises and informs all members of the CRC on these issues. Additionally, the EOC is in contact with the equal opportunities networks at the University of Bremen.

The members of the EOC and further information can be found [here].

Dr. Kris-Stella Trump from Johns Hopkins University (USA) visited Bremen for the opening event of the Jour Fixe lecture series of the Collaborative Research Centre 1342 in the summer semester 2024. In her talk, she gave exciting insights into her current research and, in the subsequent discussion with colleagues, exchanged views primarily on methodological issues in the creation and implementation of surveys.

Abstract:

Accurately measuring public perceptions of economic phenomena is complicated, but doing so is important for responsive policy-making. Survey measurement difficulties are particularly pronounced when it comes to economic inequality, which is an abstract and mathematically demanding concept, but perceptions of which have the potential to directly affect the desirability of redistributive policies. In this paper, we compare different ways to ask questions about perceived inequality, characterizing the costs and benefits of different approaches. In particular, we ask whether relatively complicated survey items result in high rates of “satisficing” and/or high rates of non-response, with consequences for survey quality. In a survey fielded to representative samples in Switzerland, Germany, and France, we ask respondents about income inequality in two different ways. First, respondents estimate household incomes at specified percentiles of the income distribution. Later in the survey, they estimate the incomes that qualify a household as rich or poor, respectively. We anticipate that because the percentile questions are relatively abstract, respondents may rely on their prototypes of the rich and the poor when answering, leading to similar answers to the two sets of questions. We also anticipate that because the percentile questions are more mathematically involved, we may see systematic non-response patterns. The results show that in all three countries, the 90th percentile, the 99th percentile, and the rich are seen as significantly different from each other in terms of household income. At the same time, we find significant rates of non-response and uninformative responses in the percentile questions (but not the questions about the rich/poor). We conclude that even apparently low levels of mathematical complexity in question wording can lead to non-response patterns that affect the representativeness of survey samples.

Publication:

Trump, Kris-Stella (2023): “What does it take to be rich? Asking reasonable survey questions about income inequality.” Research & Politics 10(3).

Kris-Stella Trump is a political scientist at Johns Hopkins University. A scholar of public opinion and political psychology, she primarily studies perceptions of deservingness, attitudes toward income inequality, and the politics of distribution. Her regional focus lies in the United States and Western Europe. Kris-Stella joined Johns Hopkins from the University of Memphis, and prior to that, she served as program director at the Social Science Research Council. She holds a Ph.D. in political science from Harvard University. She is Estonian by origin, and also lived in Sweden and the United Kingdom before moving to the United States. You can find out more at: https://www.kstrump.com

The Information Management Project (INF) wrote a report on the experiences with Research Data Management (RDM) in the CRC 1342, which was published in "Bausteine Forschungsdatenmanagement". In order to expand systematic RDM, the article addresses, among other things, the question of how the individual interests of researchers can be harmonised with collective goals in large collaborative projects.

"Governance bei der Co-Creation eines webbasierten Forschungsdatenmanagementsystems in den Sozialwissenschaften"

This article deals with the development of WeSIS on the basis of practiced network governance. What is special about the creation of WeSIS is that it was developed by the participating researchers in co-creation. Coding rules, metadata or tools for the analysis and initial visualization of the data were developed jointly in order to address the needs of the researchers using it. Furthermore, the question of whether co-creation has added value for the joint RDM of the CRC 1342 is discussed. Based on more than five years of experience and the evaluations carried out, it can be concluded that a high degree of communication was required for the joint development of the information system. The article shows that the concept of network governance offers an appropriate perspective for coordinating the communication and decision-making processes in a targeted manner.

Bausteine Forschungsdatenmanagement is a publication of the joint Arbeitsgruppe "Forschungsdaten" of the Deutsche Initiative für Netzwerkinformationen e.V. (DINI) and nestor - Deutsches Kompetenznetzwerk zur digitalen Langzeitarchivierung.

As the last event of the CRC 1342 Jour Fixe lecture series in the winter semester 2023/24, Jonathan London from Leiden University gave an insight into his current research on Wednesday, February 28. He presented excerpts from his book "Welfare and Inequality in Marketizing East Asia".

In his lecture, Prof. London presented his book, in which he described socio-political expansion tendencies based on a determination of regime types and accumulation regimes in ten Southeast Asian countries - against the backdrop of the increasing marketization of these countries' economies. Despite the expansion of new protection programmes, however, serious problems must be noted. On the one hand, there are considerable differences between the de jure and de facto forms of these social programmes in terms of the scope of benefits and inclusivity. On the other hand, serious shortcomings can still be observed in particularly demanding areas (such as education and health), in which the creation of effective infrastructures, qualified labour etc. is necessary for a sustainable improvement in the situation for broad sections of the population, in addition to the necessary funds. Taken together, this stands in the way of an effective reduction in social inequalities, despite the significant economic development in Southeast Asia.

Jonathan D. London is Associate Professor of Political Economy - Asia at Leiden University's Institute of Area Studies. London's research interests span the fields of comparative political economy, development studies, and the political economy of welfare and inequality. Fluent in Vietnamese, London is sole editor of the Routledge Handbook of Contemporary Vietnam (2023). His 2018 book, “Welfare and Inequality in Marketizing East Asia” developed a critique of theoretical literature on welfare regimes analysis and a comparative analysis of 10 East Asian countries.  He holds a PhD in Sociology from the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

The B05 project successfully conducted field research in China for the first time after China ended its zero-COVID policy.

Dr. Zhe Yan conducted extensive field research from September to December 2023. The purpose of the research trip was twofold: to investigate the coverage and generosity of both maternity protection and long-term care. The research is timely as China is experiencing rapid population aging, with only 9.56 million births in 2022, the lowest number since records began in 1949. The emerging social reality calls for a social policy response. The country has already piloted long-term care insurance in selected cities and extended maternity leave to encourage women of reproductive age to have children. However, the outcome of these policy initiatives remains unclear and requires rigorous research.

Despite more difficult field access and the securitization of Sino-European knowledge exchange in recent years, data collection was feasible. To collect data, Dr. Yan visited various long-term care facilities and community care centers in Shanghai, Suzhou, and Kunshan, with local colleagues. He also conducted numerous in-depth interviews with Chinese couples with newborns to examine the implementation of the maternity insurance program from the beneficiaries' perspective. Preliminary data analysis suggests that there are gaps between de jure entitlements and de facto policy implementation in both long-term care and maternity protection. This can be partly explained by the conditionality of access to benefits, such as the hukou (household registration) system for admitting the elderly for long-term care, and the extent to which employers are willing to enroll workers for maternity insurance. Therefore, expanding coverage and improving the generosity of social insurance depends on policymakers' determination to address these issues. The B05 team aims to identify the factors that influence the outcomes of recent social policy in these important areas.

While in China, Dr. Yan was hosted by Duke Kunshan University as a Scholar in Residence at the Center for the Study of Contemporary China, where he is also part of the local Aging and Care Initiative. To support field research, meet long-standing collaboration partners e.g., from Fudan University, and to establish academic collaborations with local research institutions, Prof. Tobias ten Brink visited Shanghai and Kunshan in October. At Duke Kunshan University, he also met with the Director of the Center to establish future cooperation. Tobias ten Brink also gave a public lecture to the students and faculty members, focusing on the research program of the CRC 1342 and findings of the B05 project.

Equal Care Day (ECD) regularly draws attention to the importance of a fair and equal distribution of care work. On February 29, this year's day of action of the Equal Care Day initiative will take place in many cities and virtually. Equal Care Day is an initiative of klische*esc e.V., a non-profit association for the promotion of freedom of choice beyond limiting role stereotypes.

The Equal Care Day initiative calls on people, institutions and associations worldwide to organize the Equal Care Day as an opportunity to once again draw attention to the lack of appreciation and unfair distribution of care work. The campaigns achieve this by using events, campaigns, manifestos and projects of all kinds to focus on the fact that care work and care, care workers and carers are all too often poorly rewarded or not rewarded at all in our society and the current economic system. With this in mind, an ECD festival will also be held in many places and on an online platform in 2024.

The organizers of the Equal Care Day Northwest 2024 Andrea Schäfer (University of Bremen), Nicole Biela (City of Wilhelmshaven) and Ann-Kathrin Cramer (District of Friesland) make it clear in the spirit of the ECD "Care work affects us all, sooner or later in the course of our lives, but we are confronted with very different regional structures and a social policy that only partially integrates care work in its concept. We have all been aware of the consequences for years, now there must finally be solutions. We want to discuss these together on March 14, 2024 at Equal Care Day Northwest 2024 with care workers, experts and decision-makers from politics and business and all interested, thus all who are dependent on care work as."

Equal Care Day Northwest 2024

Equal Care Day Northwest 2024 explores the question of "care work in the course of life" with a particular focus on care work in the various regions in the northwest - from Friesland to Wilhelmshaven to Bremen, in the cities and municipalities. This raises questions about possible solutions in the health and care system in the northwest region: What gaps in care and moral injuries arise in the face of reparative social policies and a view of the caring profession that socially marginalizes women and exposes them to ridicule. What does a model of preventative social policy that focuses on a new normality of gainful employment and care in the life course look like? Who are the people who work day and night in Germany's health and care system to ensure that we are well looked after, can recover or die with dignity? How can everyday life in care or the routines of care workers in the private sphere be made visible with the help of the carers? What operational and political options for action are there to change the working conditions in elderly care in a concrete and sustainable way? What are the needs of young carers and their families and what gaps are there in the support services in the regions? The network, which was founded specifically for this purpose, invites all interested to discuss, learn and experience together.

Program of the ECD Northwest 2024

(from 12:00 p.m.) Greetings

Ann-Kathrin Cramer (District of Friesland)

Prof. Dr.-Ing. Holger Saß (Jade University of Applied Sciences)

Birgit Ahn (Metropolitan Region Northwest)

(from 12:15 p.m.) Can it happen to anyone? Care and nursing from a gender perspective

Reading by Monja Schünemann (medical historian and specialist nurse) from her book " Der Pflege-Tsunami. Wie Deutschland seine Alten und Kranken im Stich lässt."

(from 13:05) Das Optionszeitenmodell. Time for care, time for equality.

Keynote speech and discussion by Dr. Karin Jurczyk (Deputy Chairwoman of the German Society for Time Policy) and Prof. Ulrich Mückenberger (University of Bremen)

Parallel workshops from 14:15 (participation only possible on site)

o Concrete and sustainable improvement of working conditions in geriatric care - ideas for a relief and skilled worker offensive in the care sector

Workshop with keynote speech and discussion by Greta-Marleen Storath (Bremen Chamber of Employees)

o "That doesn't even exist!" Your improvised care story.

Workshop with methods of improvisational theater by Lena Breuer (actress, moderator and trainer from Cologne)

o Who cares? Who cares that we care?

Workshop with film screening and discussion by Ann-Kathrin Cramer (District of Friesland)

o Giving care. Getting help: Young carers

Workshop with researcher and committed people in dialog by Andrea Schäfer (University of Bremen) with Prof. Dr. Claudia Stoll (Bremen University of Applied Sciences)

The 'Equal Care Day Northwest 2024' network

The 'Equal Care Day Northwest 2024' network is a cooperation between Jade University of Applied Sciences, the University of Bremen, the district of Friesland and the city of Wilhelmshaven. Also involved in the network are the Bremen Chamber of Employees, the Friesland education region, the equal opportunities officers of the municipalities of Friesland, Zetel, Wangerland and Sande, the Agenda Varel association, the city of Jever and other committed individuals. The organizers are Andrea Schäfer (University of Bremen), Nicole Biela (City of Wilhelmshaven), Ann-Kathrin Cramer (District of Friesland) and Mareike Sprock (Jade University of Applied Sciences). Andrea Schäfer is organizing the ECD in Bremen for the fourth time.

Further information:

The Equal Care Day Northwest 2024 will take place on Thursday, March 14, 2024, from 12 to 4 p.m. at the Jade University of Applied Sciences in Wilhelmshaven. The event is open to the public, partly digital (12 to 2 p.m.) and free of charge. (event in German without translation)

You can register here.

Here you can find the flyer of the event! (only in German)

For further questions, please contact:

Andrea Schäfer
CRC 1342 "Global Dynamics of Social Policy"
University of Bremen
email: andrea.schaefer@uni-bremen.de
phone: + 49 421 218-57095

Nicole Biela (Equal Opportunities Officer)
Stadt Wilhelmshaven
Rathausplatz 1
26382 Wilhelmshaven
email: Nicole.Biela@wilhelmshaven.de
phone: +49 4421 162302

Ann-Kathrin Cramer (Equal Opportunities Officer)
Landkreis Friesland
Lindenallee 1
26441 Jever
email: a.cramer@friesland.de
phone: +49 4461 919-6161

Funded by METROPOLREGION NORDWEST