German unification brought fundamental, often traumatic changes for the people in eastern Germany. Women as a group were arguably more deeply affected by the changes than any other, and in one area in particular: that of work, which had far-reaching effects on them and their families' economic situation. Rachel Alsop critically examines the processes behind women's changing relationship to the labor market in eastern Germany following the collapse of state socialism and the transition to a market economy. By the 1980s women made up virtually half of the East German work force. The collapse of the GDR transformed the field of work, drastically diminishing the general demand for labor. Yet while economic and political restructuring reduced the volume of both male and female employment, it was women who bore the brunt of unemployment. In the immediate transitional period a re-masculinization of the workforce was evident, with women constituting the large part of the unemployed. Using an extensive range of both quantitative and qualitative data, the author explores the gender dynamics of the social, economic, and political restructuring of eastern Germany, thereby producing an important new context in which to examine contemporary debates on gender and work.

This work considers the problems of the socialist legacy left by the unification of Germany, as East Germans adjusted to uncertainties in employment, education, family life and immigration.

Recoge: Introduction.- Consecuences and prospects for East Germany: On the road to unification. The economic approach to unification: three simultaneous shocks and no transition period. Economic consequences to date for East Germany. The need to stablish a favourable economic-policy framework.- Changed pattern of the German economy: Introduction. Demmand and supply dynamics after unification. Impact on economic policy. The issue of redistribution.- The united Germany in Europe: economic aspects: Introduction. Short and medium-term effects on the Community economy. Aspects of European economic integration. Lessons for europe. - Refferences.- Tables.

A historically unique experiment is about to enter its second decade - German unification. Early hopes for a rapid and smooth economic transformation soon turned out to be overly optimistic. Despite massive financial transfers, the political promise of a "blooming landscape" remains a vision. Actual developments have left deep scars on the labor market, and the effects will be felt for decades to come. Was this outcome to be expected, perhaps even inevitable? What went wrong, and what were the available options? Or is the current state of Eastern German labor market in fact better than is commonly assumed?

The transformation of east Germany since unification has wrought vast changes in the economy and in society and left deep scars as the types of social protection offered by the centralised socialism of the previous regime gave way to uncertainties and individualised life chances. Social Transformation in Eastern Germany investigates the deep economic and social processes which east Germany has undergone, highlighting the restructuring, the social impacts and the stresses of adjustment experienced by key social groups whose workplace and social context has been recast almost out of recognition since 1990.

Since the unification of the DDR and the GDR, women living in the former East Germany have lost many of the advantages that came with a planned economy. This collection of essays examines the reinvented meaning of gender and the experience of East German women since unification.

The first book in the Studies in Economic Transition series applies the theory of economic development to the economy of East Germany. Eight years after the unification of Germany, the book provides a comprehensive and much needed assessment of the transition process in the East, its impact on the German economy as a whole and the important broader lessons for European integration and enlargement. The unique economic experiment of the unification of the German economies provided an excellent opportunity for different schools of economic theory to be tested and examined. The contributors to this book take full advantage of this challenge.

Although women made up almost half of the workforce in the GDR it was women who bore the brunt of unemployment during the period of economic crisis that followed the collapse of state socialism. It is the objective of this thesis to study in further detail continuity and change in women's relationship to the labour market during the two periods of economic and political restructuring in east German history - the transition to state socialism after the Second World War and the transition to a liberal democratic, market-economic system after the Wende ( ' Turning Point') in 1989. This study of female employment in eastern Germany makes a theoretical contribution not only to the analysis of gender and the labour market, but also to wider debates within contemporary feminist thought as well as to the study of post-communist societies. This thesis looks in particular at the conditions under which east German women entered and left the labour market during the two periods of restructuring, questioning especially the applicability of the reserve army of labour thesis to female employment. This study also challenges the current shift in feminist thought from the analysis of 'between- gender' to the study of 'in-gender' differences, and from structural to cultural analyses of gender. In addition, this thesis, by focusing on the particular experiences of female labour in eastern Germany, begins to break down our perception of post-communist states as an undifferentiated mass and starts to explore the plurality and heterogeneity of post-communism.