Discrimination against the unemployed

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As discrimination unemployed a form that is discrimination considered that "people by their supposed economic utility" terracing.

Discourses about the unemployed

Sometimes discriminatory discourses about the unemployed are often grouped around catchphrases or statements that condense a derogatory attribution. A distinction can be made between the latent devaluation of (long-term) unemployed people, "debates" that are initiated primarily in pre-election times at the expense of the unemployed (but also other social groups), and political controversial terms or non-words that convey a devaluation.

Research on the social assessment of the long-term unemployed

The research project group-related enmity first examined the phenomenon of “long-term unemployment devaluation” in 2007 . The statement that most of the unemployed are hardly interested in finding a job were supported by 49.3% of those questioned. 60.8% said it was outrageous when the long-term unemployed could make a comfortable life at the expense of society. According to the study, the devaluation also increased in 2008.

Wilhelm Heitmeyer sees the causes of the increase in long-term unemployment devaluation in an “economization of the social” , which - according to his understanding - goes hand in hand with the transition from “market economy to market society” , whereby people are increasingly viewed under the criterion of their economic “usefulness”. This consideration of people under the criterion would above all lead to a devaluation of the long-term unemployed.

In an article in the newspaper Die Zeit , in which Wilhelm Heitmeyer presents the current state of research on group- related enmity every year , he comments on the responsibilities of the "long-term unemployment devaluation" as follows:

"If you look at the devaluation of the long-term unemployed, you also have to discuss the connection between the images of Hartz IV recipients and long-term unemployed people repeatedly reproduced by social elites through the media and the attitudes of the various population groups. As reported, this results in patterns of devaluation that also affect those groups of people who are considered 'useless' or 'superfluous' in the sense of cold calculations. "

Another result of the study is that an increased depreciation of the unemployed correlates with a lower level of education.

The reason for the investigation was the increase in devaluations found in the media, for example the designation of beer cans as "Hartz IV stilts" , with which the ZDF entertainer Thomas Gottschalk came into public criticism.

The 155-page project “ YUSEDER ” (“Youth Unemployment and Social Exclusion: Dimensions, Subjective Experiences and Institutional Responses in Six Countries of the EU”), commissioned by the European Union, examines the reasons for the social exclusion of young people Long-term unemployed in six EU countries (Sweden, Belgium, Germany, Greece, Italy, Spain), the significance of long-term unemployment for the young people affected and the possibilities for their inclusion.

"Debates of Laziness"

According to Frank Oschmiansky, Silke Kull and Günther Schmidt from the Berlin Social Science Center, the so-called “laziness debate” is part of a discourse that regularly accompanies an election campaign in times of an economic crisis and devalues ​​the unemployed . It started with the onset of mass unemployment in the mid-1970s. In the course of the 1970s, the unemployed were referred to in various media, but also by politically responsible people as "slackers", "idlers" and "long-term vacationers" and accused them of "work reluctance" and "abuse of performance". A second "laziness debate" followed, which was led by all parties represented in parliament at the beginning of the 1980s. The third of these debates was initiated by Chancellor Helmut Kohl with his criticism of the “collective leisure park” Germany; the fourth by Chancellor Gerhard Schröder , who said that “there is no right to be lazy”. Oschmiansky, Kull and Schmidt see in their study insulting the victims (" Blaming the Victims "):

“Looking back, however, it should also have become clear that the 'laziness and slacker debates' not only have to do with the possible or supposed misconduct of the unemployed, but also to a large extent follow political calculations. The conspicuous coincidence of the debates with the 'bad image of the unemployed in public opinion', with the upcoming elections and an unsatisfied development of unemployment give rise to the suspicion that the unemployed are being used as scapegoats for a partly failed or too hesitant labor market and employment policy have to."

Also the paper “Priority for the decent. Against abuse, “rip-off” and self-service in the welfare state ”, which was published under the responsibility of the then Federal Economics and Labor Minister Wolfgang Clement , which brings the unemployed close to parasitic organisms, is called“ discrimination against the unemployed ”by the Berlin anti-discrimination office.

In the run-up to a state election in North Rhine-Westphalia , Vice Chancellor Guido Westerwelle initiated a public debate on Hartz IV and “effortless prosperity” in early 2010 .

Discriminatory terms

The designation of the long-term unemployed as welfare nobility , which goes back to Rolf-Peter Löhr, the former deputy head of the German Institute for Urban Studies , also caused criticism . They were accused of laziness, passivity and poor life planning by Löhr . He describes the "social welfare nobility" as follows:

“In the problem areas you can feel what kind of culture of dependence the welfare state has created. Some people there are already living in the third generation on social welfare - there is social welfare nobility - they no longer know what it is like: getting up in the morning, shaving, dressing properly and going to work . "

The Bielefeld pedagogue Fabian Kessl comments critically that the “social welfare nobility” is a construct: he sees the use of this term as a risk of devaluing poor people, i. H. there is no social welfare nobility.

Treatment by authorities

There is criticism of the institutions of the municipal employment agency and the Federal Employment Agency , which described their practice as discriminatory.

Employees of an employment office used the catchphrase “persecution care” to oppose the widely documented and sometimes legally required practice of not only finding work for the unemployed, but also having to persecute them into their private lives.

With his dystopian novel School of the Unemployed, Joachim Zelter also criticizes the practice prescribed by the Federal Employment Agency as discriminatory. The treatment of the unemployed by the employment offices is inhumane.

Recruitment practice of companies

Depending on the length of their unemployment, unemployed people generally receive fewer invitations to job interviews .

In some countries this tendency is more pronounced. A study came to the conclusion that in Switzerland an unemployed person who has been unemployed for two and a half years is 45 percentage points less likely to be invited to a job interview than an employee. This study also states that the likelihood of an interview with long-term unemployed people who have been out of work for over 30 months is so low that it hardly makes any sense to apply. In the United States, however, this form of discrimination is not found.

See also

Further information on keywords that work with discriminatory attributions against (long-term) unemployed can be found in the articles

literature

Investigations

Novels

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Heitmeyer: Morally downwards into the upswing. Usefulness and efficiency - this thinking is widespread and threatens the cohesion of society. A research report , in: Die Zeit No. 51 of December 13, 2007
  2. ↑ Wilhelm Heitmeyer / Kirsten Edrikat: The economization of the social. Consequences for “superfluous” and “useless” , in: Wilhelm Heitmeyer (Ed.) 2008: German states, volume 6, p. 55ff.
  3. ^ Wilhelm Heitmeyer: Morally downward in the upswing. Usefulness and efficiency - this thinking is widespread and threatens the cohesion of society. A research report , in: Die Zeit No. 51 from December 13, 2007 Archive link
  4. ↑ Bruno Schrep: The new mockery: "Beer cans are Hartz-IV-Stelzen" , in: Wilhelm Heitmeyer (Ed.) 2008: German states, Volume 6, p. 218ff.
  5. ↑ Archive link ( Memento of the original from June 25, 2007 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.ipg.uni-bremen.de
  6. ↑ Doris Marszk: Debate about “lazy unemployed” always before the election and in the doldrums. ( Memento of the original from April 29, 2010 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. Image of science . @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.wissenschaft.de
  7. ^ Klaus Neumann: Unemployment in the Federal Republic. Public handling of a permanent problem. Tectum Verlag, Marburg 2013. ISBN 9783828831865 , pp. 123-130
  8. ↑ Frank Oschmiansky, Silke Kull, Günther Schmid: Lazy unemployed? Political conjunctions of a debate August 2001, p. 8 ( PDF )
  9. ↑ From the paper: “Biologists consistently use the term“ parasites ”for“ organisms that live temporarily or permanently to satisfy their nutritional conditions at the expense of other living beings - their hosts ”. Of course it is completely inadmissible to transfer concepts from the animal kingdom to humans. " ; quoted from www.stern.de
  10. ↑ Anti-Disimination Bureau Berlin eV: Discrimination against the unemployed by the Federal Ministry , January 19, 2006 Archive link ( Memento of the original from October 20, 2007 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.adb-berlin.org
  11. ^ Rudolf Stumberger : The eternal »Florida-Rolf«. Campaigns against allegedly lazy unemployed people have a long tradition. Politics and media complement each other perfectly. New Germany , February 25, 2010.
  12. ↑ Difu-Intern 4/2006:
  13. ↑ Quoted from: Fabian Kessl: Social Space as a Case?  ( Page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Toter Link / www.uni-bielefeld.de   In: Werner Thole / Michael Galuske (eds.): From case to management. Wiesbaden 2006 (pdf).
  14. ↑ See also Fabian Kessl: Sozialraum. An introduction. Wiesbaden, VS Verlag 2007. ISBN 3531149466
  15. ↑ Joachim Zelter: Interview in the program booklet of the Theater Krefeld Mönchengladbach on the stage version of the "School of the Unemployed" , February 2008 [1]
  16. ^ Felix Oberholzer-Gee: Do Firms Discriminate Against the Unemployed? A Field Experiment , University of Pennsylvania, January 2001 [2]