Double career couple

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

As a dual-career couple , English dual-career couple (DCC) , is in sociology , in the family policy and human resources referred to a couple in which both partners an academic in general education and a long-term career - and career orientation and a high degree of Have 'professional commitment'. One then speaks of a couple's employment biography .

In the case of dual earner couples or working couples such as the Zuverdienerehe , at least one partner lacks career orientation. Double career couples are also to be distinguished from the so-called DINKS who have no children and are gainfully employed, but are not necessarily above-average qualified and career-oriented.

overview

Universities in particular must actively deal with this issue, especially when appointing scientists from abroad. In addition to general work-life balance support and financial support, the focus is on strategies for the active recruitment of couples, options for allocating positions and job placement for partners. In Anglo-Saxon countries, university offers for scientifically active partners are an important aspect of ensuring excellence. In Europe, individual universities (such as the ETH Zurich ) have started to offer help with the partner's job search.

People with a university degree often live with an equally well-trained partner. According to studies, dual career couples make up the majority of the next generation of highly qualified managers . For couples with two careers, the framework conditions for the organization of spatial coexistence and the compatibility of family and work are of decisive importance. In the case of high-income couples, there are comparatively few problems with financing childcare; rather, aspects of placement, availability, quality, reliability and flexibility of support come to the fore here. If both parents have responsible professional positions, it is crucial that the schedules of the parents and the caregivers can always be coordinated with one another in such a way that the care of the children is ensured even during business trips or unexpected events. Sometimes, after starting a family, there is a retraditionalization towards the single-earner or additional-earner model , sometimes the partners opt for a double-provider model in which both partners work and are also involved in household and family, if necessary with the assistance of household help and external child day care .

When presenting the results of a research project at the University of St. Gallen on dual career couples, the following is emphasized: “ Employers are also asked to establish a culture of openly dealing with questions of partnership and parenting . In addition to specific support measures, this includes above all the recognition of the fact that workers are not available indefinitely even if they want to pursue a career. "

Sociological Findings

According to family-sociological research, dual career couples show a more or less strong delimitation of professional and family life. The coordination of the two careers and the necessary adjustment work are mainly carried out by women. In the case of management employees who work in the same company, there is often a competitive situation among the partners, far more often than with other couples, especially more often than with freelancers .

In a study published in May 2008 by the EAF on behalf of the Bertelsmann Stiftung and the BMFSFJ among couples in Germany with children in whom both partners held or aspired to a specialist or managerial position, the vast majority of respondents said that companies benefit from flexibility Should support working hours and place of work and should provide explicit support offers for fathers. While three quarters of the respondents stated that they would like the partners to have an equal distribution of roles, one fifth of the couples examined shared the organization of household and family work equally among themselves; this group rated itself more satisfied on average. A temporary job abroad was given several times as a motivation or role model for designing one's own model. 

According to the results of a study by the Institute for Economic and Social Sciences (WSI) of the Hans Böckler Foundation , the majority of Germans are in favor of the two-earner model and many parents would like to split up paid work and family work as partners. According to the proposals made in the context of these results, a modern working time concept is required in which the male model of normal working time is replaced by “a menu of full- time standards of different lengths” for certain phases of life. For example, the volume of working hours of a “full-time job” would be defined differently depending on age or whether people look after children or not. In addition, it should be considered to support an egalitarian working time distribution with financial incentives.

Networks on the topic

In Germany there is the Dual Career Network Germany (DCND), in which around 20 dual career services from universities and some local networks across Germany joined forces in June 2010.

At the international level there is the IDCN, a global non-profit association of companies, NGOs and scientific institutions at various locations, which was founded in 2011 in the Lake Geneva region and has around 60 members.

Scientific studies and projects

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. Susanne Dettmner: Professional and private life in couple relationships , dissertation to obtain the academic degree of Doctor of Philosophy (Dr. phil.), Berlin, 2006, Chapter 4: Couple relationships and mutual influences between partner lives (PDF) .
  2. Michael Meuser : Double career couples. (No longer available online.) In: "important Questions" (iQ). 2006, archived from the original on May 1, 2007 ; Retrieved January 23, 2010 . 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.forschungsinfo.de
  3. Nikola Haaks: Family in the luggage. In: The time. November 2003, accessed January 23, 2010 .
  4. a b c Michel E. Domsch and Désirée H. Ladwig: Double career couples - a challenge for company family policy , in: Alexander Dilger u. a. (Ed.): Company family policy potentials and instruments from a multidisciplinary perspective, VS Verlag für Sozialwissenschaften, ISBN 978-3-531-15396-4 and ISBN 978-3-531-90644-7 , 2007, pp. 75–85. In it: 1. Introduction (p. 75). Retrieved January 23, 2010 .
  5. Ulle Jäger: Results from the research project on dual career couples. (No longer available online.) University of St Gallen, archived from the original on April 2, 2017 ; Retrieved April 1, 2017 . 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 / genderstudies.unibas.ch
  6. a b Double career couples. Normalization achievements and gender constructions under the conditions of a mutual delimitation of work and family. Retrieved January 23, 2010 .
  7. ^ LA Gilbert: Men in Dual-Career Families: Current Realities and Future Prospects , Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, 1985. LA Gilbert: Two Careers -One Family. The Promise of Gender Equality , Sage Publications, 1993. LR Silberstein: Dual-Career Marriage: A System in Transition , L. Erlbaum Associates, 1992. These three are quoted from: Susanne Dettmer: Professional and private life design in couple relationships. On the tension between individual and common goals (dissertation to obtain the academic degree of Doctor of Philosophy (Dr. phil.)). Department of Education and Psychology / Freie Universität Berlin, January 27, 2006, accessed on January 23, 2010 . P. 78
  8. C. Behnke, M. Meuser: "When two want the same thing". Competition and cooperation among dual career couples. (PDF; 44 kB) (No longer available online.) In: Lecture AIM-Gender, 4th conference. Stuttgart Hohenheim. February 2006, archived from the original on December 29, 2006 ; Retrieved January 23, 2010 . 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.ruendal.de
  9. Kathrin Walther / Helga Lukoschat : Children and careers: The new couples. A study by the EAF on behalf of the Bertelsmann Foundation. Brief summary of the study. (PDF; 76 kB) (No longer available online.) May 2008, archived from the original on August 19, 2014 ; Retrieved May 31, 2008 . 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. See also A study by the EAF on dual career couples with children ( memento of the original from June 20, 2008 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.eaf-berlin.de @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.eaf-berlin.de
  10. ↑ The wish of many parents: distribute working hours more evenly. In: Böckler Impulse 04/2008. Hans Böckler Foundation, accessed on July 30, 2008 .
  11. Homepage of the DCND
  12. Homepage of the IDCN
  13. Project Praxishandbuch Dual Career ( Memento of the original dated December 29, 2014 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. , FaFo ( PDF ( Memento of the original from November 7, 2013 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link has been inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this note .; 3.8 MB)  @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.statistik.baden-wuerttemberg.de @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.fafo-bw.de