Study shows growing social divide in Germany

[Hannah Bell]

Twenty years after reunification, Germany is more deeply divided than ever. However, the basic division no longer runs between East and West but between rich and poor....This emerges from a study published by the German Institute for Economic Research (DIW) last week. It is based on the first and only long-term survey of more than 20,000 people in Germany.

The DIW study notes that average incomes in east Germany still lag far behind those of the west. Following reunification, east German household incomes and wages grew at first compared to those in the west. Whereas the income gap in 1992 still averaged 40 percent, in 1997 it was only 28 percent. This figure stagnated till 2002, and then rose from 26 percent (2002) to 30 percent (2007).

But a closer examination of the development of the individual income groups gives a more nuanced picture. The differences are greater, the higher you rise in the income table. While top earners continue to be under-represented in the east, lowering the average income at the upper end of the scale, the lowest incomes are largely the same. The reason for this is the emergence of a huge low-wage sector in the west.

http://www.wsws.org/articles/2010/nov2010/ineq-n15.shtml