General information
The Wissenschaftszentrum Berlin für Sozialforschung (Social Science Research Center, Berlin) was founded in 1969 and reconstituted under its current title in 1984. It is jointly funded by the Federal Republic of Germany and by the Land Berlin. The institution is structured into four research areas which are composed of a total of eight research units and seven working groups, with around 140 social scientists. The participation of the WZB in the EQUALSOC-Network is implemented on behalf of the research unit “Inequality and Social Integration”.
Research program
The research unit “Inequality and Social Integration” focuses on the empirical investigation of social change on the basis of official data and self-conducted surveys. The central question is to what extent old and new forms of social inequality structure objective life chances and subjective perceptions of well-being and of the quality of European societies. A key descriptive task is to measure the quality of life in a comparative perspective with the help of objective and subjective indicators.
Our research program is being developed along two basic lines of investigation: On the one hand, German social reporting based on surveys has always been a central task of the unit. Since 1978 seven welfare surveys have been conducted which became integral parts of the data reports which the unit produced in cooperation with the Federal Statistical Office. This cooperation with German official statistics will be continued. On the other hand, the unit is involved in several research initiatives to build up a comparative system of European social reporting. In this respect we also want to do secondary analyses of available data sets- possibly in the form of meta-analyses- which systematically take stock of empirical findings in the light of theoretical sociological problems. The guiding descriptive question of our comparative social reporting on Europe is to what extent a European social model with common features – e.g. as compared to the U.S. – can be empirically traced despite all national differences and to what extent there are processes of convergence and of supra-national integration after the enlargement of the EU.
The unit’s comparative research work is based on two stocks of data. Under the direction of Wolfgang Zapf the so-called EuroModule-project was initiated which introduced common question modules into national surveys of nine countries in order to facilitate comparative analyses of quality of life. Under the direction of Jens Alber the unit is now leading a European research consortium which in collaboration with the European Foundation for the Improvement of Living and Working Conditions in Dublin develops a concept of analytical social reporting, based on surveys in 28 European countries. A central task is here to combine the information from surveys with information from official statistics as well as with qualitative data on national institutional contexts.
Under the over-arching question of how old (vertical) and new (horizontal) forms of inequality structure the quality of life in European welfare states, we are currently engaged in research on four topics:
Extent and development of gender inequality in Europe: Here, the key research question is to what extent gender gaps in various dimensions of life are vanishing in countries with different institutional structures and how the development of gendered inequalities compares to the development of other forms of inequality.
Political integration of the lower classes: The question here is in how far processes of Europeanization and globalisation favour a populist backlash on the part of the voting population. A special focus will be on the development of electoral participation and on the question whether increasing abstention from voting indicates political alienation or apathetic satisfaction with the political system.
Welfare state and voluntary engagement in civil society: The guiding question for this field of research is in what measure the expansion or contraction of welfare state schemes affects voluntary engagement in civil society and how changes in the welfare mix affect the social distribution of services.
Structuring of life chances in European welfare states: This topic focuses on the extent to which new forms of inequality such as generation cleavages structure life chances and political attitudes in different European countries.
International networks and collaboration
As a major publicly funded research institution, the WZB is part of the Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz Wissenschaftsgemeinschaft (WGL) and a member of the Association of Social Science Research Institutes (ASI), of the European Consortium for Political Research (ECPR) and of the Inter-university Center (IUC) in Dubrovnik, among other organizations.
The WZB has developed an intense cooperation with research institutes throughout the world, above all the United States, Great Britain, France, the Netherlands, the Scandinavian countries, and Japan. Several networks have been set up to facilitate cooperation on projects with scientists in eastern European countries. Contact with Italian, Spanish, and Greek social scientists has been strengthened, as have been research relations with Israel. A formal cooperation with the Institute for Philosophy and Sociology (IFIS) of the Polish Academy of Science in Warsaw has been established in 1996.
The research unit “Inequality and Social Integration” collaborates with the European Foundation for the Improvement of Working and Living Conditions in Dublin as well as with the members of a European research consortium which the units coordinates. The consortium consists of the following members: the Economic and Social Research Institute (ESRI), the Institute of Philosophy and Sociology at the Polish Academy of Sciences, the Department of Social Sciences at the University of Turin and additional experts, namely Prof. Martin Potucek, University in Prague, Prof. Yusuf Özcan, University of Ankara, and Prof. Niko Tos from the Public Opinion and Mass Communication Research Center in Ljubljana, Slovenia. The unit also takes part in the “Multidisciplinary and Comparative Program in inequality and Social Policy” of the John F. Kennedy School of Government at the Harvard University.