Active labour market programmes for women with a partner: Challenge or replication of traditional gender roles

A major unemployment and welfare benefit reform took place in Germany in 2005. One objective of this reform was to more strongly encourage an adult worker model of the family, with an emphasis on activating the formerly inactive. Our hypothesis is, however, that assignments to activation programmes, such as training or workfare, will in practice still tend to replicate patterns for the division of labour in the household that couples have become accustomed to. The views of case workers in employment offices and those of benefit recipients themselves about the division of labour in the household may influence the allocation process to labour market programmes. We classify couples based on each partner's cumulative income across the ten years prior to benefit receipt. We compare women's programme entries between former male breadwinner households, dual earner households, no-earner households, and female breadwinner households. We analyse large-scale administrative data, applying eventhistory analysis. Our findings are that in western Germany, assignments to activation programmes do indeed replicate couples' prior division of labour in the household. In eastern Germany, by contrast, women in former male breadwinner households are actually allocated to several programmes at higher rates than women in households without a clear former division of labour.