Zahlt sich systemrelevante Arbeit aus?: Eine empirische Untersuchung des materiellen und symbolischen Wertes von Berufen in Deutschland

Stache Katrin, Ebner Christian, Rohrbach-Schmidt Daniela () and Holzhauser Nicole
Additional contact information
Stache Katrin: Technische Universität Braunschweig, Institut für Soziologie, Bienroder Weg 97, 38106 Braunschweig, Deutschland
Ebner Christian: Technische Universität Braunschweig, Institut für Soziologie, Bienroder Weg 97, 38106 Braunschweig, Deutschland
Rohrbach-Schmidt Daniela: Bundesinstitut für Berufsbildung (BIBB), Arbeitsbereich 1.5, Forschungsdatenzentrum, Postfach 201264, 53142 Bonn, Deutschland
Holzhauser Nicole: Technische Universität Braunschweig, Institut für Soziologie, Bienroder Weg 97, 38106 Braunschweig, Deutschland

Arbeit, 2024, vol. 33, issue 4, 163-186

Abstract: The coronavirus pandemic has given rise to a new discourse on the recognition of occupational activities that ensure basic social services. The aim of this study is to examine occupations in Germany more closely in terms of their monetary value (remuneration) and their symbolic appreciation (prestige) as central dimensions of social inequality. The first step is to compare the average income and prestige of the so-called system-relevant occupations with the other occupations. As both groups include a variety of activities with different complexity and qualification requirements, a more detailed analysis is then carried out, taking into account the requirement level of the occupations. The empirical findings based on broad survey data indicate that, on average, systemically relevant occupations are not paid significantly higher than non-systemically relevant occupations, but attain a higher social prestige. Systemically relevant unskilled and semi-skilled jobs in particular, as well as specialist jobs, are associated with special symbolic recognition. These results complement previous considerations on the emergence of occupational prestige and raise further questions on the (re)evaluation of socially necessary work.

Keywords: Systemically relevant occupations; reputation; occupational prestige; remuneration; Systemrelevante Berufe; Ansehen; Prestige; Berufsprestige; Entlohnung; Systemically relevant occupations; reputation; occupational prestige; remuneration (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2024
References: View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://doi.org/10.1515/arbeit-2024-0013 (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:bpj:arbeit:v:33:y:2024:i:4:p:163-186:n:1003

DOI: 10.1515/arbeit-2024-0013

Access Statistics for this article

Arbeit is currently edited by Gerhard Bosch, Katrin Hansen and Arne Heise

More articles in Arbeit from De Gruyter
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Peter Golla ().