There is a large wage gap between women and men. The search for explanations and solutions must start exactly where wages are decided: in the enterprises. In Germany, operational measures to promote equal opportunities of women and men and formalised Human Resources processes shall help reduce this gap and ensure fair wages. Can this work?

On the 1st January 2015, a nationwide statutory minimum wage of €8.50 was introduced in Germany. On 1st January 2017 it was then increased to €8.84. Prior to and during its introduction the economic policy debate focused mainly on the development of wages and the minimum wage’s possible effect on the level of employment. Besides read full article

Policy advice is an integral part of policy-making in contemporary democracies and a central task of the IAB. But what makes “good” policy advice? Even if the quality of individual advisory services cannot be measured, quality criteria can be identified and quality assurance methods can be outlined.

As a consequence of the Great Recession, starting in most European countries in 2009, the number of unemployed young people increased significantly. Using 2008 as the reference point, where most European countries were performing quite well economically, the total number of unemployed young people aged 15 to 24 years was 4.2 million according to Eurostat. read full article

Like collective bargaining coverage, codetermination is becoming less and less significant in German companies. Only a minority of employees, especially in East Germany, work in companies with a works council.

Wages and working conditions are negotiated between employers and employees. Collective agreements provide both parties with an institutional framework to that end. But in the last few years, companies have seen a downward trend in binding collective agreements, and thus also in the importance of such agreements for the employees. In East Germany in particular, read full article

Germany does not stand alone in having experienced changes in the landscape of work. However, these changes differ in comparison to other countries – both in relation to the relative importance of different forms of employment, and in terms of their development over time.

A few refugees get a job soon after they arrived in Germany. However, for most of them labour market integration is still a long way off. Bevor getting a job, many refugees have to learn German and engage in retraining or vocational education and training. As far as labour market integration of refugees is concerned, read full article

Based on a large-scale empirical study with 30,000 participants, the IAB explored the dissemination of bogus self-employment in Germany. In particular, the study analyses which labour market groups are over average affected by bogus self-employment as an illegal form of employment. The study employs alternative legal definitions of employment to test the sensitivity of the read full article