1 WHAT DOES THE WORKING POPULATION LOOK LIKE TODAY? QUICK FACTS „ The world of paid employment in Germany is very diverse. The manufacturing sector is no longer domi­nant. Activities of an administrative or interpersonal nature are very common. „ The new working class in Germany encompasses not only production workers, but also service sector work­ers. To some extent, however, office workers and small business owners(small traders) and the self-employed may also be included. What they have in common is a rather low income and the attendant financial worries, not to mention difficult working conditions. „ Gender differences are also reflected in occupational classes. While occupations of a technical nature remain clearly male dominated, women are in the majority among occupations that require»sociocultural exper­tise«, as well as office clerks and service workers. These are also the domains in which far more people work part-time or in mini-jobs. „ Income and wealth are unequally distributed be­tween the occupational classes of the formally highly educated middle class and the new working class. Small business owners, the self-employed, production work­ers, office workers and above all service workers earn lower incomes. This is also evident in their housing ar­rangements, especially among service workers, 62 per cent of whom rent, which is well above average. Work plays a central role in our lives. Nevertheless, the term is as difficult to define as it is controversial. Barbara Prainsack gets to the point in her book What We Work For:»Work is a bit like love in the sense that everyone knows what it is, but almost no one can easily define it« (Prainsack 2023: 26). But are all activities»work«? Or is »proper« work characterised by effort or stress or perhaps by external control? What about unpaid work, such as looking after children, housework or caring for relatives, so-called reproductive work? Undoubtedly unpaid care work counts as»work«, even when it is performed out of sight, in private and there is no written contract. Its effects on prosperity are enormous because it forms the basis for the very possibility of value creation. Having said that, there are considerable gender differences, which also affect people’s options with regard to pursuing traditional paid employment. In the present report, however, we only mar­ginally consider unpaid care work because our basic thesis concerns the extent to which occupational activity affects political attitudes and perceptions of society. The term paid employment is often used in relation to so-called productive work. Earnings from work as a contri­bution to one’s livelihood are the key issue here. But it is also assumed that paid employment is»an important part of personal self-development and a key element of every­day life«, determining one’s»position in society«(Destatis 2024a). According to the Federal Statistical Office the number of persons in paid employment has increased con­tinuously in recent years, standing at around 46 million in 2023. The gainfully employed in Germany are composed of just under 4 million self-employed and 42 million employ­ees. Services are the biggest economic sector with 34.5 mil­lion employees, followed by manufacturing industry with 11 million. Around half a million people are employed in agriculture, forestry and fisheries(Destatis 2024b). The employment rate(Destatis 2024c) is 76.9 per cent. In other words, in Germany three out of four people of working age are in paid employment. Virtually all approaches to class theory attribute an im­portant role to occupation and occupational status(see Wright 2023: 12ff). People’s attitudes are often directly or indirectly related to occupational status. And if one as­sumes that occupational class is decisive with regard to people’s attitudes then that should continue to apply in re­tirement. For most of the questions we therefore looked at the group of gainfully employed and formerly gainfully employed people, broken down by occupational class. Our quantitative survey reached a total of 5,061 German-speak­ing persons over 18 years of age living in Germany. Just over 3,000 people were currently in employment and just under 1,300 people were former employees, in other words, retired. The service sector represents the largest group among current and former employees: 21 per cent in services involving qualified or highly qualified workers and 16 per cent involving only routine work. A similarly large group were in administrative work. Another 10 per cent each characterised their activities as managerial, tech­nical or manual work, respectively. Only 8 per cent are or were in manufacturing. 8 WORKING CLASS IN THE MIDDLE?  NOVEMBER  2024  FES diskurs