Project „Sorgetransformationen"

In the joint project "Care Transformations. Forschungsverbund interdisziplinäre Carearbeitsforschung" researchers from the fields of sociology, economics, business administration, social work and law are working together to research the upheavals in paid and unpaid care work and their institutional, cultural, economic and technological contexts. The research network consists of members from the University of Hamburg (UHH), the Hamburg University of Applied Sciences (HAW), and Helmut Schmidt University / University of the Federal Armed Forces in Hamburg (HSU) and is funded by the Landesforschungsförderung Hamburg for three years. Prof. Petra Böhnke has taken on the sub-project "Intergenerational solidarity and care in transition: effects of precarious living situations" in this joint project:

Cluster III: (Dis-) Solidarization

Cluster Spokesperson: Prof. Dr. Petra Böhnke
PhD Student: Miriam Laschinski
Student Assistant: Janina Both

The focus area "(De-)Solidarizations" analyzes how principles and standards of care provision are changing and which transformations can be observed in the relationship between the actors and value standards essential for this. For the most part, care services are not paid for directly by those individuals and groups who benefit from them - this applies to family care work as well as to service work performed in the form of gainful employment, which is usually financed through social insurance and tax revenues. However, in intergenerational relationships, for example, implicit and often long-term reciprocity relationships are entered into, which can be linked to normative ideas of obligation - both at the level of close social relationships and at the level of society as a whole in the so-called intergenerational contract. Families, households and welfare state service providers are thus institutional bearers of solidarity principles that normatively and monetarily regulate the exchange between population groups (young/old, healthy/sick, etc.). In the course of the transformation of care regimes, fundamental shifts between the different "solidarity carriers" emerge, for example, when care services previously provided by families are now organized and financed by the welfare state or the market economy, or when omitted social services are provided by laypersons in local "caring communities" (Hauber 2017).

The shifts and tensions between normative principles are examined with regard to intergenerational relations (III-a), with a focus on the contradictions between fundamental rights and fiscal policy goals in welfare law (III-b), and on the case of familization and de-familization in welfare state policy (III-c) from sociological and jurisprudential perspectives.

More information on this joint project can be found in German here