Professor Dr Jutta Allmendinger

Research Priorities: Educational sociology, labour market sociology, social inequality, social policy, organisational sociology, life-course sociology
Jutta Allmendinger is a German sociologist. Her research focuses on topics such as the labour market, social policy, education, social inequality, and life course sociology. Questions of gender equality in relation to both the labour market and within families likewise play an important role in her academic work. She calls for an overall concept regarding the redistribution of gainful employment and household work among women and men.
She has done pioneering work in educational sociology. Starting with the overlaps between the education and employment systems, she develops a system to describe the stratification and standardisation of education systems. In 1999, she introduced the term “educational poverty”, which refers to an individual lack of formal education, to educational sociology. This lack may be absolute in nature, meaning that established minimum standards such as a school-leaving certificate or vocational qualification have not been attained. Or it may be relative in comparison to the standard of education in society. In any case, educational poverty leads to major difficulties when entering the labour market and reduces basic opportunities to participate in society.
Allmendinger collected her writing on educational policy in her book “Schulaufgaben. Wie wir das Bildungssystem verändern müssen, um unseren Kindern gerecht zu werden“ (“Schoolwork. How we need to change the education system to do our children justice”), published in 2012. In the book she describes the life courses of four typical adolescents, linking them to current research findings, and analyses the challenges of the German education system. She advocates for fundamental reformation of the education system, so that all children, regardless of their social origins, are supported according to their abilities and none are left behind.
Taking the link between school and the labour market as her starting point, Allmendinger looks at the entire life course of individuals. She uses life course data to examine how the life courses of men and women are socio-politically standardised, balanced, and divided. As part of this analysis, she looks at how pension insurance influences the average female life course. Her book “Das Land, in dem wir leben wollen” (“The land in which we want to live”), published in 2017, analyses the results of what is known as the “legacy study”, to discover how people in Germany see their future. What values, desires, hopes, and concerns do they have? What do they want or not want to leave to the next generation? She uses this data to take a deeper look at the question of social cohesion in Germany in her essay “Die Vertrauensfrage” (“The question of trust”), published in 2020. She concludes that the much-invoked “we” feeling is too often restricted to one’s own immediate environment. In its place, she emphasises the need for trust, including and above all in people whom one does not know. In her view, trust is the glue that holds society together.
In recent years, Jutta Allmendinger has increasingly focused on gender-related research. In her book “Es geht nur gemeinsam! Wie wir endlich Geschlechtergerechtigkeit erreichen” (“We can only do it together! How we can finally achieve gender equality”), published in 2021, she presents a roadmap for a gender-equal future and details precisely what is needed for women to have equality at all levels. She calls for an overall concept regarding the redistribution of gainful employment and household work among women and men. In light of this, she advocates for a sustainable life course model, the key points of which she and her colleagues outlined in the joint statement from Leopoldina, the Berlin-Brandenburg Academy of Sciences and Humanities (BBAW), and the Union of Academies on “Die Zukunft der Arbeit” (“The future of work”), published in 2023. They call for a greater emphasis on (continuing) education, care work, preventive healthcare, and social engagement to enable the transition from a society based on gainful employment to one that embraces a much broader concept of work.
Jutta Allmendinger’s research is characterised by in-depth analysis and visionary concepts that aim to shape societal structures in a fairer and more sustainable way.