Freie Berufe im Wandel der Arbeitsmärkte

This study is originated from our conference ‚Liberal Professions in changing markets’ on the occasion of the 10th anniversary of our Research Institute on Professions (FFB) of the University of Lüneburg. One of the important and central markets is the labour market. The changing labour market(s) will be analysed in the following by three dimensions: information about the situation and structure of the labour market(s), showing the limits and possibilities to do this, and to show, how our substantial work with different methods is done to allow insights about changing labour market(s). These dimensions are handled by four chapters: 1 professions and labour market – general economic and social policy discussion; 2 long-term developments of self-employed and professions; 3 changing vocational training markets; 4 microanalyses of the labour markets. Aggregated material and data are available – sometimes only as special evaluations – form the Federal Statistical Office. Which new possibilities on the individual level with anonymized microdata will be possible is discussed - focussing on liberal professions – by three topics: income, income distribution, and the working hour tension (the gap between desired and actual working hours). Focussing on the changing aspect, I will show how new methods/data – namely paneldata – generate new answers as well as new questions.