Beschäftigungsstabilität: Entwicklung und Arbeitszufriedenheit : Ergebnisse aus der IAB-Beschäftigtenstichprobe 1975-1997 und der BIBB/IAB-Erhebung (Employment stability: development and job stisfaction * findings from the IAB employment sample 1975-1997 and the BIBB/IAB survey)

"For some years we have seen a discussion about the scope of a lifting of the standardisation of employment forms and employment stability. On the one hand, far-reaching breaches in structure, and, on the other hand, consistency and limits of destabilisation, particularly in the areas of skilled, innovative and responsible work, are established here. Continuing this discussion, this report first outlines the arguments of the debate, which has so far remained inconclusive. Then, secondly, the paper examines the development of employment forms using among other things the microcensus, as well as the development of employment duration on the basis of the BIBB/IAB survey and the IAB employment sample. Here, it is shown that the lifting of the standardisation of contracted forms of employment is progressing slowly. However, there is no empirical evidence of a far-reaching structural breach. Rather, since the 1970s, considerable proportions of short-term employment relationships have been observed, though with the share rising in the 1990s. Against the background of these findings, a third step is taken to examine, on the basis of the data of the BIBB/IAB surveys 1991/92 and 1998/99, what characteristics distinguish stable and unstable employment relationships. It becomes clear that contrary to the assumptions of the consistency and limit approach, the indications of company-functional limits of a steady lifting of standardisation are confined to a relatively small circle of people in stable employment in superior positions. The performance of skilled, innovative or generally responsible jobs is a feature of both short-term and long-term employment relationships. In a fourth step, these analyses are supplemented by research on the job satisfaction of some stability groups. Here, it is especially the people in jobs suited to their training and without a subjective risk of being dismissed that show higher values of job satisfaction." (Author's abstract, IAB-Doku) ((en))