Volume 79 (2026), Issue 2

The article examines why companies in Germany choose to violate labour rights – and why they can. The empirical basis consists of qualitative interviews with labour law advisory centres. Drawing on sociological perspectives on law and research on...

This article examines how public employment services staff interpret benefit sanctions in the German basic income support scheme. To this end, a standardised survey and narrative interviews with employment services staff are analysed...

The Public Health Service (Öffentlicher Gesundheitsdienst – ÖGD) has traditionally played a minor role in health care provision in Germany. It is often only loosely integrated within the cooperation structures between social administration and...

The significance of municipal enterprises for the socio-ecological transformation should not be underestimated. They have the potential to make a substantial contribution to the decarbonisation of the economy and society through the ecological...

Since the introduction of the statutory minimum wage in Germany, a considerable number of employees continue to be paid wages below that level. Based on data from the Socio-Economic Panel (SOEP) for the years 2016, 2019 and 2022, we show that the...

With its ruling of November 2025, the European Court of Justice confirmed that the European Minimum Wage Directive – with the exception of some details – is compliant with EU law. The directive thus continues to serve as a common framework for...

The latest annual collective bargaining report of the WSI Collective Agreement Archive contains a comprehensive analysis of the 2025 bargaining round and gives an overview of demands and results as well as a calculation of the annual wage increases....

In autumn 2024, the project “Haus der Selbstständigen” (“House of the Self-Employed”) conducted a cross-sector survey on the quality of working conditions of solo self-employed persons, further developing the questionnaire of the good work...

The article analyses housing cost burden from a life-course perspective. It identifies life phases in which different social groups face particularly high housing cost burden. The results, based on data from the German Socio-Economic Panel (SOEP),...