Changing middle class: A comparison of Germany and the US

• Applicant: Professor Dr. Holger Lengfeld
• Subject Area: Empirical Social Research
• Term: since 2020
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 444730212

In recent years, many economic and sociological studies have diagnosed that the German and US middle class is hollowing out. These empirical findings have generated a wide public resonance and are therefore of great political concern. However, a review of the current empirical literature identifies contradicting findings on the development of the middle class, questioning the conclusion that the middle class is shrinking in Germany and the US. The aim of this research project is to apply an income- and class-based as well as a multidimensional definition of the middle class to evaluate how far the middle class has changed since the Fall of the Iron Curtain in Germany and the US, whether there has been more intragenerational upward than downward mobility into and from the middle class, and whether changes on the labour market, female employment and family composition have influenced these processes. For our cross-national comparative approach, we rely on longitudinal household data from the German Socio-Economic Panel (SOEP) and the American Panel Study of Income Dynamics (PSID).

• DFG Programme: Research Grants
• Co-Investigator: Dr. Pia N. Blossfeld