Families receiving basic assistance in Germany. Interaction effects between relationships and institutional contexts in "poor families"

家庭是应对经济困难和不稳定生活状况的主要层面。因此，物质匮乏对家庭生活的安排产生影响。然而，与此同时，面临收入贫困的家庭生活受到福利国家公共机构的限制，例如德国的求职者基本援助（“Grundsicherung für Arbeitsuchende”）。特别是，以这种法律的制度为基础的社区建设界定了家庭成员之间的关系和团结，从而对家庭的日常生活产生了强烈的影响。虽然在辅助性原则的背景下情况一直如此，但在福利国家根据“激活”范式发生变化的情况下，情况更是如此，即政策目标从被动转向积极的社会政策：“哈茨改革”之后，《社会法典二》规定的德国求职者基本援助制度（“Sozialgesetzbuch II”，简称：SGB II）越来越注重激活求职者（申请培训、行为规则，例如接受任何工作机会的义务、制裁），并通过构建“需求共同体”（“Bedarfsgemeinschaft”）重新界定家庭成员之间的责任。家庭关系是如何形成和传记设计在这些条件下，政治机构在这些过程中发挥什么样的调节作用，因此是一个迫切的研究需要。因此，该项目以德国接受基本援助的家庭为例，审查夫妻和父母-子女关系的微观社会动态与体制环境之间的相互作用。正在调查领取基本失业救济金的家庭的关系结构如何发展和变化，以及家庭关系在多大程度上受到《社会法典第二册》的体制结构及其在职业介绍所（“就业中心”）的组织实施的影响。在基于案例的重建性家庭研究框架内，将进行家庭传记访谈。该试点项目旨在发展适当的概念，以更好地理解这种复杂的相互作用效应;这将为国际比较中的更大规模实证研究奠定基础。

Family is a primary level of coping with economic constraints and precarious life situations. Material deprivation thus has consequences for the organization of family life. At the same time, however, family life faced with income poverty is framed by public institutions of the welfare state such as the means tested basic assistance for job seekers ("Grundsicherung für Arbeitsuchende") in Germany. In particular, community constructions that are anchored in this legal system define relationships and solidarities between the family members and thus have a strong influence on families’ everyday life. While this has always been the case in the context of the principle of subsidiarity, it applies even more so under the condition of welfare state change in the light of the ‘activation’ paradigm, that is a shift in policy goals from passive to active social policies: In the wake of the "Hartz reforms", the German system of basic assistance for jobseekers regulated in Social Code II (“Sozialgesetzbuch II”, short: SGB II) is increasingly focusing on activation of jobseekers (application training, behavioral rules, e.g. the obligation to accept any job offer, sanctions) and redefines the responsibilities between family members via the construct of the "community of needs" ("Bedarfsgemeinschaft"). How family relationships are shaped and biographically designed under these conditions and what regulatory role political institutions play in these processes is thus an urgent research desideratum. The project therefore examines interactions between the microsocial dynamics of couple and parent-child relationships and institutional contexts using the example of families receiving basic assistance in Germany. Under investigation is how relationship structures in families that receive basic unemployment benefits develop and change and to what extent family relationships are influenced by the institutional constructions of the Social Code Book II and their organizational implementation in employment agencies (“Jobcenter”). In the framework of a case based, reconstructive family research, biographical interviews with families will be conducted. The pilot project aims to develop adequate concepts to better understand such complex interaction effects; this will form the basis for a larger-scale empirical study in international comparison.