In his important new book Our Kids: The American Dream in Crisis, Robert Putnam, the Harvard professor and sociologist, returns to his home town of Port Clinton, Ohio - a working class community on the shores of Lake Erie. He seeks out his former classmates who graduated high school in the 1950s and 1960s to see how they fared in life. For the most part, this cohort did quite well - surpassing their parents in terms of affluence, education and career success. Putnam attributes this to good schools, good parenting, community support structures, and plentiful jobs. Even those who did not go on to higher education could find decent work at the local factory, earning enough to support a family in relative comfort. There was a definite path a secure middle class life - The American Dream.
But those who came later, who graduated (or at least attended) high school in the 1980s and 1990s, are not doing so well. The factory shut down in 1979. Those jobs remaining in Port Clinton pay minimum wage. Putnam findsfragmented families, dashed dreams, and - all too often - substance abuse which often led to conflict with local law enforcement. Oh, for a lucky few who inherited or accumulated wealth life is wonderful with private schools, gated communities, golf outings, etc. But the chasm separating those lucky few families and the rest appears unbridgeable. For most, the path to the secure middle class existence Putnam remembers from is youth is blocked.
What happened? Many things have brought us to this point: globalization has wrecked manufacturing in the US, depriving lower-skilled workers of decent paying jobs; trade unions have for the most part been beaten back, economic policy - starting with the Reagan administration - transferred wealth from the working class to the super-rich, public schools - which provided Putnam and his classmates with good academic skills - have been starved of resources. The family unit, a source of stability and security when Putnam was growing up in Port Clinton, has been torn apart for many poor Americans - irrespective of race.
Susanne Gaschke mentions Putnam's book while pointing out the importance of family cohesion in dealing with poverty in Germany in her piece in Die Welt: Die neue Armut in Deutschland:
Der amerikanische Politikwissenschaftler und Soziologe Robert Putnam setzt sich in seinem neuen Buch "Our Kids" mit der dramatischen Bedeutung auseinander, die Klassenzugehörigkeit in den USA für die Bildungsbiografien von Kindern erlangt – während ihr ethnischer Hintergrund immer unwichtiger wird. Dabei spielen geradezu reaktionär anmutende Kriterien eine Rolle: Kinder von verheirateten Eltern haben wesentlich bessere Chancen, einen College-Abschluss zu machen, als die Kinder von Nichtverheirateten oder Alleinerziehenden. Schwarze Angehörige der Mittelschicht heiraten. Weiße Angehörige der Unterschicht tun es nicht mehr.
Auch in Deutschland sind nicht Kinder das Armutsrisiko, sondern auseinanderbrechende Elternpaare, mit all den materiellen und immateriellen Folgen der Trennung: weniger Einkommen, weil nicht beide Partner voll arbeiten können; doppelte Haushaltsführung; fehlende männliche Vorbilder; Erschöpfung, weil sich zwei Erwachsene besser als einer gegen den Kinderstress feien können. Einsamkeit.
Germany (still) has a stronger social safety net than the United States, so through public education and apprentice programs there are still opportunities for kids from poor families to achieve a middle class life. But, as Susanne Gaschke points out, there are signs that the gap between the poor and affluent is growing wider:
Deutschland ist nicht Amerika, aber amerikanische Trends erreichen uns in der Regel früher oder später.
(Germany is not America, but American trends tend to reach us sooner or later.)
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