Eastern women surviving the crisis best

Eastern German women are the surprise winners of the financial crisis, according to a new study showing they are losing work at a much lower rate than other groups in the country.

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“Women in the east are not being swept from the job market – the loser of the crisis is the western German man,” Ute Bauer, one of the authors of the study commissioned by the government, told public broadcaster ARD.

The results show that the jobless rate among East German women dropped by 8.7 percent between last March and this March, Bauer said. In comparison, the rate for western men in the same period rose by more than 18 percent.

The main reason for this is that women are far more likely than men to be working in the service sector, which has so far been much less affected by the crisis than other areas of employment.

Eastern Germans are much less worried about the crisis, the study also shows, with 80 percent of the entire population already having changed their jobs or careers as a result of German reunification. The woman in the east are also said to regard the crisis as something of a sport, or a challenge rather than a threat.

More managers in the east are women, the study also shows, with 30 percent of the top ranks of companies being women. In western Germany, women make up only 24 percent of top managers. The difference between women’s participation is greater in the next level of management, with 44 percent of secondary managers being women in the east, and only 34 percent in the west.