Working group Prof Dr Anja Abendroth: Social structure and social inequality

Thematic and Methodological Focus

Together with WG Sauer, WG Abendroth offers courses as part of the Bachelor's, Master's and doctoral programmes. These include the modules Social Structure Analysis (30-M3) in the Bachelor's degree programme in Sociology and Social Structure (30-M19_a) in the Bachelor's degree programme in Social Sciences, in each case including the lecture "Social Structure Analysis" and the associated tutorial and, if applicable, the seminar "Social Structural Conditions and Consequences of Individual Action" (only in Sociology).

As part of the teaching in Department 5 Social Structure and Social Inequality, the Abendroth working group focuses on content and methods in its courses, which are closely linked to the research topics of the research group. Research topics are regularly offered in courses (e.g. inequalities by gender, parenthood, age, education, occupational status, digitalisation & flexibilisation of work, organisational and comparative perspectives on the above-mentioned topics)

In addition to the acquisition of theoretical foundations, the focus is on the use of current empirical literature. Students learn to understand empirical texts, reflect critically on them and discuss them with other students. With regard to the research methods of the working group, our focus is on quantitative methods. These include in particular multi-level analyses, which can take into account differences between work organisations and/or countries, as well as longitudinal analyses, which can measure social change over longer periods of time.

Didactic Focus

We set the principle of research-based learning as our didactic focus. In order to give students the opportunity to acquire their own research skills and to work independently on selected research questions, we regularly offer teaching research. We either work with existing data sets (e.g. European Social Survey) or conduct our own surveys. In this way, students practise, for example, developing a study design and conducting an independent survey, selecting suitable data bases for secondary analyses and/or conducting and interpreting their own empirical analyses based on specific, realistic and relevant questions. One focus is always on the independent development and selection of the research question so that students can contribute and realise their own research interests.

Furthermore, we regularly offer courses that have concrete links to ongoing research projects so that students can gain insights into actual ongoing research processes. This includes, for example, content-related insights, but also guest lectures by project participants. Guest lectures by external researchers are also used to familiarise students with different research perspectives and contexts.

In addition, we offer regular colloquia or research classes in which students and doctoral candidates have the opportunity to present their current work and receive feedback from teaching staff in the working group and support each other with other students/doctoral candidates.

Theses

We supervise Bachelor's and Master's theses as well as doctoral theses. Guidelines on the requirements and conditions for term papers and theses can be found on the main page of Department 5 Social Structure and Social Inequality.

Infra4NextGen - Make it digital (2024-2028)
Project team: Anja Abendroth and Lasse Marz

The project, funded by the European Commission, aims to prepare young Europeans for the future with the help of social science data and research methods.

To this end, workshops for young people are being developed, data from international surveys from previous years is being analysed and new data on relevant topics is being collected. Under the label "Make it Digital", an inventory of questions on digitalisation was created that covers the central aspects of this topic area. These include digital skills and artificial intelligence. The items were used as part of the Cronos3 panel for data collection in eleven European countries. Based on existing data, a data summary was created that traces the development of the digital divide in Europe and identifies areas with data gaps.

Based on this data, we are pursuing various research interests. These include the distribution of digital skills in Europe, the use of artificial intelligence in the workplace for various purposes and digital communication in the workplace.

The choice between time and money: New flexibility for a better work-life balance? (2021-2027)
Project team: Anja Abendroth and Alexandra Mellies

In recent years, some trade unions have included an individual choice option in their collective agreements, allowing employees to choose between more time (additional holiday days or a shorter working week) or more money (special payment or monthly pay rise) each year. The cooperation project between Bielefeld University and the Institute for Employment Research - funded by the Hans Böckler Foundation – is focusing on various aspects of these regulations. Due to their novelty, it is not yet clear which employees choose time or money and for what reasons. It is also not known to what extent company, occupational and family context are related to the choice. The data basis is a linked employer-employee dataset (Peters et al., 2024; Ruf et al., 2024), which was collected as part of the project, and can be enriched with administrative data. Further information and publications on the project can be found here.

Changing work requirements and quality of life in digitalised working environments: What role do organisational or operational framework conditions play? (2021-2023)
Project team: Anja Abendroth, Mareike Reimann, Charlotte Schröder

The project investigated how digitalised work is structured in different work organisations and what effects this has on quality of work and life. One sub-project showed that the proportion of digital communication between employees varies greatly, but that personal communication predominates. Digital communication enables greater flexibility, but also leads to demands such as constant availability and excessive demands (Reimann et al., 2024a; 2024b). Managers use digital means of communication even more intensively than employees without management responsibility (Marx et al., 2021). Another sub-project shows that digital monitoring for the automatic recording of work steps for controlling and personnel management purposes is already widespread and can have negative effects on well-being and autonomy at work. However, the experiences strongly depend on the operational embedding and the recognition structures (Abendroth et al., n.d.; Marx et al. 2022; Meyer et al., n.d.).

Flexibility in digitalised working environments: The use and effects of telecommuting and digital work communication in a European country comparison (2020-2023)
Project team: Anja Abendroth, Laura Lükemann, Antje Schwarz

The project investigated local flexibility as a central consequence of the digitalisation of work. The expansion of digital infrastructures enables location-independent communication and access to work-related data, creating new opportunities for the organisation of work. The research analysed the interplay of digital infrastructures and social institutions to realise the flexibility interests of employers and employees. Survey data from employees in 31 countries from the European Social Survey 2021 was used for this purpose.

The results illustrate the complex interactions between digital work communication, flexibility and the compatibility of work and family life. A key finding is that digital technologies can present both opportunities and challenges for the labour market participation of mothers(Lükemann 2024). Especially in countries that promote de-familialisation policies, digital communication enables mothers to better reconcile their professional and private obligations. Furthermore, communication with superiors via digital technologies can contribute to better reconciliation support(Abendroth & Schwarz 2023).

How can working from home succeed? Fair solutions from the perspective of employers and employees (2020-2021)
Project team: Mareike Reimann and Martin Diewald

A sustainably successful home office programme requires that all those involved - not only those working from home, but also other team members and managers - perceive the solutions as fair and practicable. The project used company and employee surveys to analyse the views and expectations of all groups and compared different companies to find out how different conditions influence success. The results show that the experience of working from home during the COVID-19 pandemic has been very positive overall - for both employers and employees. The decisive factors for success are not so much technical equipment or formal requirements, but above all the quality of relationships with colleagues and superiors(Reimann & Diewald, 2023). Support within the team promotes flexibility and makes it easier to balance appointments and private life(Reimann, 2023). Working from home is particularly effective when there is autonomy in terms of time and clear and transparent rules on availability.

Conflicting values in the design of socio-technical systems using the example of the distribution of work tasks (2019-2022)
Project team: Anja Abendroth and Elisa Gensler

Digital assistance systems are increasingly being used to support employees and increase efficiency. However, current assistance systems are often too rigid to provide personalised support, which can limit employees' autonomy at work. In an interdisciplinary collaboration, the question of how the work autonomy of people can be improved in cooperation with digital assistance systems and the importance of the adaptability of the assistance systems was investigated (Gensler et al. 2023). Furthermore, it was found that the preservation of work autonomy in algorithmic work control, in which employees receive automatically generated work instructions, depends largely on control configurations in the company (Gensler et al. 2025; Gensler & Abendroth 2021). The results indicate that control configurations that combine algorithmic instructions and informal control through personal interaction with superiors or colleagues promote methodological work autonomy, provided that companies refrain from algorithmic monitoring and the devaluation of previous skills.

Digital Future Research Programme (2017-2020)
Project team: Martin Diewald, Anja Abendroth, Mareike Reimann

This sub-project "Crowdworking in the context of the transformation of the employment system as a consequence of digitalisation" used quantitative survey data to investigate the relevance of crowdwork (a new form of work organisation in which people take on paid tasks that are mediated via platforms on the Internet) for employment relationships, social inequalities, work-life balance and individual health. With the support of an interdisciplinary crowdworker survey on various German-speaking platforms, it was shown, for example, that crowdworkers can utilise the time flexibility and autonomy for a better work-life balance and improved well-being. However, it has also been shown that the demands associated with crowdwork, such as time pressure, income insecurity or the difficulty of finding suitable tasks on crowdwork platforms, have a negative impact on the work-life balance and well-being of crowdworkers (Reimann & Abendroth, 2023).

Interactions between realisation opportunities in appointment and private life. A study of employees in different work organisations (2017-2020)
Project team: Anja Abendroth, Silvia Melzer, Martin Diewald, Laura Lükemann, Charlotte Marx, Eileen Peters, Mareike Reimann

The aim of the project ending date was to investigate the professional and private challenges faced by employees and the associated opportunities to explain social inequality. The aim was to contribute to a mechanism-based explanation of social inequality. The Relational Inequality Theory formed the frame of reference here: a sociological theory that has become increasingly important in theoretical and empirical organisational research. This theoretical perspective explains in particular how organisations and their characteristics can reduce or reinforce social inequalities. The results show a high degree of variation in social inequalities between organisations, which are influenced by hierarchies and relational mechanisms. In addition, it becomes clear that company policies and cultures are decisive for the organisation of compatibility conflicts. Diversity measures do not always lead to equal opportunities, and gender norms within the workforce influence negotiations for career advancement. Overall, the project shows how external and internal characteristics create and maintain relational inequalities in the workplace.

Foundations and Implications of Human-AI Teamwork (FAITH)

FAITH investigates the possibilities and consequences of "Human-AI Teamwork" - a collaboration between humans and AI systems in which they use their different skills in a targeted, situation-specific and coordinated manner to solve a task together. We look at the technological, linguistic, sociological and psychological foundations of human-AI teamwork and investigate the effects on people as well as the organisation and quality of work.

Conflicts of Inequality (COIN)

CoIn analyses the complex mechanisms and moderators that link social inequalities and conflicts. To this end, an empirical, data-innovative approach is applied with the integration of social, health and data science perspectives. The research aims at socially relevant and transferable findings.

Contestations of Gender and Democracy (ConGed)

ConGeD focusses on the current socio-political situation in which semantics of gender equality, democracy and plurality are no longer shared as a matter of course, but are contested.