Abstract
This article examines the effects of the 1974 child allowance reform on guest worker families in West Germany. As part of a wider reform, West Germany implemented a two-tiered system of child allowances whereby migrant parents received more money for children who lived in the European Economic Community (EEC) than for children who lived outside the EEC. Migrants protested the reform and with it the assumptions of the guest worker programme. However, these parents had to contend with a popular narrative whereby foreign parents who brought their children to West Germany after the reform were in fact irresponsible 'welfare migrants' who placed their desire for financial gain over their children's need for a stable environment. The idea that this specific welfare reform had been the trigger for large-scale family migration not only discouraged further investigation of the causes of family migration but was also used to support new restrictions on that migration.
| Original language | English (US) |
|---|---|
| Pages (from-to) | 372-389 |
| Number of pages | 18 |
| Journal | Contemporary European History |
| Volume | 28 |
| Issue number | 3 |
| DOIs | |
| State | Published - Aug 1 2019 |
Funding
Contemporary European History https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4199-5895 Stokes Lauren Lauren Stokes is Assistant Professor of History at Northwestern University where she teaches German and European history, migration history and the history of gender and sexuality. She is currently working on her first book, which examines the idea and the practice of ‘family migration’ in West Germany. Her work has been supported by organisations including the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation, the Council on European Studies and the Central European History Society. Northwestern University , History, History, 1881 Sheridan Rd, Harris Hall , Evanston , Illinois [email protected] 06 06 2019 08 2019 28 3 372 389 Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2019 2019 Cambridge University Press I would like to thank the Rosa Luxemburg Writing Group - Julie Ault, Deborah Barton, Jennifer Lynn,Willeke Sandler and Kira Thurman - as well as Leora Auslander, Michael Geyer and Tara Zahra for feedback on earlier drafts of this manuscript. Robin Bates read multiple drafts and clarified crucial parts of the argument. I would also like to thank the editors of Contemporary European History and the three anonymous reviewers whose suggestions vastly improved the final version. Archival research for this article was funded by the German Chancellor Fellowship of the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation and a Council on European Studies Pre-Dissertation Fellowship.
ASJC Scopus subject areas
- History
