ABSTRACT
German reunification was a large-scale experiment which has been often regarded as a test case for the recent enlargement of the European Union (EU) towards the East. ‘Transformation through unification’ (Zapf et al. 2002) certainly included strong advantages, among them ready-made political institutions and more than one trillion Euros of transfers from the richer part, which helped to improve living conditions of large sections of the East German population. However, these improvements were accompanied — and overshadowed — by skyrocketing unemployment and other social costs such as the debasement of biographies and the destruction of a familiar life-world. These social costs are often referred to in order to explain why levels of satisfaction of East Germans did not improve as fast as expected — despite being ultimately able to purchase new cars, to travel abroad and to equip their modernised flats with new furniture and consumer electronics. An alternative, but less frequently employed explanation is provided by reference group theory. This approach claims that in the course of unification, living conditions in West Germany became the ultimate yardstick for East Germans (Noll 1996; Delhey and Böhnke 2000). Progress and setbacks in catching-up were painstakingly reported, and the unexpected slowness of the catch-up process led to some disappointment. Many years after unification, the feeling of being second-class citizens is widespread, which prevents parts of the East German population from feeling well received in the unified Germany.
