If you colour a German map according to various socio-economic indicators, you will see a clear East-West demarcation. As Steffen Mau writes in Ungleich Vereint:

(…) Wer sich eine Vielzahl unterschiedlichster Indikatoren anschaut – Ausstattung der Haushalte, Erwerbsquoten, Kirchenbindung, Vereinsdichte, Anteil von Menschen mit Migrationsbiografie, Ausgaben für Forschung und Entwicklung, Exportorientierung der Wirtschaft, Vertrauen in Institutionen, Patentanmeldungen, Hauptsitze großer Firmen, Produktivität, Erbschaftssteueraufkommen, Zahl der Tennisplätze, Anteil junger Menschen, Moscheendichte, die Lebenserwartung von Männern, die durchschnittliche Größe der landwirtschaftlichen Betriebe, Parteimitgliedschaft, Kaufkraft, Wert des Immobilieneigentums, Größe des Niedriglohnsektors –, der kommt immer wieder zu dem gleichen Ergebnis: Eine Phantomgrenze durchzieht das geeinte Land. 

I guess the most famous coloured map today is Germany’s electoral map–on which the (blue) Alternative fuer Deutschland scores a significant optical victory in the former GDR.

I was intrigued to learn about additional dimensions of persistent East-West differences, particularly in health, and focusing on those born around the fall of the Wall (reflecting my recent interest in the subject matter). The trigger for this was the press coverage of Lara Bister’s award-winning PhD dissertation.

Bister found that the economic crisis in the early 1990s has had discernable health effects on female Wendekinder (born 1975-1985), who suffer disproportionately from metabolic and psychological conditions later on in their lives.

There was only a small positive correlation between unemployment in the family and negative health outcomes. This suggests that girls internalized societal stresses, leading to worse health outcomes later in life. These might in turn exacerbate socio-economic inequalities.

The study is important as it lets us map these health effects, adding another dimension of clear disparities between East and West. It is also surprising in that it has a straightforward gender dimension. Bister’s work might be generalizable to economic crises in other contexts.

Besides the quantitative dimensions, there are also qualitative differences in health, e.g., in mental wellbeing. The (East) German psychologist Frank Horzetzky, for example, published a case study from his private practice in 2015.

I think the main takeaway is that children tend towards identifying themselves with the reactions their parents (or teachers and educators) show towards changed circumstances. They internalize the insecurities and uncertainties and compensate this by idealizing loved objects of their parents.

There are huge differences in individual setting, as the article’s case demonstrates. Whether or not the parents were among those who ultimately benefited from the changed economic situation, or were among the “Wendeverlierer” is obviously also very important.

My generation has been observed by sociologists since reunification. Early on in the nineties, this comparative study of 14-18-year old high school students in East and West Berlin showed how my “Wendekinder” generation perceived itself as significantly different to their West Berliner peers.

Despite significant convergence of East German material conditions, the attitude toward West Berliner peers actually worsened between 1990 and 1997.

One thing is impossible to ignore when looking at the study’s authors: It’s obvious how social science in the 1990s was dominated by West German academics, and perhaps how our understanding of the discourse was therefore limited to some extent.

This echoes Dirk Oschmann’s scathing verdict on the post-reunification replacement of entire faculties at East German universities with West German academics.