Cadrelites? Career continuity, discontinuity, or disruption of former socialist elites in the early 1990s: an event history analysis on the basis of statistically matched data

Abstract

"This contribution focuses on the career trajectories of the functional elites of the collapsed state socialist GDR after reunification. There is up to now no consensus, whether cadres of the middle and upper stratum of the service class could usually continue their careers after 1989/1990, or not. On the one hand, past research indicates career continuity. On the other hand, there is also evidence of a considerable extent of career interruptions or even disruptions in the early 1990s. In this respect, the contribution discusses the option of matching data from different sources by approaches of 'Statistical Matching' or 'Data Fusion' as has already been practiced by the author and his colleagues by fusing data of the Central Cadre Data Base with data of the German Socio-Economic Panel Study, a longitudinal sample, that has been introduced to the GDR already in 1990. Here an event history analysis, on the Basis of GSOEP-data, that qualify for the criteria of having a near-identical 'statistical twin', is applied." (author's abstract)