Dr. Sonja Fehr

Sonja Fehr (2022): Selbst schuld! Armut im Zeichen der Aktivierung. In: Marquardsen, K. (Hg.), Armutsforschung, Baden-Baden: Nomos, pp. 383-394.

The article questions to what extent the activating social policy of the last decades has contributed to the solidification of poverty. First, a relationship between commodification, meritocracy and contemporary poverty research is established. Then, empirical findings are presented that show, on the one hand, an increasing entrenchment of poverty and, on the other hand, a widespread acceptance of the liberal logic of unrestricted self-responsibility. Poverty-induced violations of norms of reciprocity, individuality and employment point to central mechanisms of social exclusion in individualized employment societies.

Keywords: activation, labor market policy, gainful employment, meritocracy, commodification, dynamics of poverty

Sonja Fehr (2020): Einmal arm, immer arm? In: Rahn, P. und Chassé, K. A. (Hg.), Handbuch Kinderarmut. Opladen & Toronto: utb, pp. 95-104.

Poverty rates do provide information on how high the proportion of poor children is in the country. However, they do not provide information on whether the same children are always covered or whether new children are always covered. Rising child poverty rates can result from both more entries into poverty and fewer exits from poverty, indicating either rising poverty risks or entrenched poverty trajectories. Learning more about the consequences of poverty for adolescents' life chances requires tracking their poverty trajectories at the individual level: Does poverty represent a temporary or a permanent phenomenon for children?"

Sonja Fehr (2017): Familien in der Falle? Dynamik familialer Armut in der individualisierten Erwerbsgesellschaft. Weinheim: Beltz Juventa.

To causally explore the social phenomenon of familial poverty in Germany, family pathways into, through, and out of poverty and poverty-referring mechanisms of social change processes are examined. In an examination of the paradigms of individualized societies of gainful employment, loosening and hardening of the connection between family poverty and individual life chances are examined from multiple perspectives. In doing so, the suspicion is investigated that families could fall into a trap of social exclusion due to the effects of poverty, from which their members cannot find a way out.