Social Inequality and Data Sciences: a comparative analysis of the German labour market

This paper explores the status of population data infrastructure with regard to Germany’s ability to address social inequalities in the labour market compared to the UK. I argue that data availability, though not sufficient, is a necessary condition for policy effectiveness, in particular in the area of social inequality. I find evidence that the collection and analysis of population data in Germany with regard to the protected categories, such as gender and ethnic minorities, is frequently insufficient and reveals a deeper, structural problem of German data sciences reflecting an uneasy relationship between scientific knowledge production and the German public discourse and its political class. Possible explanations might be a legacy of ethical and privacy concerns, a longstanding public policy focus on collectivism rather than individual rights, and a preference ofor hermeneutics and qualitative rather than quantitative social sciences.