Pioneer in Germany: How It All Began

There is a moment I have never forgotten, even to this day. During a lecture series on the theme of work at the University of Oldenburg, Herr Hoff, a researcher from the Wissenschaftszentrum Berlin, spoke about a form of working that was, at the time, largely unknown: jobsharing. He handed out a discussion paper, „Job-sharing als arbeitsmarktpolitisches Instrument: Wirkungspotential und arbeitsrechtliche Gestaltung“ (“Jobsharing as a Labour Market Policy Instrument: Potential Impact and Employment Law Design”). In the lecture hall, some listened with interest, others with scepticism, and many with indifference. I could not let go of the thought.

Two people voluntarily sharing a qualified position. Carrying responsibility together. Sharing knowledge instead of competing. What sounded to many like an unrealistic experiment felt, to me, like an answer — to questions that were already on my mind then, and that are more relevant today than ever. At the time, I had no idea that this one afternoon in a lecture hall would be the beginning of a journey spanning more than forty years.

The First Academic Step

My first written engagement with jobsharing came about as part of a project seminar on regional development in the North-West region. The paper was titled: „Alternative und/oder ergänzende Maßnahmen zur Lösung regionaler Arbeitsmarktungleichheiten“ (“Alternative and/or Complementary Measures for Addressing Regional Labour Market Inequalities”), with a focus on estimating job creation through jobsharing, using the Bremerhaven employment office district as an example (Winter Semester 1983/84) But that was not enough for me. I wanted to go deeper — to examine the subject from every angle. What legal questions did it raise? What organisational conditions did jobsharing require? What opportunities did it open up for businesses? What significance did this form of work hold for the economy as a whole?

And so my diploma thesis came about: „Jobsharing – rechtliche, einzel- und gesamtwirtschaftliche Aspekte“ (“Jobsharing – Legal, Microeconomic and Macroeconomic Aspects”, 1984)

Researching Without the Internet — and Why That Fascinated Me Even More

The research was anything but easy. And I mean that quite literally. There was no internet. No search engines. No digital databases. No AI delivering sources in seconds. Anyone wanting to research a niche subject in those days had to piece the information together bit by bit — with a great deal of patience, and often a fair amount of luck.

Most of the relevant literature on jobsharing came from the United States, where the practice had emerged in the late 1960s and had been spreading slowly ever since. In Germany, the subject was barely documented. Many books and academic papers were not even held by the University Library in Oldenburg. I had to request them through interlibrary loan from other universities — and sometimes wait weeks for a single publication to arrive. Looking back, that may well be exactly why jobsharing took such a hold of me: it felt like something no one in Germany had yet properly thought through. Like a subject waiting to be discovered. And as I read, waited and researched, I found myself asking questions that, at the time, hardly anyone else in the German discourse was asking: Why should qualified professionals and managers not also be able to share responsibility — not as a stopgap, but as a deliberate choice? Why did professional development and personal life design have to be opposites at all?

A Cover Page as a Starting Point

The cover page of my diploma thesis — revised since, but still the original — still hangs in my memory today like a witness to that era. A document from a time when jobsharing was barely a known concept in Germany. For me, it was the first tangible proof: I had put something down on paper that did not yet exist in this form. The thesis was still written on a typewriter.

The Unexpected Confirmation

After I had completed my diploma thesis and finished my degree in economics, the telephone kept ringing. The examinations office at the University of Oldenburg called: other students had expressed interest in my work and were asking whether it could be passed on to them. At the time, I found this almost unremarkable — and only much later did I understand what that moment truly meant. At a time when jobsharing was barely known in Germany, I had produced one of the first academic examinations of the subject. A piece of work that others wanted to read. A piece of work that had set something in motion. That was 1984. And it was only the beginning.

What Came Next

My diploma thesis opened doors — and, at the same time, raised new questions. If jobsharing was still so unknown in Germany, where had this form of work actually originated? Who had developed it? And what experience already existed — on the other side of the Atlantic?

In the next part of this series, I take a step back and show where jobsharing truly began: not in Germany, not in Switzerland — but in California.