Demands of Social Change across Multiple Domains of Life and Across Time at the Advent of the Global Financial Crisis

Longitudinal data collected between 2005 and 2009, i.e., before and during the outset of the Global Financial Crisis, is analyzed to investigate the interplay of trajectories of perceived demands in the domains of work and family. Quadratic latent growth curve models were used to mimic the increase of demands in N = 1,296 young adults from Germany as structural uncertainty increased in the second half of the study. Although we hypothesized that these trajectories would depend on core socio-demographic variables, we found no evidence that this is the case. Demands in the different domains of functioning develop highly parallel, reflect possible spill-over effects between the domains, and seem to indicate changes of objective uncertainty during the outset of the global financial crisis. Furthermore, we find evidence for both cumulative disadvantage and inoculation effects. We argue that the global financial crisis has left a mark on individuals in terms of more perceived uncertainty and higher perceived expectations.