Das Verbraucherinsolvenzverfahren: Integration zeigt alte und neue Muster sozialer Ungleichheit in der Risikogesellschaft

With the implementation of the German Insolvency Statute in 1999, private households were given the legal right to file for bankruptcy. Prior to this, financially destitute households were trapped on the edge of socio-economic marginality for life. Mostpublished reports about insolvency in Germany have regarded overindebtedness as the particular problem of the underclass and caused by a persistent lack of resources. With the cultural change of the 1980s, the scientific analysis of social inequality in Germany emphasized the existence of horizontal social inequality beyond clasves (Beck) due to the process of individualization. Given that unemployment, divorce/separation and loss of direction are cited as the main reasons for overin-debtedness, the German Insolvency Statute would appear to provide a solution for a societal problem that extends beyond class boundaries, particularly if the underclass were adequately represented in the number of successful bank-ruptcy claims. However, the well-known phenomenon of diffirential access to the law arises here. Middle-class children, who previously failed to complete higher education or even maintain the status of their fathers are highly over-represented in bankruptcy cases. In providing a cure for middle-class problems, the private bankruptcy process demonstrates the persistence of class structure in today's Germany.