For people living in the former East Germany, reunification with the former West Germany fundamentally transformed the sociopolitical system and most domains of everyday life. Previous research has revealed temporal shifts in average life satisfaction after reunification in the former East German population as a whole, but so far little is known about heterogeneity in patterns of adjustment within the population. Building on evidence of considerable diversity in trajectories of adjustment to other critical life events, in the current study we use longitudinal data from the German Socio-Economic Panel Study and growth mixture models to identify typical yet distinct trajectories of life satisfaction among former East Germans, covering the period just before reunification and four years thereafter. We identified four trajectories: continuously satisfied (experienced by 17% of the sample), upward adjusters (24%), downward adjusters (34%), and continuously dissatisfied (25%). Results of logistic regression analyses indicate that the propensity to follow a particular trajectory was strongly predicted by an individual’s baseline economic (employment, but not income), socio-relational (loneliness) and personal (education, satisfaction with health) resources. Whereas former East Germans with more resources just prior to reunification were more likely to maintain high or increase in life satisfaction, their peers with fewer resources were more apt to either maintain low or decrease in life satisfaction. People in their mid-twenties through mid-fifties (i.e., prime working age) at the time of reunification were also more likely to maintain low life satisfaction. Accordingly, reunification affected the unfolding of individual lives differently.

对于生活在前东德的人们来说，与前西德的统一从根本上改变了社会政治制度和日常生活的大部分领域。先前的研究揭示了前东德整体统一后平均生活满意度的时间变化，但到目前为止，人们对内部调整模式的异质性知之甚少。人口。基于对其他关键生活事件的调整轨迹具有相当大的多样性的证据，在当前的研究中，我们使用来自德国社会经济小组研究和增长混合模型的纵向数据来确定前东德人的典型但不同的生活满意度轨迹，涵盖统一前的时期和之后的四年。我们确定了四个轨迹：持续满意（17% 的样本经历过）、向上调整者（24%）、向下调整者（34%）和持续不满意（25%）。逻辑回归分析的结果表明，个体的基线经济（就业，但不是收入）、社会关系（孤独）和个人（教育、对健康的满意度）资源。统一前拥有更多资源的前东德人更有可能保持较高的生活满意度或提高生活满意度，而拥有较少资源的同龄人则更容易保持较低或降低的生活满意度。重新统一时，二十多岁至五十多岁（即黄金工作年龄）的人也更可能保持较低的生活满意度。因此，统一对个人生活的展开产生了不同的影响。统一时期的黄金工作年龄）也更有可能保持较低的生活满意度。因此，统一对个人生活的展开产生了不同的影响。统一时期的黄金工作年龄）也更有可能保持较低的生活满意度。因此，统一对个人生活的展开产生了不同的影响。