Wolfgang Zapf

In September 1987 Zapf was appointed scientific manager (president) of the Wissenschaftszentrums Berlin für Sozialforschung (WZB); he held this office until 31 August 1994. At the same time he directed the „Department for Social Structure and Social Reporting“ („Abteilung Sozialstruktur und Sozialberichterstattung“); this latter function he kept until his retirement in 2002. In addition to his tasks at the WZB from 1988 to 2002 Zapf continued teaching as professor for sociology at the Free University of Berlin.

From 1993 to 1999 Zapf was president of the board of trustees of GESIS.

From 1987 to 1909 Zapf was co-editor of the „Zeitschrift für Soziologie“, was an advisory member of Social Indicators Research and grant evaluator of the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation.

Having created these data sources meant now to dispose of a solid basis for diverse „data compilations“ and analyses of social structure and welfare. Zapfs movement to the WZB Berlin in 1987 and the collapse of the German Democratic Republic (GDR) opened new research fields. First, by extending the welfare survey to Eastern Germany, a data basis for social scientific transformation research could be created. In the course of the last two decades the separate analysis and opposing of East and West became increasingly irrelevant, although.

It could soon be seen that macro indicators alone are unable to cover many social topics, because the main source of these indicators was official statistics which does not carry out opinion and attitude surveys. In analogy to the American situation it was attempted to develop a social survey covering subjective and objective topics at the same time, and thus can be mutually related: this instrument was the „Welfare Survey“ („Wohlfahrtssurvey“). The central publication – based on exploitations of this survey – was „Quality of Life in the Federal Republic of Germany: Objective Living Conditions and Subjective Well-being“ („Lebensqualität in der Bundesrepublik: Objektive Lebensbedingungen und subjektives Wohlbefinden“) (1984). Many other publications using this data source followed, up to the current „Data Report“ („Datenreport“). The central theoretical concept of this work was quality of life-research according to the US-American model. The development of panel studies during the 1980s, like the German Socio-Economic Panel, offered the possibility to integrate questions asked in the welfare surveys into this panel study, thus being able to show the evolution of quality of life over the life course.

Zapf also taught at several other European and American universities: in 1980 he was Visiting Professor for Comparative European Studies at Stanford University. In 1976, 1981 and 1986 he taught as a guest professor at the Institute for Advanced Studies (Vienna) (IHS). In 1980 he was a visiting fellow at the Hoover Institution of Stanford University.

In 1979, 1981 and from 1985 to 1987 he hold the office of a speaker of the Special Research Group 3 Microanalytic Foundations of Societal Policies, Frankfurt/Mannheim; in 1980 and from 1982 to 1984 as vice-speaker.

From 1973 until 1975 Zapf headed the planning group for social sciences at the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (German Research Foundation). From 1976 to 1985 he was a member of the Senate Commission for Empirical Social Research (Senatskommission für Empirische Sozialforschung der DFG).

From 1972 to 1977 Zapf was a member of the Steering Committee of the Center for Social Indicators of the Social Science Research Council (SSRC) in Washington, D.C.

New lands within sociology with respect to analysis of large data sets were beaten by Zapf‘s assistants Johann Handl, Karl Ulrich Mayer and Walter Müller in the SPES-project to exploit the supplementary survey to the microcensus 1971 which resulted in the publication „Class Positions and Social Structure“ („Klassenlagen und Sozialstruktur“), being the first class analysis for Germany with micro data.

During the early 1970s in co-operation with economists from the Goethe University Frankfurt he organized the SPES project (Sozialpolitisches Entscheidungs- und Indikatorensystem, Sociopolitical Decision Making and Indicator System). This project in 1979 was continued by the Special Research Group 3 Microanalytic Foundations of Societal Policies, Frankfurt/Mannheim (Sonderforschungsbereichs 3 „Mikroanalytische Grundlagen der Gesellschaftspolitik“).

From 1969 until 1970 Zapf was member oft the senate of the University of Frankfurt. From 1974 to 1975 and 1982 to 1983 he held the office of the dean of the Faculty for Social Sciences of the University of Mannheim. From 1973 to 1975 he directed the Institute for Social Sciences of the University of Mannheim.

In 1968 he was German Kennedy Fellow at the Harvard University. From 1968 to 1972 Zapf was regular professor for sociology at the Goethe University Frankfurt. In 1972 he accepted a chair at the University of Mannheim, where be taught sociology until 1987.

From 1967 to 1974, and 1983 to 1984 he was member of the managing board of the DGS; and from 1987 to 1990 he was president of the German Sociological Association; from 1973 to 1976 he was president of the DGS-section „Social Indicators“ (Sektion Soziale Indikatoren).

In 1966 Zapf married Dr. Katrin Zapf, born Raschig. Two children were born to them. His wife Katrin Zapf is also a sociologist, and specialized herself in – and taught at the University of Mannheim – urban sociology.

From 1962 bis 1966 he worked as an assistant of Ralf Dahrendorf at the sociological department of the University of Tübingen. In 1963 he received his doctoral degree (philosophers degree, Dr. phil.) in Tübingen with a dissertation on the historical changes of the German elite („Wandlungen der deutschen Elite“) (Munich: Piper, 1965, 21966). During these years the sociological investigation of elites was a highly topical field of research and was intensively cultivated by Dahrendorf. From 1966 to 1967 Zapf was scientific assistant of Dahrendorf at the University of Constance. In 1967 he delivered his habilitation thesis „Materials for the Analysis of Social Change“ („Materialien zur Analyse des sozialen Wandels“), which was distributed as a hectograph.

Zapf‘s early publications deal with elite research, mainly with the long-term evolution of the German elite. Probably related to that developed his interest in long-term trends of social change at the macro level which he thematized in his habilitation thesis. Obviously he came in touch with modernization research which was just en vogue in the USA in the 1960s. This was the origin of his first works on modernization theory and the edited volume „Theories of Social Change“ (Theorien des sozialen Wandels). On the one hand it was envisioned to empirically verify such theories by a historical-comparative data collection on the development of west European societies; for this purpose, together with Peter Flora, Zapf applied for the HIWED-project (Historical Indicators of West European Democracies). On the other hand stood the implementation of social indicators research in Germany; the origin of the latter research also lies in the USA of the 1960s. The SPES-project was believed to develop a system of social macro indicators. Main products of this work were the „Sociological Almanac“ („Soziologische Almanach“ and the edited volume „Living Conditions in the Federal Republic of Germany“ („Lebensbedingungen in der Bundesrepublik“) (1977, 21978); the latter book used the instrument of social indicators in order to apply it to the Federal Republic of Germany. The nucleus of the volume is a so-called „Social Indicator Table“ („Sozialindikatorentableau“) with several hundred indicators which were quantified in the work that followed. A historically much more extended perspective was to look at the evolution of German living conditions from the 19th century to the present: this was done in the book „Changing Living Conditions in Germany: Welfare Development since Industrialization“ („Wandel der Lebensbedingungen in Deutschland: Wohlfahrtsentwicklung seit der Industrialisierung“) (1982).

Zapf visited basic school and secondary school emphasizing modern languages in Frankfurt am Main. He obtained his final examination in 1957.

From 1957 to 1961 he studied sociology and economics at the universities of Frankfurt, Hamburg and Cologne. He received a scholarship from the “Cusanuswerk” and during his studies he obtained practical training in market research and industry. In Frankfurt in 1961 he finished his studies with the diploma in sociology.

Representatives of more recent concepts of modernization in modernization research take a more critical position against modernization theory in a narrow sense – which was denoted by Zapf as "an American invention of the 1950s". This new interpretation of modernization theory is less ethnocentric and path dependent, and is also sensitive towards failures and shydy sides (e.g. environmental hazard, competition in armaments, external economic effects of Western industrialized countries). If we want to admit Rucht to speak, then societal modernization „is a variant-rich and in no way a linear evolution, characterized by uncoincident processes, step backs and contradicting changes in parts of the social system“. The „model of a modern society“, building the fundament, might be attained by walking on a limited number of „different developmental paths“.

Wolfgang Zapf (* Frankfurt am Main 25 April 1937; † Berlin 26 April 2018) was a German sociologist.