Students with Children as Talents

Seminar paper from the year 2015 in the subject Sociology - Work, Profession, Education, Organisation, grade: 1,7, Technical University of Chemnitz, course: Innovationen und Innovationsmanagement, language: English, abstract: Having children during one's studies is a much discussed topic. On the one hand it offers many perspectives and possibilities that working parents do not have, but on the other hand it might also put more pressure on students than bearable. 5% of German students already have children and a growing number of universities and student services start offering child care, financial and advisory support. In fact, already 54 student services operate 218 daycare centers with about 8,700 places and therefore support the compatibility of studies and family life. But besides the support of students with children during their studies, the entry into professional life also is a critical topic for this group of people. When it comes to assess the employability of students with children, the term talent management has to be taken into consideration.

This paper aims to look at students with children from the perspective of talent management. Therefore, it is important to first have a look at the so-called talents. Who are they, how can they be identified and why is it important to do so. Accordingly, the special sample of students with children has to be examined, with the focus on how they differ from fellow students without children in order to be a talent. As mentioned above, students with child are a minority at German universities. Studying with children is still presumed to be an exceptional case and not at all as implicitness. This can be explained with the fact that the majority of students tend to have children
only when they dispose of job security. This trend is questionable bearing in mind the demographic change, because children are generally born later in mother's lives. This in turn contributes to the labor deficit and thus tightens the so called war for talents and consequently leads to the indispensability of talent management. According to these findings this work should examine a connection between students with children and job possibilities and thus contribute to a decrease in labor deficit and otherwise contribute to an increase in young academic parents. The possibility for students with children to be seen as some kind of talent instead of organizational obstacle, could lead to it.