A Robert Schuman Scholarship as the Starting Point for a Movement

In 1986, a scholarship took Marie-Therese Herbers to Luxembourg. There, her academic interest in job sharing became a European vision that would shape her life.

OLDENBURG, LOWER SAXONY, GERMANY, October 7, 2026 /EINPresswire.com/ -- Part two of the blog series “My Journey with Job Sharing” tells how a Robert Schuman Scholarship in 1986 and 1987 laid the foundations for Marie-Therese Herbers’ decades-long commitment to job sharing in Europe

Oldenburg, October 07 2026. In the second part of her blog series “My Journey with Job Sharing”, Marie-Therese Herbers takes readers back to 1986 and 1987, when she worked at the European Parliament as a Robert Schuman Scholar. What began as a scholarship became the starting point for her decades-long commitment to qualified part-time work in Europe.

More about Marie-Therese Herbers and her journey with job sharing:
https://www.marie-therese-herbers.com

Two years earlier, Herbers had submitted her diploma thesis at the University of Oldenburg on the subject of qualified part-time work – at a time when the topic received little attention in German labour market research. The Robert Schuman Scholarship gave her the opportunity to examine this issue for the first time from a European perspective. At the European Parliament, she gained first-hand insight into how labour market policy decisions were shaped at European level and came into contact with Members of the European Parliament, officials and experts from several Member States.

The Time at the Parliament changed her perspective: an academic research topic developed into a European vision. Herbers realised that job sharing could be discussed and developed across national borders. This insight became the driving force behind her subsequent work. While still on the scholarship, she began establishing contacts with like-minded people across Europe – a network that would soon lead to the creation of her own organisation.

“I was in my mid-twenties and suddenly found myself sitting in meetings where European labour market policy was being discussed. This experience showed me that ideas for which there was still no language in Germany were already being discussed elsewhere in Europe. I have never let go of that insight.”
— Marie-Therese Herbers

The next part of her blog series describes how these first European contacts ultimately led to the founding of EURO-TZA e.V., the first European association dedicated to job sharing, on 29 October 1987.

Marie-Therese Herbers
Herbers Beratungsagentur QT
+49 1512 0179552
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