This article examines the significance of economization for various subjects in resi-
dential child and youth care. Economization is a much-discussed process of change in social sectors, which has also gained relevance for the field of social work and especially for residential child and youth care in Germany since the 1990s at the latest. So far, however, there have been hardly any analyses, especially for the professional field of social work, that explicitly empirically examine the employees’ perspective on this phenomenon. Through empirical analysis, the article reconstructs the significance of this development dynamic for employees of care providers and their work process. On the basis of qualitative interviews, it is shown in which way intensified collectivization processes on the part of the employees represent a strategy for dealing with and at the same time resisting the increasing importance of economic
logics.