W. Hartke's key point was that social fallow, in the context of postwar West Germany, is to be seen as the end result of a stage-by-stage sequence of occupational shifts in rural communities – away from the farming tradition and into industrial or tertiary employment. Hartke's pioneering work on interpreting and highlighting the wider significance of social fallow set the stage for a profusion of research inquiries; some arguing the actual reasons for field desertion and attempting comparisons with past phases of land wastage, while others looked at the repercussions on rural landscapes. The real connection between social differentiation and social fallow must be viewed within a background of positive stages in occupational change by small-peasant families, and the way by which the resultant improvements in incomes progressively lessen the need to persevere on the land. West Germany's Kleinbauer category of farmers were reaching the late transitional stage and assumed 'threshold' point at which social fallowing becomes a prevalent feature.