Forschung SOEP: Soziale Ungleichheiten und Verteilung

Testing Marx: Capital Accumulation, Income Inequality, and Socialism in Late Nineteenth-Century Germany

We study the dynamics of capital accumulation, income inequality, capital concentration, and voting up to 1914. Based on new panel data for Prussian regions, we re-evaluate the famous Revisionism Debate between orthodox Marxists and their critics. We show that changes in capital accumulation led to a rise in the capital share and income inequality, as predicted by orthodox Marxists. But against their ...

The Long-Term Implications of Destruction During the Second World War on Private Wealth in Germany

By the end of the Second World War, an estimated 20% of the West German housing stock had been destroyed. Building on a theoretical life-cycle model, this paper examines the persistent consequences of the war for individual wealth across generations. As our empirical basis, we link a unique historical dataset on the levels of wartime destruction in 1739 West German cities with micro data on individual ...

Wealth Creators or Inheritors? Unpacking the Gender Wealth Gap from Bottom To Top and Young to Old

There is growing interest in understanding how gender influences the accumulation of wealth. While prior studies focused on labor-related determinants, our research focuses on inheritances and gifts. Using unique survey data that oversamples the top 1% of wealth holders in Germany, we show that the gender wealth gap is small for individuals up to age 40, then widens, and declines for those past retirement ...

Cross-national Differences in Socioeconomic Achievement Inequality in Early Primary School: The Role of Parental Education and Income in Six Countries

This paper presents comparative information on the strength of the association between socioeconomic status (SES) and literacy skills at ages 6–8, drawing on data from France, Germany, Japan, Rotterdam (Netherlands), the United Kingdom, and the United States. We investigate whether the strength of the association between SES and literacy skills in early-to-mid childhood depends on the operationalization ...

Perceived Discrimination Among Migrants in Germany: Does Social Capital Moderate Harmful Effects on Mental Health?

Background The harmful mental health effects of perceived discrimination for migrant populations are well established. The potential buffering effect of regional-level social capital, however, has not previously been explored. Methods Using data from the German Socio-Economic Panel (SOEP; 2009–2018) we apply multilevel models to assess the effect of frequent or infrequent perceived discrimination on ...

Soziodemografische Merkmale spielen für Einsamkeit eine maßgebliche Rolle: Interview mit Theresa Entringer

Poverty risk decreases - especially in eastern Germany and among single parents

Income Distribution: Signs of a Trend Reversal In the Poverty Risk; Single Parents Less Frequently at Risk of Poverty

Despite high inflation, the real gross hourly wages of employees grew by around 15 percent from 1995 to 2022. In particular, the lowest wage decile caught back up to all other deciles following a sharp drop in real wages. At the same time, the low-wage sector has shrunk by nearly five percentage points since 2007, and by even more in the east of Germany (14 percent). In 2022, 18.5 percent of employees ...

Einkommen in Deutschland: Niedriglohnsektor schrumpft, Armutsrisikoquote sinkt

Löhne sind mit Inflation 2022 insgesamt real gefallen, nicht aber in der untersten Lohngruppe – Niedriglohnsektor schrumpft weiterhin, insbesondere in Ostdeutschland – Haushaltseinkommen steigen in der langen Frist deutlich, stagnieren aber in untersten Einkommensgruppen – Armutsrisikoquote sinkt dennoch, insbesondere in Ostdeutschland, bei Kindern und Jugendlichen sowie Alleinerziehenden Mit der ...

Einkommensverteilung: Anzeichen für Trendbruch beim Armutsrisiko – Alleinerziehende seltener von Armut bedroht

Die Bruttostundenlöhne von abhängig Beschaftigten sind im Zeitraum 1995 bis 2022 trotz zuletzt hoher Inflation real um rund 15 Prozent gestiegen. Vor allem das unterste Lohndezil holte nach zwischenzeitlich starken Reallohnverlusten wieder gegenüber allen anderen Dezilen auf. Parallel dazu ging der Niedriglohnsektor seit 2007 um knapp fünf Prozentpunkte zuruck, in Ostdeutschland sogar um 14 Prozentpunkte. ...