Forschung SOEP: Survey-Methodologie und Data Science

Toward an Integrated Crisis Data Infrastructure in Germany: Linking the Socio-Economic Panel with Administrative Health Records

This paper examines the gaps in Germany’s data infrastructure for responding to crises, as revealed during COVID-19, and argues that linking the Socio-Economic Panel (SOEP) with administrative health records would strengthen the country’s ability to generate equity-sensitive evidence during future health-related crises. Drawing on evidence from the RKI-SOEP study, we illustrate the added value of combining ...

Großer Erfolg für das SOEP: Wissenschaftsrat bewertet Erweiterungsvorhaben als exzellent

Es ist ein bemerkenswerter Erfolg für das Sozio-oekonomische Panel: Der Wissenschaftsrat bewertet das beantragte große strategische Erweiterungsvorhaben als „exzellent“. In der Gesamtbewertung aller Anträge von Leibniz-Instituten liegt das SOEP auf Platz 1. In seiner Stellungnahme vom 3. Juli 2026 gibt der Wissenschaftsrat dem SOEP für alle drei Kriterien die Note „exzellent“: 1) die wissenschaftliche ...

Comparing Panel Retention among Ukrainian and Other Refugees in a German Probability-Based Panel: Evidence from a Decomposition Analysis

Despite the rise in global refugee migration, probability panels surveying refugees remain rare. The German IAB-BAMF-SOEP Survey of Refugees, conducted annually since 2016, provides valuable panel data for research. In 2023, following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, a sample of Ukrainian refugees was added, along with a refreshment sample of refugees from other countries. This paper examines household-, ...

Diffusion of Cumulative Advantage? How Wealth and Health Trajectories Co-Evolve Across the Life Course among Older Adults

Objectives Cumulative advantage is a central concept in life course research. Prior research has primarily focused on one outcome domain, overlooking the possibility that cumulative advantage could extend into other domains–what we refer to as diffusion of cumulative advantage. We build on and extend cumulative inequality theory to conceptualize diffusion and apply it to wealth and health, two domains ...

Introducing Open Data Format: A Platform-Independent, Non-Proprietary, Metadata-Enriched, Multilingual Data Format for Tabular Data

This paper introduces the Open Data Format (ODF), a non-proprietary, metadata-enriched, and zipcompressed data format for tabular data alongside statistical software packages. It embeds structured, multilingual metadata directly within the data file, using the well-established DDI-Codebook standard (DDI Alliance, 2014), and enables access to both data and documentation within common statistical environments. ...

Historical Changes in Control Belief Trajectories

The present research examines whether and how well-documented historical changes in resource availability, social embedding, technology, and social norms also manifest in control beliefs—a key psychological marker of individual health and well-being. Drawing on longitudinal data from five waves of the German Socio-Economic Panel (N = 42,158) spanning over 20 years, we analyzed control belief trajectories ...

Does Having Daughters Affect Political Preferences? Using Meta-Analytic Tools on Many Surveys

This study investigates whether having daughters impacts political preferences and whether this effect varies across European countries. We estimate effect sizes for 39 countries in the European Social Survey (n = 156,236) and aggregate estimates using random-effects meta-analysis, following a preregistered analysis plan. We find significant evidence that having daughters increases the preference for ...

SOEP Annual Report 2025

Measuring Ambiguity Attitudes Reliably in Surveys

This seminar introduces ambiguity, explains why it matters in economics, and discusses how ambiguity attitudes are typically measured in empirical research. Ambiguity plays an important role in decision-making, as most situations in life involve unknown outcomes or probabilities. However, people’s attitudes toward ambiguity are hard to measure precisely, as standard measures based on incentivized...

Zuverlässige Erfassung der Einstellung gegenüber Mehrdeutigkeit in Umfragen

Der englische Originaltitel des Seminars lautet: “Measuring Ambiguity Attitudes Reliably in Surveys”. Die Präsentation findet auf Englisch statt. Eine kurze Zusammenfassung zum Vortrag ist nur auf der englischen Veranstaltungsseite verfügbar!