SOEPpapers

Intergenerational Transmission of Unemployment: Evidence for German Sons

This paper studies the association between the unemployment experience of fathers and their sons. Based on German survey data that cover the last decades we find significant positive correlations. Using instrumental variables estimation and the Gottschalk (1996) method we investigate to what extent fathers' unemployment is causal for offsprings' employment outcomes. In agreement with most of the small ...

Homemade Citizens: The Development of Political Interest during Adolescence and Young Adulthood

Despite being among the most important indicators of political participation, relatively little is known about the origins and the development of political interest over the life span. The formative years between childhood and adulthood are generally considered a crucial phase in which future electors form and strengthen political habits. The aim of this research is to better understand this important ...

The Micro-foundation of Party Competition and Issue Ownership: The Reciprocal Effects of Citizens' Issue Salience and Party Attachments

While previous research on the reciprocal effects of citizens’ issue attitudes and their party support emphasize citizens’ issue positions, political competition revolves equally around issue salience, i.e., debates over which issue areas political parties should prioritize. Using multi-wave panel data from Germany and Great Britain, we analyze the reciprocal effects of citizens’ issue salience and ...

Sickness Absence and Works Councils: Evidence from German Individual and Linked Employer-Employee Data

Using both household and linked employer-employee data for Germany, we assess the effects of non-union representation in the form of works councils on (1) individual sickness absence rates and (2) a subjective measure of personnel problems due to sickness absence as perceived by a firm's management. We find that the existence of a works council is positively correlated with the incidence and the annual ...

Why Has Inequality in Germany Not Risen Further after 2005?

In this paper we explore the reasons for the trend reversal in the development of household market income inequality in Germany in the second half of the 2000s. We analyse to what extent the increasing relevance of capital income as well as the rising share of atypically employed persons have affected the development of income inequality over the last two decades. We use household data from the German ...

A New Look at Intergenerational Mobility in Germany Compared to the US

Motivated by contradictory evidence on intergenerational mobility in Germany, I present a cross-country comparison of Germany and the US, reassessing the question of whether intergenerational mobility is higher in Germany than the US. I can reproduce the standard result from the literature, which states that the German intergenerational elasticity estimates are lower than those for the US. However, ...

An Empirical Model of Health Care Demand under Non-linear Pricing

In 2004, the German Social Health Insurance introduced a co-payment for the first doctor visit in a calendar quarter. I combine a structural model of health care demand and a difference-in-differences strategy to estimate the effect of that reform on the number of visits. In the model, the implied incentive to delay a first visit also affects subsequent visits, as the expected remaining time to the ...

On the Consistency of Personality Types Across Adulthood: Latent Profile Analysis in Two Large-Scale Panel Studies

Consistency and change in personality were analyzed by examining personality types across adulthood and old age using data from two nationally representative panel studies from Germany (N = 14,718; 16 – 82 years) and Australia (N = 8,315; 15 – 79 years). In both samples, the Big Five personality traits were measured twice across a period of 4 years. Latent profile analyses and latent profile transition ...

Occupation, Prestige, and Voluntary Work in Retirement: Empirical Evidence from Germany

The paper examines the extent to which the prestige value of a retiree’s former occupation increases the likelihood that they will make a transition into volunteering after retirement. Following social production function theory, we assume that when a person retires, the prestige value attached to their former occupation fades. The fact that volunteering has the character of a collective good provides ...

Does It Pay to Be a Woman? Labour Demand Effects of Maternity-Related Job Protection and Replacement Incomes

In countries with strong employment protection laws it is often considered to be unwise to hire a woman in childbearing age because she might get pregnant. However, such labour demand e ects of job protection measures related to maternity leave are often rather anecdotal. To provide analytical evidence, this paper studies the impact of changes in maternity-related job protection in Germany on employment ...

Two Steps Forward - One Step Back? Evaluating Contradicting Child Care Policies in Germany

We apply a structural model of mothers’ labor supply and child care choices to evaluate the effects of two childcare reforms in Germany that were introduced simultaneously in August 2013. First, a legal claim to subsidized child care became effective for all children aged one year or older. Second, a new benefit called ‘Betreuungsgeld’ came into effect that is granted to families who do not use public ...

Renteneintritt und Hausarbeit

This paper investigates how the retirement of one spouse affects the division of household labor in couples. Two streams of theory can be found explaining the division of household labor. The economic theories predict that the spouse – women or men - how earns less money on the labor market will have higher share of domestic labor. The value based theories explain the division of household labor with ...

Geschlechterarrangements und Ehestabilität in Ost- und Westdeutschland

Regional Structures and Mobility Dispositions: A Multilevel Proportional- & Partial-Proportional Odds Approach

In the light of persistent regional disparities in Germany, a wide range of studies discuss the role of regional characteristics in explaining the mobility behavior of individuals. Although multi-stage mobility theories underline the importance of regional structures particularly within the first stage of the decision-making process – whereas the actual mobility behavior is often seen as being dependent ...

40 Jahre Sozialberichterstattung und Lebensqualitätsforschung in Deutschland: Rückblick und Perspektiven

Personality Has Minor Effects on Panel Attrition

In light of the recent interest in using longitudinal panel data to study personality development, it is important to know if personality traits are related to panel attrition. We analyse the effects of personality on panel drop-out separately for an ‘older’ subsample (started in 1984), a relatively ‘young’ subsample (started in 2000), and a ‘new’ subsample (started in 2009) of the German Socio-Economic ...

The Effect of Local Crime on Well-Being: Evidence for Germany

This paper investigates the effect of local crime on well-being in Germany, using data from the German Socio-Economic Panel (SOEP) and a novel data set constructed from official police crime statistics, covering both counties and urban districts for the time period between 1994 and 2012. We find that local area crime has a significantly negative impact on life satisfaction, makes residents worry more ...

Beschäftigungsstruktur und Zufriedenheit von Zeitarbeitnehmern in Deutschland

Auf Basis von Daten des Deutschen Sozio-Ökonomischen Panels der Jahre 2001 bis 2012 untersuchen wir Determinanten einer Zeitarbeitsbeschäftigung sowie möglicher Erklärungsansätze für Unterschiede in der Arbeits- und Lebenszufriedenheit zwischen Arbeitnehmern in Zeitarbeit im Vergleich zu Normalbeschäftigten und zu arbeitslosen Personen. Unsere Ergebnisse zeigen, dass frühere Zeiten von Arbeitslosigkeit ...

A New Semiparametric Approach to Analysing Conditional Income Distributions

In this paper we explore the application of structured additive distributional regression for the analysis of conditional income distributions in Germany following the reunification. Using a bootstrapped Kolmogorov-Smirnov test we find that conditional personal income distributions can generally be modelled using the three parameter Dagum distribution. Additionally our results hint at an even more ...

Structural Labor Supply Models and Wage Exogeneity

There is still considerable dispute about the magnitude of labor supply elasticities. While differences in micro and macro estimates are recently attributed to frictions and adjustment costs, we show that relatively low labor supply elasticities derived from microeconometric models can also be explained by modeling assumptions with respect to wages. Specifically, we estimate 3,456 structural labor ...