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SOEPpapers 494 / 2012
Human capital theory predicts pecuniary returns to regional migration, but also positive self-selection of migrants. Therefore, when estimating the causal effect of migration one has to take care of potential self-selection. Several authors recommend using fixed effects models thereby controlling for time constant unobserved heterogeneity. However, if selection operates not only on wage level but also ...
2012| Fabian Kratz, Josef Brüderl
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SOEPpapers 493 / 2012
This paper investigates gender differences in the spatial mobility of young adults when initially leaving their parental home. Using individual data from 11 waves (2000-2010) of the SOEP, we examine whether female home leavers in East Germany move across greater distances than males and whether these differences are explained by the gender gap in education. Our results reveal that female home leavers ...
2012| Ferdinand Geissler, Thomas Leopold, Sebastian Pink
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SOEPpapers 492 / 2012
There are strong two-way links between parent and child happiness (life satisfaction), even for 'children' who have grown up, moved to their own home and partnered themselves. German panel evidence shows that transmission of (un)happiness from parents to children is partly due to transmission of values and behaviors known to be associated with happiness (Headey, Wagner and Muffels, 2010, 2012). These ...
2012| Bruce Headey, Ruud Muffels, Gert G. Wagner
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SOEPpapers 491 / 2012
Background: This study investigates possible mechanisms that can explain the association between unemployment and smoking, that is a) unemployment increases smoking probability (causation), b) smoking increases the probability to become unemployed (selection), and c) differences in both smoking and unemployment probabilities trace back to differences in socio-economic position (common cause). Methods: ...
2012| Reinhard Schunck, Benedikt G. Rogge
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SOEPpapers 490 / 2012
The paper provides new evidence on the outmigration of foreign-born immigrants. We make use of data from the German Socio-Economic Panel and employ penalised spline smoothing in the context of a Poisson-type Generalised Additive Mixed Model (GAMM), which enables us to incorporate bivariate interaction effects. A unique feature is the use of data from dropout studies to identify outmigration. For Turkish ...
2012| Torben Kuhlenkasper, Max Friedrich Steinhardt
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SOEPpapers 489 / 2012
After describing qualitatively the increasingly flexible organization of work hours in Germany, I turn to the German Socio-Economic Panel to quantify practices and trends, and assess their effects on workers and employers. Measuring flexibility as the extent to which overtime is compensated with time off, and hence receives no overtime premium, I show that hourly{paid workers have undergone a regime ...
2012| Jennifer Hunt
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SOEPpapers 488 / 2012
Studies on health effects of unemployment usually neglect spillover effects on spouses. This study specifically investigates the effect of an individual's unemployment on the mental health of their spouse. In order to allow for causal interpretation of the estimates, it focuses on an exogenous entry into unemployment (i.e. plant closure), and combines difference-in-difference and matching based on ...
2012| Jan Marcus
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SOEPpapers 487 / 2012
The reasons why the lower educated divorce more than the higher educated in many societies today are poorly understood. Distinct divorce risks by education could be caused by variation in pressures to the couple, commitment, or relationship skills. We concentrate on the latter explanation by looking at the distribution of personality traits across society and its impact on the educational gradient ...
2012| Diederik Boertien, Christian von Scheve, Mona Park
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SOEPpapers 486 / 2012
The Socio-Economic Panel (SOEP) accounts more workers who are employed in temporary work as the official statistic of labor contractor transfer / temporary work (ANÜSTAT) for the years 2001 to 2010. In this paper, the question is examined what causes can have such a difference and the impact a selection of employees in temporary work has with regard to the structural characteristics of employment ...
2012| Michael Schlese
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SOEPpapers 485 / 2012
Little is known so far about on-call duty such as work on demand or standby service. Both types of flexible working time arrangements have in common that employees are called for work during their leisure time. Periods of regeneration will be interrupted and may cause stress. Using data of the SOEP pretest 2011 we can show for the first time the prevalenceof on-call duty in Germany. By means of Siegrist's ...
2012| Mandy Schult, Verena Tobsch
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SOEPpapers 484 / 2012
Using data from three European countries, this paper investigates whether self-reported satisfaction data are subject to panel conditioning or a panel effect, that is, whether answers depend on whether one has previously participated in the panel. The analysis proposes a way to account for panel attrition in cases where the attrition rate is substantial, and finds international evidence for a negative ...
2012| Bert Van Landeghem
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SOEPpapers 483 / 2012
Given shortages in public child care in Germany, this paper asks whether social support with child care and domestic work by spouses, kin and friends can facilitate mothers' return to full-time or part-time positions within the first six years after birth. Using SOEP data from 1993-2009 and event history analyses for competing risks, the author compares the employment transitions of West German, East ...
2012| Mareike Wagner
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SOEPpapers 482 / 2012
We assess the relevance of formal education for the productivity of the self-employed and distinguish between opportunity entrepreneurs, who voluntarily pursue a business opportunity, and necessity entrepreneurs, who lack alternative employment options. We expect differences in the returns to education between these groups because of different levels of control. We use the German Socio-economic Panel ...
2012| Frank M. Fossen, Tobias J. M. Büttner
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SOEPpapers 481 / 2012
We investigate the accuracy of ex ante assessments of vulnerability to income poverty using cross-sectional data and panel data. We use long-term panel data from Germany and apply di erent regression models, based on household covariates and previous-year equivalence income, to classify a household as vulnerable or not. Predictive performance is assessed using the Receiver Operating Characteristics ...
2012| Katja Landau, Stephan Klasen, Walter Zucchini
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SOEPpapers 480 / 2012
This paper considers the e effcts of a two-period interaction on the decision of a principal to delegate authority to a potentially biased but better informed agent. Compared to the (repeated) one-period case, the agent's first period actions may also signal his type which in turn impacts wages in Period 2. As a result, biased agents have an incentive not to follow their own preferences in Period ...
2012| Miriam Schütte, Philipp C. Wichardt
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SOEPpapers 479 / 2012
Using a rich panel data set, I estimate wage assimilation patterns for immigrants in Germany as an example of a key European destination country. This study contributes to the literature by performing separate estimations by skill groups. Comparisons with similar natives reveal that immigrants' experience earnings profiles are flatter on average, although clear differences exist between skill groups. ...
2012| Michael Zibrowius
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SOEPpapers 478 / 2012
This study analyses the effects of training participation on wages and perceived job security for employees of different ages. Based on data from the German Socio-Economic Panel, results indicate that only younger workers benefit from training by an increase in wages, whereas older employees' worries about losing their job are reduced. This observation can also be explained by the fact that goals of ...
2012| Julia Lang
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SOEPpapers 477 / 2012
This paper addresses the question to which extent the complementarity between education and training can be attributed to differences in observable characteristics, i.e. to individual, job and firm specific characteristics. The novelty of this paper is to analyze previously unconsidered characteristics, in particular, personality traits and tasks performed at work which are taken into account in addition ...
2012| Katja Görlitz, Marcus Tamm
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SOEPpapers 476 / 2012
Performance pay is of growing importance to the wage structure as it applies to a rising share of employees. At the same time wage dispersion is growing continuously. This leads to the question of how the growing use of performance pay schemes is related to the increase in wage inequality? German SOEP data for the years 1984 to 2009 confirm the large increase in the application of performance pay schemes. ...
2012| Katrin Sommerfeld
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SOEPpapers 475 / 2012
Advice is important for decision making, especially in the financial sector. We investigate how individuals assess risk preferences of others given sociodemographic information or pictures. Both non-professionals and financial professionals participate in this artefactual field experiment. Subjects mainly rely on the other's self-assessment of risk preferences and on gender when forming the belief ...
2012| Andrea Leuermann, Benjamin Roth