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Is It the Family or the Neighborhood? Evidence from Sibling and Neighbor Correlations in Youth Education and Health

In this paper we present sibling and neighbor correlations in school grades and cognitive skills as well as indicators of physical and mental health for a sample of German adolescents. In a first step, we estimate sibling correlations and find substantial influence of shared family and community background on all outcomes. To further disentangle the influence of family background and neighborhood, ...

Who Dares, Wins? A Sibling Analysis of Tertiary Education Transition in Germany

Past studies have found that parental background has a considerable impact on educational decisions. Our knowledge is, however, still limited regarding educational transitions later in life, such as into tertiary education. Is parental background a predominant factor in this relatively late educational decision, or do individual talent and determination have an impact of their own? We address this ...

Childcare Trends in Germany: Increasing Socio-Economic Disparities in East and West

In East Germany, prior to reunification, daycare provision was widely available to encourage mothers to return to work soon after giving birth. Conversely, in West Germany, childcare facilities for under-threes were few and far between and, at the end of the ’80s/ beginning of the ’90s, the length of parental leave was gradually extended up to three years following the birth of a child. Since 2005, ...

Familienbezogene Infrastruktur

The Earnings Returns to Graduating with Honors: Evidence from Law Graduates

This paper studies the causal effects of graduating from university with an honors degree on subsequent earnings. While a rich body of literature has focused on estimating returns to human capital, few studies have analyzed returns at the very top of the education distribution. We highlight the importance of honors degrees for future labor market success in the context of German law graduates. Using ...

Culture, Spatial Diffusion of Ideas and Their Long-Lasting Imprints: Evidence from Froebel's Kindergarten Movement

We document the spatial diffusion of Friedrich Froebel’s radical invention of kindergartens in 19th-century Germany. The first kindergarten was founded at Froebel’s birthplace. Early spatial diffusion can be explained by cultural proximity, measured by historical dialect similarity, to Froebel’s birthplace. This result is robust to the inclusion of higher order polynomials in geographic distance and ...

Unterhaltsansprüche und deren Wirklichkeit: wie groß ist das Problem nicht gezahlten Kindesunterhalts?

Nach der Auflösung einer Partnerschaft bestehen die finanziellen Verflechtungen der ehemaligen Partner meist noch weiter. Dies gilt umso mehr, wenn aus der Partnerschaft Kinder hervor gegangen sind. Dem Kindesunterhalt kommt eine besondere Rolle zu. Trotz seiner sozial- und familienpolitischen Bedeutung liegen bis heute kaum Erkenntnisse hinsichtlich der empirischen Relevanz des Kindesunterhaltes vor. ...

The German Part-Time Wage Gap: Bad News for Men

Despite the increasing incidence of part-time employment in Germany, the effects on wage rates are studied rarely. I therefore use SOEP panel data from 1984 to 2010 and apply different econometric approaches and definitions of part-time work to measure the socalled part-time wage gap of both, men and women in East and West Germany. A very robust finding is that part-time working men are subject to ...

Familienpolitische Maßnahmen in Deutschland - Evaluationen und Bewertungen: Editorial

Schnittstellenprobleme in Familienpolitik und Familienrecht

Maßnahmen der Familienpolitik verteilen sich über unterschiedliche Rechtsgebiete, insbesondere das Steuer-, Sozial- und Unterhaltsrecht. Das historisch gewachsene Gefüge dieser Maßnahmen weist zahlreiche Schnittstellen zwischen Einzelregelungen auf, die nur selten bewusst gestaltet sind, für das Zusammenwirken in Familien verschiedenen Typs aber von großer Bedeutung sein können. Der Beitrag gibt einen ...