Die Lebenslagen im zeitlichen und räumlichen Vergleich - Zur methodischen Weiterentwicklung des Lebenslagenansatzes auf Basis der Daten des Sozio-ökonomischen Panels 1992 bis 2005 (Dissertation)

Abstract

The dissertation focuses on the methodological enhancements of the Konzept der Lebenslage (concept of living conditions). This concept is special for its attempt on including traditional status variables like education, occupation and income as well as social and health-related items and also subjective indicators. The aim was to build a model to represent social and living conditions in an all-embracing way on the empirical bases of factoranalytical outcomes. The used data base was the German socio-economic panel for the years 1992 to 2005. The added value of this approach is first constructing a deprivation index whose operationalization is based on empirical results instead of heuristic decisions and second having an instrument to describe deprived living conditions both in a user-friendly and sophisticated way as the score is related to statistical procedures. Further more the usage of factoranalysis resolves certain methodological problems like additional effects and autocorrelation that are commonly accepted in index building. By developing a special standardisation the index has a range between -1 and +1, but the relative positions of the values are unmodified. Additional to the deprivation index several sub-indices are constructed – also on the base of factoranalytical findings – to built up developments and changes in important areas of life like health, housing, social networks and integration, income, education and occupation. The developed deprivation index is correlated to other status indexes by coefficients up to 0,6, so it can be seen as a valid instrument to reflect social and living conditions. Besides the external validation the index has been examined for its capability and utility by applying in different longitudinal and area-based analysis. There it could be shown that living conditions have slightly improved since 1992, but that certain groups are privileged like men, people in middle-age and home country nationals. It was also observable that living conditions vary a lot between different regions in Germany. As the eastern part of Germany notes many deficits in such important areas of life like housing, occupation and income it can be stated that almost two decades after the “Wende” the process of unification is still not finished.