Germany

DIW Weekly Report 25 / 2019

Gender Pension Gaps in Europe Are More Explicitly Associated with Labor Markets than with Pension Systems

In many European countries, there is a substantial gender pension gap. Yet, these gaps vary strongly across countries. This cross-national study examines to what extent institutional and labor market-specific factors correlate with gender pension ...

DIW Weekly Report 28/29 / 2019

Minimum Wage: Many Entitled Employees in Germany Still Do Not Receive It

There has been a universal statutory minimum wage in Germany for a good four years, but many employees still do not receive it. This is the finding of new calculations based on the Socio-Economic Panel (SOEP), which have updated noncompliance with ..

Weekly Report

The Low-Wage Sector in Germany Is Larger Than Previously Assumed

by  Markus M. Grabka and Carsten Schröder The total number of dependent employees in Germany has increased by more than four million since the financial crisis. Part of this growth took place in the low-wage sector. Analyses based on data from the Socio-Economic Panel, which in 2017 for the first time include detailed information on secondary employment, show that there were around nine

DIW Weekly Report 4/5/6 / 2019

Language Skills and Employment Rate of Refugees in Germany Improving with Time

Asylum seekers migrating to Germany remains a hotly debated topic. The second wave of a longitudinal survey of refugees shows that their integration has progressed significantly, even though some refugees came to Germany in poor health and with ...

Weekly Report

Women on high-level boards of banks and insurance companies: growth coming to a standstill on supervisory boards

By Elke Holst and Katharina Wrohlich The proportion of women on executive boards of the 100 largest banks stagnated at almost nine percent in 2018. In the 60 largest insurance companies, the proportion increased by a good percentage point to almost ten percent. While growth on executive boards has been weakening in past years, it is now slowing down on supervisory boards in the financial sector .

Weekly Report

In Germany, Younger, Better Educated Persons, and Lower Income Groups Are More Likely to Be in Favor of Unconditional Basic Income

by  Jule Adriaans, Stefan Liebig and Juergen Schupp Representative survey results have shown a stable approval rate for implementing unconditional basic income of between 45 and 52 percent in Germany since 2016/17. In European comparison, this approval rate is low. Younger, better educated persons, and those at risk of poverty support the concept of unconditional basic income in Germany. But

Weekly Report

Strong Correlation between Large Gender Pay Gaps and Non-Linear Pay in Certain Occupations

by Aline Zucco The gender pay gap of 21 percent in Germany is partly due to the fact that men and women work in different occupations. However, considerable pay gaps between men and women can also be observed within occupations, although the gap is not constant across occupations. In particular, there is a substantial gender pay gap in occupations with non-linear earnings, i.e. earnings increase

Research Project

Labor Market and Welfare Effects of Family Policy – A Microsimulation Study für Germany 

Press Release

Immigration from other EU countries has increased Germany’s economic growth since 2011

Since 2011, over five million immigrants from other EU countries have immigrated to Germany – A DIW Berlin simulation shows that this immigration has increased GDP growth by an average of 0.2 percentage points every year – More needs to be done to improve employment opportunities for the highly qualified, for example by simplifying the procedures for recognizing foreign qualifications

DIW Weekly Report 42 / 2018

Refugees in Germany with Children Still Living Abroad Have Lowest Life Satisfaction

Family strongly influences personal well-being—especially in the case of refugees, whose family members often remain in their homeland. This report is the first to closely examine the well-being and family structures of refugees who came to Germany .

Press Release

AfD received more votes in the parliamentary election in rural areas with aging populations

DIW Berlin study analyzes the correlation between the AfD's vote performance and different economic and sociodemographic variables at an electoral district level – The AfD performed well in western German electoral districts where there are many employees in the manufacturing industry and where incomes are low – In the eastern districts they performed better where there is a large ...

Research Project

Great Expectations? Germany's Recovery from the Great Depression, 1932-1936

DIW Weekly Report 13/14 / 2018

Household Consumption and Savings Rate Depend Strongly on Employment Status, Income, and Age

On what and to what extent private households in Germany spend money varies significantly depending on employment status, income, and age. As this study based on the most current official sample survey of income and expenditure from 2013 shows, ...

DIW Economic Bulletin 51/52 / 2017

Children from Migrant Backgrounds: Who Are Their Kita Peers?

In Germany, attendance in early childhood education and care (ECEC) centers has soared in the last twenty years, making them a key context in which children learn. For children from migrant backgrounds who speak a foreign language at home, ...

DIW Economic Bulletin 43 / 2017

Gender Pay Gap Varies Greatly by Occupation

The German labor market is characterized by marked occupational segregation between women and men. The median earnings in female dominated occupations are lower than those in male dominated professions. This is one of the reasons for the gender pay .

Press Release

New studies from DIW Berlin emphasize the importance of day care facilities quality for children's development

Children from families who do not speak German as their main language at home often attend childcare facilities with children in similar situations – Policies providing financial incentives for facilities with a minimum percentage of children from migrant backgrounds shouldn’t be encouraged – Separate study shows that quality is strongly influenced by children's social behavior

DIW Economic Bulletin 33/34/35 / 2017

Income, Social Support Networks, Life Satisfaction: Lesbians, Gays, and Bisexuals in Germany

Towards the very end of this legislative period, a cross-caucus parliamentary majority gave same-sex marriage the green light – progress for the legal equality of homosexuals in Germany. This report focuses on the life situations of homosexual and ..

DIW Economic Bulletin 33/34/35 / 2017

Increased Labor Market Participation Can't Do the Job of Mastering Germany's Demographic Change in the Future

In the last decade the available labor force has expanded in Germany—despite the decline in the working-age population. The reason: labor market participation has increased, for women in particular and older people in general. Also noticeable was a .

DIW Economic Bulletin 27 / 2017

Income Groups and Types of Employment in Germany since 1995

This report examines how income groups and forms of employment in Germany have changed in the past two decades. Since the mid-1990s, inequality in disposable household income in Germany has generally increased. This trend was in effect until 2005. ..

DIW Economic Bulletin 22/23 / 2017

The Gender Gap in Competitiveness: Women Shy away from Competing with Others, but Not from Competing with Themselves

Women are less willing than men to compete against others. This gender gap can partially explain the differences between women’s and men’s education and career choices, and the labor market disparities that result. The experiments presented here show

DIW Economic Bulletin 16/17 / 2017

In 2016, around One-Third of People in Germany Donated for Refugees and Ten Percent Helped out on Site—yet Concerns Are Mounting

The presence of refugees in Germany and the challenges their integration poses have preoccupied the public for the past two years. According to the latest data of the Socio-Economic Panel (SOEP), many more people in Germany were concerned about ...

Press Release

World Happiness Day: SOEP data show that life satisfaction of Eastern Germans is catching up

People across Germany are happier today than at any other point since German reunification According to a new analysis of data from the nationally representative, long-term Socio-Economic Panel (SOEP) study, people in both West and East Germany have been happier on average since 2015 than at any other point since German reunification (Figure 1). The substantial increase in life satisfaction from

DIW Weekly Report 37 / 2018

Inequality of Earnings in Germany Generally Accepted but Low Incomes Considered Unfair

Earnings differences are a recurring topic of public discussion in Germany. Data from the long-term Socio-Economic Panel (SOEP) study as well as a separate survey of German employees (LINOS) show that earnings inequalities are generally perceived as

DIW Weekly Report 34/35 / 2018

Differences in Full-Time Work Experience Explain almost a Quarter of the Gender Pay Gap in Management Positions

Women still earn less than men on average in Germany. This applies to management positions even more: between 2010 and 2016, there was an average gender pay gap of 30 percent in gross hourly earnings. If gender-specific differences in relevant wage .