SOEP Research: Inequality and Mobility

Pension Wealth and the Gender Wealth Gap

We examine the gender wealth gap with a focus on pension wealth and statutory pension rights. By taking into account employment characteristics of women and men, we are able to identify the extent to which the redistributive effect of pension rights reduces the gender wealth gap. The data for our analysis come from the German Socio-Economic Panel (SOEP), one of the few surveys that collects information ...

Income-Dependent Equivalence Scales and Choice Theory: Implications for Poverty Measurement

Income-Dependent Equivalence Scales and Choice Theory: Implications for Poverty MeasurementEquivalence Scales are a tool for removing the heterogeneity of household sizes in the measurement of inequality, and affect poverty assessments and poverty lines. We address the disadvantage that poor households may suffer due to their reduced ability to share goods within the household. This disadvantage is ...

The Role of Different School Organizational Models in the Psychological Adaptation of Refugee Adolescents

Given the high number of refugee children and adolescents around the globe, it is critical to determine conditions that foster their adaptation in the receiving country. This study investigated the psychological adaptation of recently arrived adolescent refugees in Germany. We focused on whether psychological adaptation reflects the organizational approach taken by the school that refugee adolescents ...

Income-Dependent Equivalence Scales and Choice Theory: Implications for Poverty Measurement

Equivalence Scales are a tool for removing the heterogeneity of household sizes in the measurement of inequality, and affect poverty assessments and poverty lines. We address the disadvantage that poor households may suffer due to their reduced ability to share goods within the household. This disadvantage is important to estimate and embed in standard analysis, as it seems to have a substantial quantitative ...

Who Opts Out? The Customisation of Marriage in the German Matrimonial Property Regime

This study examines the prevalence of marital contracts across marriage cohorts (1990–2019) in Germany. We further investigate the characteristics of spouses who signed a marital contract. Using cross-sectional data from the German Family Panel (pairfam, 2018/19), we employ complementary log–log and multinomial logistic regression models to predict the prevalence and the type of marital contracts. ...

From Hartz IV to Bürgergeld: Reform Preferences of the Long-Term Unemployed

The German government is planning to reform Hartz IV by replacing it with a simpler and more accessible system known as Bürgergeld. Using a random-based survey of eight job centers in North Rhine-Westphalia, this Weekly Report considers the perspectives of the long-term unemployed: What do they think about the reforms? How do they perceive their situation? What are their daily lives like? The findings ...

Europe’s biggest Basic Income pilot project. The Catalan case.

After the economic impact of the COVID-19 crisis, Catalonia is set to be the place of the most ambitious Universal Basic Income (UBI) pilot experiment in Europe to date. Up to 5,000 participants will be selected to receive for two years (2023-2024) an individual cash benefit of 800 EUR (300 EUR for minors), unconditionally. The Catalan pilot project will also test the...

Disparities in Labour Market and IncomeTrends during the First Year of the COVID-19 Crisis: Evidence from Germany

Women Increasingly Identifying as Part of a Discriminated Group

Policymakers have been attempting to combat discrimination at all levels for a long time. However, the measures they take can only be successful if there is general awareness of the discrimination experienced by certain groups or people: Discrimination can only be addressed when people also recognize and acknowledge it is happening. Therefore, it is important to measure the extent to which the population ...

Foreign Accents in the Early Hiring Process: A Field Experiment on Accent-Related Ethnic Discrimination in Germany

Based on a field experiment conducted in Germany between October 2014 and October 2015, this article focuses on the disadvantages associated with the presence of a foreign accent in the early hiring process, when applicants call in response to a job advertisement to ask whether the position is still available. We examine whether a foreign accent influences employers’ behaviors via productivity considerations ...