SOEP Research: Survey Methodology and Data Science

SOEPcampus@DIW Berlin: In-person workshop on November 17-18, 2025

On November 17 and 18, 2025 we are organizing a two-day in-person workshop on the Socio-Economic Panel (SOEP) at DIW Berlin. In addition to presentations on the study itself, its data structure, sampling design, and weighting strategy, hands-on sessions will offer a practical approach to the data and its potential. The workshop is aimed at researchers of all qualification levels who want to work ...

Register now for the online workshop series SOEPcampus: Learn to use the SOEP over lunch

In Nov/Dec 2025 our online over lunch seminar series returns with one last workshop this year. The workshop provides a comprehensive, practical introduction to the data of the Socio-economic Panel (SOEP) on three Wednesdays during lunchtime. Participants will learn about the study's content, data structure, sample selection, and weighting strategy, along with an overview of the study documentation. To ...

Does Cognitive Reflection Relate to Preferences and Socioeconomic Outcomes?

Previous studies report associations of cognitive reflection, the ability to avoid intuitive but potentially wrong decisions by switching to a contemplative mindset, with individual preferences, mostly relying on student samples and laboratory settings. We assess the association of cognitive reflection with preferences in the general population and real-world socioeconomic outcomes. Our preregistered ...

Introduction to systematic and scoping literature reviews

The Power of Stereotypes and how they influence labour market outcomes (with Susanne Veit and Johanna Hildebrandt)

In this paper, we draw on two key models of stereotyping, the Stereotype Content Model (SCM) and the Agency-Beliefs-Communion (ABC) to study whether stereotypes associated to ethnic minorities predict discrimination in hiring in the German labor market. In study 1, we examined the content of the stereotypes that Germans ascribe to 38 ethnic minorities, drawing on a large-scale online survey (N=2,3...

Exploring Integration and Migration Dynamics: The Research Potentials of a Large-Scale Longitudinal Household Study of Refugees in Germany

Education Bias in Probability-Based Surveys in Germany: Evidence and Possible Solutions

This paper outlines two studies on education bias in German probability-based surveys. Study 1 reviews data from 67 surveys across 19 survey programs conducted in Germany from 2000 to 2023. We found a consistent underrepresentation of individuals with a low level of formal education. We also found that the transition to self-administered modes due to rising survey costs may exacerbate this bias in ...

SOEPcampus@DIW Berlin 2025

On November 17 and 18, 2025, we are organizing a two-day workshop on the Socio-Economic Panel (SOEP) at DIW Berlin. In addition to presentations on the composition, data structure, sampling design, and weighting strategy, hands-on sessions will offer a practical approach to the data and its potential. The workshop is aimed at researchers at all qualification levels who want to work with SOEP data...

Learn to use the SOEP over lunch

The German Socio-Economic Panel Study is a representative panel study for the German population, collecting data on a broad variety of topics of everyday life, including general well-being, household composition, educational aspirations and educational status, income and occupational biographies, leisure time activities, housing, health, political orientation and more. With its long running panel...

Composition of Core Modules and Item Allocation in Split Questionnaire Designs: Impact on Estimates from Imputed Data

An increasing number of social science surveys use split questionnaire designs to reduce questionnaire length, presenting only a subset of several questionnaire modules to each respondent while leaving out others. This approach results in large amounts of planned missing data that necessitates imputation. Research shows that imputation is most effective when each module covers various topics. Yet, ...