SOEP Research: Survey Methodology and Data Science

SOEP User Conference 2026 - Call for Papers

The call for papers for the 16th International German Socio-Economic Panel User Conference is online. SOEP 2026 will take place from July 8-9, 2026, in Berlin, and researchers from all disciplines are invited to submit an abstract. We particularly welcome contributions addressing meta-science, robustness, replicability, reproducibility, and open science. This includes, but is not limited to, studies ...

Dealing with Censored Earnings in Register Data

Earnings are often top-coded (right-censored) in administrative registers. The censoring threshold in the case of Germany is the limit value for social security contributions, leading to a substantial fraction of censoring: For example, about 12%of male workers inWest Germany are affected, rising to above 30% for highly educated prime-aged workers. This missing right tail of the earnings distribution ...

SOEP Annual Report 2024

Conducting Respondent-Driven Sampling with Ethnic Minority Populations: The State of the Field

Ethnic minorities are often underrepresented in survey research, due to the challenges many researchers face in including these populations. Respondent-driven sampling (RDS) was developed in the late 1990s in order to investigate populations otherwise “hidden” from researchers due to a lack of extant sampling frames. RDS relies on individuals who recruit their fellow population members, allowing samples ...

Validating an Index of Selection Bias for Proportions in Non-probability Samples

Fast online surveys without sampling frames are becoming increasingly important in survey research. Their recruitment methods result in non-probability samples. As the mechanism of data generation is always unknown in such samples, the problem of non-ignorability arises making vgeneralisation of calculated statistics to the population of interest highly questionable. Sensitivity analyses provide a ...

Post-Migration Stress Mediates Associations Between Potentially Traumatic Peri-Migration Experiences and Mental Health Among Middle Eastern Refugees in Germany

Background On their way to host countries, refugees are often exposed to severe adversity, including cumulative experiences of fraud, extortion, robbery, detention, and shipwrecks, as well as prolonged, life-threatening small boat crossings. However, little research has examined the long-term impact of such peri-migration stressors on subsequent stress and mental health after arrival. This study explored ...

Effects of Changing the Incentive Strategy on Panel Performance: Experimental Evidence From a Probability-Based Online Panel of Refugees

This study investigated how changing the mode of incentive administration between two panel waves, spaced six months apart, affected longitudinal survey response. A split-ballot incentive experiment was used to compare shifting from an unconditional pre-paid incentive mode in the first wave to a conditional post-paid mode in the second wave, versus consistently using a conditional post-paid mode across ...

The Beyondpareto Command for Optimal Extreme-Value Index Estimation

In this article, we introduce the command beyondpareto, which estimates the extreme-value index for distributions that are Pareto-like, that is, whose upper tails are regularly varying and eventually become Pareto. The estimation is based on rank-size regressions, and the threshold value for the upper-order statistics included in the final regression is determined optimally by minimizing the asymptotic ...

Introduction to Lab²: A MetaLab for Better Science

The replicability crisis highlights the need for more transparent and robust research practices. Lab² (Lab-Square) is a collaborative initiative using meta-scientific approaches to improve research credibility. Through large-scale projects like Many-Labs, Many-Designs, and Many-Analysts, we assess the generalizability of findings across populations, methods, and analytical approaches. Lab² also...

Regional Decline, Satisfaction with Democracy and Support for Right-Wing Populist Parties. Evidence from Germany (with Larissa Deppisch)

A consistent finding in research on the success of right-wing populist parties is that they gain support in regions that are peripheralized. In such regions, the decline of manufacturing jobs, public services, and infrastructure is thought to lead to growing frustration with democratic institutions and mainstream political parties, providing opportunities for right-wing populist parties to...