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Real Income Rose Significantly between 1991 and 2014 on Average – First Indication of Return to Increased Income Inequality

The real disposable income of private households in Germany, accounting for inflation, rose by 12 percent between 1991 and 2014. This is what the present study based on data from the Socio-Economic Panel (SOEP) has shown. However, the trends varied greatly depending on income group. While the middle income segment rose by more than eight percent, the highest income segment increased by up to 26 percent. ...

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 migration and xenophobia last year than in 2013. The additional representative results of the Barometer of Public Opinion on Refugees in Germany in 2016 and ...

Study Shows High Enrollment in Daycare and School among Refugee Children, but the Possible Need for More Daycare for Children under Three and More Language Support for School-Aged Children

For refugee children, daycare or elementary school can play an important role in integration into German society. In the context of the arrival of more than 890,000 refugees in Germany in 2015 alone, this study focuses on daycare and school attendance among refugee children up to the age of 12. It is based on data from the IAB-BAMF-SOEP Survey of Refugees, a representative study of more than 4,500 ...

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 bisexual people in Germany. The careers they pursue, for example, differ from those of heterosexuals. Hourly wages are an area of significant disparity: ...

Editorial

Labor Market and Distributional Effects of an Increase in the Retirement Age

We evaluate the labor market and distributional effects of an increase in the early retirement age (ERA) from 60 to 63 for women. We use a regression discontinuity design which exploits the immediate increase in the ERA between women born in 1951 and 1952. The analysis is based on the German micro census which includes about 370,000 households per year. We focus on heterogeneous labor market effects ...

Inequality-Minimization with a Given Public Budget

We solve the problem of a social planner who seeks to minimize inequality via transfers with a fixed public budget in a distribution of exogenously given incomes. The appropriate solution method depends on the objective function: If it is convex, it can be solved by an interior-point algorithm. If it is quasiconvex, the bisection method can be used. Using artificial and real-world data, we implement ...

Distributional Effects of Subsidizing Retirement Savings Accounts: Evidence from Germany

We empirically investigate the distributional consequences of the Riester scheme, the main private pension subsidization program in Germany. We find that 38% of the aggregate subsidy accrues to the top two deciles of the income distribution, but only 7.3% to the bottom two. Nonetheless the Riester scheme is almost distributionally neutral in terms of standard inequality measures. Two effects offset ...

Labor Supply Effects of Long-Term Care Reform in Germany

Many informal caregivers are of working age, facing the double burden of providing care and working. Negative labor supply effects can severely reduce the comparative cost advantage of informal over formal care arrangements. When designing long‐term care (LTC) policies, it is crucial to understand the effects not only on health outcomes but also on labor supply behavior of informal caregivers. We evaluate ...

Maximilian Bach wins BeNA Innovation Research Award 2018

Maximilian Bach, a DIW PhD candidate and Research Associate at the Education and Family Department, has received the BeNA Innovation Research Award 2018. The prize was awarded for his current paper "Teacher Incentives and Grade Retention" at this year's  BeNA Labor Economics Workshop on May 14. The GC congratulates Max on his success!