Publications Based on SOEP Data: SOEPlit

Only the congruent survive – Personality similarities in couples

Numerous studies proved that people tend to select partners that are similar to them with regard to many social and psychological variables. Even though this effect was also found for personality, results are inconsistent and reveal convergence coefficients ranging from negative over zero- to positive correlations. The present study thus aims to investigate personality congruence between spouses and ...

Partnership Longevity and Personality Congruence in Couples

Evidence of assortative mating according to personality was reported in a previous SOEP-based study (Rammstedt & Schupp, 2008). Based on population representative data of almost 7000 couples, high levels of congruence between spouses were found, which increased with marriage duration. Almost 5000 of these couples were tracked over a five-year period with personality assessed at the beginning and ...

Partnership Formation in Young and Older Age

This article examines the prevalence of partnership formation at different life stages and analyses whether the determinants of partnership formation change over the life course. Data were obtained from the German Socio-Economic Panel for the years 1992 to 2014. Event history analyses were used to examine 13,871 periods of being single, of which 8,551 ended with the beginning of an intimate relationship. ...

The impacts of marriage, cohabitation and dating relationships on weekly self-reported physical activity in Germany: A 19-year longitudinal study

Despite the increasing number of non-marital romantic relationships in developed countries, little is known about their effects on health-related behaviors. This paper examined the impact of relationship status (single, dating, cohabiting or married) on physical activity. Three possible mechanisms underlying this association were discussed: social control and support by the partner, time restrictions ...

The Impact of the German Child Benefit on Child Well-Being

The German Child Benefit ("Kindergeld") is paid to legal guardians of children as a cash benefit. This study employs exogenous variations in the amount of child benefit received by households to investigate the extent to which these various changes have translated into an improvement in the circumstances of children related to their well-being. I use the German Socio-Economic Panel to estimate ...

Early Retirement at 63: Fair Compensation or Pension Giveaway?

After Easter, Germany's new labor and social affairs minister Andrea Nahles will be presenting the grand coalition's first major reform proposal for parliamentary debate: a bill to improve the benefits provided under the statutory pension system. A centerpiece of the reform package is early retirement on a full pension at 63 for those who have been paying into the state pension system for ...

Gender Pension Gap in Eastern and Western Germany

Now, 25 years after the fall of the Wall, eastern and western German men are receiving similar state pensions, a main pillar in the system of old age provision in Germany. In contrast, the average pension paid to eastern German women far exceeds that of their western German counterparts. A cohort comparison shows a narrowing of the gender gap when it comes to pension entitlements in eastern Germany. ...

Extending the Empirical Basis for Wealth Inequality Research Using Statistical Matching of Administrative and Survey Data

Social security entitlements are a substantial source of wealth that grows in importance over the individual’s lifecycle. Despite its quantitative relevance, social security wealth has been thus far omitted from wealth inequality analyses. In Germany, it is the lack of adequate micro data that accounts for this shortcoming. The two main contributions of this paper are: First, to elaborate a statistical ...

Statistical Matching of Administrative and Survey Data - An Application to Wealth Inequality Analysis

Using population representative survey data from the German Socio-Economic Panel (SOEP) and administrative pension records from the Statutory Pension Insurance, the authors compare four statistical matching techniques to complement survey information on net worth with social security wealth (SSW) information from the administrative records. The unique properties of the linked data allow for a straight ...

Best of Both Worlds - Preparatory Steps in Matching Survey Data with Administrative Pension Records. The Case of the German Socio-Economic Panel and the Scientific Use File Completed Insurance Biographies 2004