Publications Based on SOEP Data: SOEPlit

How important is cultural background for the level of intergenerational mobility?

Based on brother correlations in permanent earnings for different groups of second generation immigrants, the findings in this paper indicate that cultural background is not a major determinant of the level of intergenerational economic mobility.

Inter- and intragenerational economic mobility. Germany in international comparison (IAB Bibliothek, 332)

For a considerable time now, the lack of equality in wage incomes in Germany has been getting clearly worse. Hence it is all the more important to at least guarantee equal opportunities in our society. The level of income - both for social and economic reasons - should be dependent on individual performance and not on one's parents' status. But what shape is equality of opportunity in Germany ...

Low Level of Equal Opportunities in Germany: Family Background Shapes Individual Economic Success

For many years, securing equal life opportunities has been a normative goal shared by all democratic societies in the western world. Although, in principle, all citizens enjoy the same rights, in reality, individual life opportunities still vary according to family background which, in turn, shapes the prevailing pattern of social inequality. This is not a specifically German phenomenon. Based on a ...

How important is the family? Evidence from sibling correlations in permanent earnings in the US, Germany and Denmark

This paper is the first to analyze the impact of family background on permanent earnings based on sibling correlations in Germany and to provide a cross-country comparison of Germany, Denmark, and USA. The main findings are that family and community background has a stronger influence on permanent earnings in Germany than in Denmark, and a comparable influence is found in USA. This holds true for both ...

A new look at intergenerational mobility in Germany compared to the US

Motivated by contradictory evidence on intergenerational mobility in Germany, I present a cross-country comparison of Germany and the U.S., reassessing the question of whether intergenerational mobility is higher in Germany than in the U.S. I can reproduce the standard result from the literature, which states that the German intergenerational elasticity estimates are lower than those for the U.S. However, ...

The Relationship between Trust, Cognitive Skills, and Democracy: Evidence from 30 Countries around the World

Based on highly comparable data from the OECD PIAAC Programme, this note analyzes the relationship between generalized trust and cognitive skills among 30 countries around the world. The results show that the strength and direction of the relationship is not a universal characteristic but varies substantially among countries worldwide. A detailed descriptive analysis of this variation provides evidence ...

The effects of education and working hours on health: A multivariate probit approach

Local day care quality and maternal employment: Evidence from East and West Germany

By investigating how locally available early childhood education and care quality relates to maternal employment choices, this study extends the literature, which mostly has focused on the importance of day care availability or costs. The authors provide differentiated analyses by the youngest child's age and for West and East Germany to examine moderating influences, such as work-care cultures, ...

Childcare Trends in Germany: Increasing Socio-Economic Disparities in East and West

In East Germany, prior to reunification, day care provision was widely available to encourage mothers to return to work soon after giving birth. Conversely, in West Germany, child care facilities for the under-threes were few and far between and, at the end of the '80s/beginning of the '90s, the length of parental leave was gradually increased to up to three years following the birth of a ...

Expansion of Full-Day Childcare and Subjective Well-Being of Mothers: Interdependencies with Culture and Resources

This study investigates whether an expansion of state-subsidized full-day childcare may improve the subjective well-being of mothers of children under school age by acting as a boundary-spanning resource to facilitate the combination of employment and childcare responsibilities. It extends previous studies that showed contradictory results by demonstrating that the relationship with parental subjective ...