Publications Based on SOEP Data: SOEPlit

Buffering income loss due to unemployment: Family and welfare state influences on income after job loss in the United States and western Germany

This article analyzes how the family and the welfare state influence household income trajectories after job loss in the United States and in western Germany. Drawing on panel data from the Panel Study of Income Dynamics (PSID) and the German Socio-Economic Panel (GSOEP), I study the income buffering effects of the family and the welfare state in the short an in the long run after job loss. I demonstrate ...

Job loss among rich and poor in the United States and Germany: Who loses more income?

This article compares household income losses after involuntary job loss between household income quintiles in the United States and Germany. I argue that income trajectories after job loss vary between social strata in country-specific ways because of differences in the labor market, the family and the welfare state. Using panel data from the Panel Study of Income Dynamics and the German Socio-Economic ...

Couples’ Strategies after Job Loss in West Germany and the United States – The Added Worker Effect and Linked Life Courses

In couple households, income losses due to men’s displacements may be offset by an increase in women’s earnings, the so called “Added Worker Effect” (AWE). I argue that previous research largely neglected the variation of the AWE due to intra-household characteristics. Following the idea of “linked life courses”, intra-household processes have an influence on the AWE and that this influence is structured ...

The Impact of Losing Your Job: Unemployment and Influences from Market, Family, and State on Economic Well-Being in the US and Germany

Losing a job has always been understood as one of the most important causes of downward social mobility in modern societies. And it’s only gotten worse in recent years, as the weakening position of workers has made returning to the labor market even tougher. The Impact of Losing Your Job builds on findings from life course sociology to show clearly just what effects job loss has on income, family life, ...

CHINTEX - Synopsis -

Stability of Life-Satisfaction over Time. Analysis of change in ranks in a national population

Regional Variation and Aging in Health Economics (Dissertation)

Understanding the effect of retirement on health using Regression Discontinuity Design

This paper investigates the mechanisms behind the health effects of retirement. Using a Regression Discontinuity Design to exploit financial incentives in the German pension system for identification, I find that retirement improves subjective health status and mental health, while also reducing outpatient care utilization. I explore a wide range of health behaviors, time use, and effect heterogeneity ...

Internal Migration

Research on internal migration covers a wide range of issues that pertain to the reasons for moving, the distance and direction of movement within a country, and the process of decision making involved in undertaking these moves. Given the rich field of relevant research objectives and the substantial developments in migration theory, it is clear that the availability of a broad set of data that includes ...

Social Policy and Temporal Patterns of Retirement: Evidence from Germany and Britain

Since the 1970s retirement has become increasingly early and less standardized. While much research has addressed the early retirement trend, there is little understanding of changing retirement patterns. Yet, changing retirement patterns are an important potential driver of economic inequality among retirees. This article proposes de-standardization and differentiation as two concepts to systematically ...