Publications Based on SOEP Data: SOEPlit

Free Daycare and its Effects on Children and their Families

Many governments invest substantial public funds to foster early childhood education. And yet, there are still many open questions who responds to and who benefits from public investments into early childcare. We use the introduction of free public daycare in German states to analyze its effects on children and their families. Our results suggest that effects of the policy differ by child age, gender ...

The Impact of Future Divorce on Labor Supply and Work Hours of German Married Women

Variation of Learning Intensity in Late Adolescence and the Impact on Noncognitive Skills

Despite the interdependence between cognitive and noncognitive skills, empirical studies have shown a longer period of acquisition in life-time for the latter besides relevance for educational and labor market success. Analyzing returns of investments during different periods of life is therefore economically meaningful. We evaluate the effects of a substantial increase in the amount of curriculum ...

Public Sector Employees: Risk Averse and Altruistic?

We assess whether public sector employees have a stronger inclination to serve others and are more risk averse than employees in the private sector. A unique feature of our study is that we use revealed rather than stated preferences data. Respondents of a large-scale survey were offered a substantial reward and could choose between a widely redeemable gift certificate, a lottery ticket, or making ...

Do sporty people have access to higher job quality?

It is known that non-cognitive skills are an important determinant of success in life. However, their returns are not simple to measure and, as a result, only relatively few studies have dealt with this empirical question on the labour market. We consider sports practice as a way to improve or signal non-cognitive skills endowment. Therefore, the analysis of its impact on the labour market integration ...

Unemployment Duration and Sport Participation

In this study we use the German Socio-Economic Panel to evaluate the impact of leisure sport participation on the unemployment duration. The empirical literature on sport participation has focused on labor market outcomes and job quality while the impact of this activity on job search has not been studied. Sports participation fosters socialization which, through the networking effect, accelerates ...

Mozart or Pelé? The effects of teenagers’ participation in music and sports

We analyse the effects of playing music, or doing sports on education and health outcomes of adolescents. After identifying adolescents who play music, do sports, or both, in the German Socio-Economic Panel, we use matching procedures to estimate causal effects. We find that playing music instead of doing sports fosters educational outcomes by about 0.1 standard deviations. Effects are stronger for ...

Physical Activity of Adults: A Survey of Correlates, Determinants, and Effects

We survey the literature on the link of labour market related outcomes to individual physical activity and sports participation. The first part of the survey is devoted to the individual participation decision and is based on papers from various disciplines. The second part summarises parts of the epidemiological literature on health effects and the economic literature on the labour market effects ...

Measuring job satisfaction in surveys - Comparative analytical report

National working conditions surveys in Europe: A compilation

This report describes surveys in 15 EU Member States that meet two conditions: they are national, covering all or most of the working population; and they relate at least primarily to working conditions issues, such as health and safety at the workplace, work organisation, quality of working life and work–life balance. For each survey, a data sheet provides the main characteristics of the survey in ...