Publications Based on SOEP Data: SOEPlit

Languages and language policies in Germany / Sprachen und Sprachpolitik in Deutschland

Deutschlands (einzige) nationale Amtssprache ist das Deutsche. Die Dominanz des Deutschen in Schulen, Politik, Rechtswesen, Verwaltung sowie im gesamten (schriftlichen) öffentlichen Leben ist so groß, dass das Fehlen einer kohärenten Sprachpolitik lange Zeit nicht als Problem empfunden wurde. Die staatliche Zurückhaltung in diesem Bereich hat einerseits historische Gründe; sie wurde andererseits durch ...

Factor Shares and Income Inequality - Empirical Evidence from Germany 2002-2008

We examine the interplay between changes in the functional distribution of income and the distribution of market income among households. We use micro data from the German Socio-Economic Panel as well as macro data from the German Federal Statistical Office from 2002 to 2008. We categorize and evaluate the implications of changes in the functional distribution of income upon the distribution of income ...

Child-Free and Unmarried: Changes in the Life Planning of Young East German Women

Mortgage Indebtedness and Household Financial Distress

Using comparable survey data from twelve European countries we investigate households' attitudes towards mortgage indebtedness. We find that a given debt burden creates much higher distress in Southern countries, France and Belgium, where fewer households have a mortgage outstanding relative to countries where a sizeable part of the population uses mortgage debt, like the UK, the Netherlands, ...

Unemployment and life satisfaction: a non-linear adaptation process

Purpose - The aim of this paper is to model the dynamic path of adjustment towards pre-unemployment levels of wellbeing for a group of full-time workers who experienced job loss. Design/methodology/approach - Based on data from the German Socio-economic Panel, a large-scale panel survey, the paper captures the non-linear nature of the adaptation process by using an Exponential Smooth Transition Autoregressive ...

The Effect of Further Training on Wage Growth in West Germany, 1984–1992

In this paper, we use data from the German Socio-Economic Panel (GSOEP) to examine the effect of further training on wage growth in West Germany for the period 1984 to 1992. After controlling for the endogeneity of the training participation decision and the presence of unobserved fixed effects, we estimate a wage growth equation which reveals that further training positively affects wage growth. However, ...

Intervention at the level of the firm: Employer‐sponsored training and wage growth in post‐unification Germany

Purpose – The aim of the paper is to assess the determinants and impact of employer sponsored further training on wage growth in West Germany over the period 1992 to 2002. Design/methodology/approach – Following a descriptive narrative on further training and wages in Germany, data derived from the West German sub‐sample of the German Socio‐Economic Panel is being utilised, which has the main advantage ...

Participation in continuous, on-the-job training and the impact on job satisfaction: longitudinal evidence from the German labour market

A number of studies in the human resources literature acknowledge the importance of workplace training for inducing organizational commitment on the part of workers. However, small sample sizes and the absence of relevant panel data have raised concerns about the general validity of results and highlighted the need for further research to explicitly include on-the-job training as an important facet ...

Gender Differences in Self-Employment - Panel Evidence from the Former West Germany

Ethnic diversity, poverty and social trust in Germany: Evidence from a behavioral measure of trust

Several scholars have concluded that ethnic diversity has negative consequences for social trust. However, recent research has called into question whether ethnic diversity per se has detrimental effects, or whether lower levels of trust in diverse communities simply reflect a higher concentration of less trusting groups, such as poor people, minorities, or immigrants. Drawing upon a nationally representative ...