Publications Based on SOEP Data: SOEPlit

Political implications of ‘green’ infrastructure in one’s ‘backyard’: the Green Party’s Catch 22?

A clean environment is a public good, with the benefits shared by all. While most individuals can agree on the need to implement green policies, we argue that the cost-benefit calculation is quite different depending on where one lives. Those individuals living in places where green infrastructure is infeasible, such as cities, can advocate for green technologies knowing that the chance of having to ...

Minor and inconsistent differences in Big Five personality traits between vegetarians and vegans

Most research examining individuals who follow different diets has combined vegetarians and vegans into a single group. To investigate whether this consolidation is justified, we analyzed possible differences between vegetarians and vegans for the Big Five personality traits in two studies. In our pre-study, we used data from a German convenience sample of 400 vegetarians and 749 vegans and found that ...

Is the German Middle Class Crumbling? Risks and Opportunities

Thriving middle classes are the backbone of democratic societies and strong economies, but in many countries, they face mounting pressure as their economic strength is eroding relative to higher-income households. Real wages and incomes for most middle-class households have grown only very slowly, and rising expenditures have been putting further pressure on living standards. Meanwhile, globalisation, ...

Changes in Working Hours Are Driving Earnings Inequality

According to Socio-Economic Panel (SOEP) data, inequality in gross monthly earnings in Germany increased significantly between 1993 and 2003 and has been stagnating at a high level since 2008. As this Weekly Report shows, the increase is not being driven by higher hourly wage inequality, but rather by working hours: In recent years, employees with a high hourly wage work more than previously compared ...

The Health of Catholic Order Members: A Comparison with the General Population (Chapter 3.1)

Diverging Trends in Single-Mother Poverty across Germany, Sweden, and the United Kingdom: Toward a Comprehensive Explanatory Framework

To explain single-mother poverty, existing research has either emphasized individualistic, or contextual explanations. Building on the prevalences and penalties framework (Brady et al. 2017), we advance the literature on single-mother poverty in three aspects: First, we extend the framework to incorporate heterogeneity among single mothers across countries and over time. Second, we apply this extended ...

Income Comparison and Happiness within Households

This paper applies the German Socio-Economic Panel to analyse the effect of within household income comparison on individual life satisfaction. Our estimates indicate, a primary breadwinner wife decreases spousal individual happiness by roughly nine per cent. To state the economic significance, a €70,000 increase in external, peer reference income corresponds to a similar individual happiness decrease. ...

Care and careers: Gender (in)equality in unpaid care, housework and employment

This article examines whether reducing care and housework duties and redistributing them within different-sex couples could further enhance gender equality on the labor market in terms of labor market participation for different employment types and actual working hours. Women around the world perform the majority of unpaid care and housework, with a large and persistent gap to men. Most research explains ...

Foreign Accents in the Early Hiring Process: A Field Experiment on Accent-Related Ethnic Discrimination in Germany

Based on a field experiment conducted in Germany between October 2014 and October 2015, this article focuses on the disadvantages associated with the presence of a foreign accent in the early hiring process, when applicants call in response to a job advertisement to ask whether the position is still available. We examine whether a foreign accent influences employers’ behaviors via productivity considerations ...

Work, divorce and post-marital living arrangements in Germany: the role of stress, couples’ division of labor and alternative partnerships

Divorce rates in Germany have been increasing since the mid-1960s, however, over the last 15 years this trend appear to be slowing. In accordance, female labor force participation accelerated and is known to be correlated with divorce at the macro level. A common notion – also reflected in Becker’s theoretical model of the new home economics and its related independence thesis – is that women’s participation ...