Publications Based on SOEP Data: SOEPlit

Wealth and Its Distribution in Germany, 1895-2018

German history over the past 125 years has been turbulent. Marked by two world wars, revolutions and major regime changes, as well as a hyperinflation and three currency reforms, expropriations and territorial divisions, it provides unique insights into the role of country-specific shocks in shaping long-run wealth dynamics. This paper presents the first comprehensive study of wealth and its distribution ...

Three Essays on the Economics of Education and Inequality

The economic research potentials of the German Socio-Economic Panel study

We provide a concise introduction to a household-panel data infrastructure that provides the international research community with longitudinal data of private households in Germany since 1984: the German Socio-Economic Panel (SOEP). We demonstrate the comparative strength of the SOEP data in answering economically -relevant questions by highlighting its diverse and impactful applications throughout ...

Do Ethnic Networks Ameliorate Education–Occupation Mismatch?

Abstract The question to what extent ethnic networks affect occupational mismatch has so far been overlooked. This paper exploits supraregional variation in ethnic composition in Germany and shows that a one standard deviation increase in the share of the own ethnic group per zip code significantly reduces the years of overqualification for females, by 0.27 years. For males, neither the foreign share ...

Migration and Happiness: Evidence from Germany

With a shrinking population and a rising dependency ratio, Germany needs young migrants, willing and able to integrate with the German society and actively participate in its economic progress. In order to devise successful immigration and integration policies, policymakers should be aware of the factors affecting migrants’ intentions and decisions. In this paper we explore the impact of different ...

Does Starting Universal Childcare Earlier Influence Children’s Skill Development?

As many developed countries enact policies that allow children to begin universal childcare earlier, understanding how starting universal childcare earlier affects children’s cognitive and noncognitive skills is an important policy question. We provide comprehensive evidence on the multidimensional short- and longer-run effects of starting universal childcare earlier using a fuzzy discontinuity in ...

Using Facebook and Instagram to Recruit Web Survey Participants: A Step-by-Step Guide and Application

In many countries and contexts, survey researchers are facing decreasing response rates and increasing survey costs. Data collection is even more complex and expensive when rare or hard-to-reach populations are to be sampled and surveyed. In such cases alternative sampling and recruiting approaches are usually needed, including non-probability and online convenience sampling. A rather novel approach ...

Desperate Housewives and Happy Working Mothers: Are Parent-Couples with Equal Income More Satisfied throughout Parenthood? A Dyadic Longitudinal Study

Are parent-couples with equal income more satisfied as their children grow up, than those who prioritize the father’s career (specialize)? For the first time, 384 German Socio-Economic Panel (SOEP) study couples were categorized into life-course coupled earnings types, by tracing how earnings were divided within couples between the ages of 1 to 15 of their youngest child. Multivariate, multilevel analysis ...

Non-migrants’ and migrants’ interethnic relationships: the third party role of cohabiting partners

Considering both non-migrant and migrant couples, this paper studies the effect of cohabiting life partners’ attitudes, resources, and social network compositions on their spouse’s interethnic friendships and acquaintances. Thus, partners are conceptualized as important “third parties” for interethnic relationship formation. Analysing representative German household panel data, I find that partner ...

Is the problem mine, yours, or ours? The impact of unemployment on couples’ life satisfaction and specific domain satisfaction

Using longitudinal data from the German Socio-Economic Panel (SOEP, 1984-2017) and conducting fixed effects panel regressions, this study investigates the impact of unemployment on couples’ overall life satisfaction, as well as both partners’ satisfaction in specific life domains. Results confirm that job loss is harmful to both partners’ life satisfaction. In line with gender role models, the costs ...