Publications Based on SOEP Data: SOEPlit

A happy choice: wellbeing as the goal of government

In this article, we lay out the basic case for wellbeing as the goal of government. We briefly review the history of this idea, which goes back to the ancient Greeks and was the acknowledged ideal of the Enlightenment. We then discuss possible measures on which a wellbeing orientation could be based, emphasizing the importance of acknowledging the political agency of citizens and thus their own evaluations ...

How Elastic is the Labour Supply of Female Migrants Relative to the Labour Supply of Female Natives?

This study estimates the wage elasticities of migrants and natives by using data from the German Socio-Economic Panel from 1984 to 2015 and a grouping instrumental variable estimator. Female migrants who live with a partner have lower own- and cross-wage elasticities than respective female natives, and the elasticities of non-Western female migrants are insignificant. The relationship between participation ...

Old-Age Poverty: The Household Perspective

Providing a decent living standard and preventing old-age poverty are the two major challenges of pension insurance schemes. Replacement rates below the poverty line despite many years of contribution represent a major challenge for public pension schemes with respect to the systems ‘raison d’ˆetre’. The focus of the present paper turns away from individual perspective and considers household retirement ...

Has there been a “refugee crisis”? New insights on the recent refugee arrivals in Germany and their integration prospects

Rund 1,2 Millionen Geflüchtete sind 2015 und 2016 nach Deutschland gekommen. Der nationale und internationale öffentliche Diskurs über die Aufnahme dieser Geflüchteten deckt das gesamte Meinungsspektrum ab. Diese Auffassungen reichen von der skeptischen Charakterisierung des Anstiegs der Fluchtmigration 2015 als „Flüchtlingskrise“ bis hin zu optimistischen Einschätzungen, wonach die Zuwanderung von ...

Life course research with panel data: An analysis of the reproduction of social inequality

Panel data are increasingly used in life course research. However, such data would be under-analyzed if only classical methods of life course research (i.e., event-history analysis and sequence analysis) would be used for analyzing them. Methods developed for the analysis of panel data have been shown to be valuable to life course research as well. In this article we emphasize that growth curve modeling ...

Measuring Housing Costs and Housing Affordability Using SOEP: An Example Applied to Older Households

This paper explores the methodological issues to take into account when using SOEP as a database for calculating a measure of housing costs and housing affordability. For this purpose, we focus on the evolution of housing costs for households headed by elderly people between 1998 and 2018. Our review yields two clear conclusions: (1) that SOEP represents a valuable source of data for calculating household ...

Family Life During Corona (Version: 26 June 2020)

Social Integration of Refugees Is Improving

Five years ago, almost a million people came to Germany seeking refuge. Chancellor Angela Merkel responded to public concern over such a large influx of refugees with her well-known saying, “Wir schaffen das” (We can do this!). Much has happened since then. As this report shows, the German population’s concerns over immigration have been decreasing since 2016. Nevertheless, refugees are increasingly ...

Higher Order Risk Preferences: New Experimental Measures, Determinants and Field Behavior

We use a novel method to elicit and measure higher order risk preferences (prudence and temperance) in an experiment with 658 adolescents. In line with theoretical predictions, we find that higher order risk preferences - particularly prudence - are strongly related to adolescents' field behavior, including their financial decision making, eco-friendly behavior, and health status, including addictive ...

Millionaires under the Microscope: Data Gap on Top Wealth Holders Closed; Wealth Concentration Higher than Presumed

Individuals with assets in the millions of euros have been underrepresented in population surveys and accordingly little has been known about them. As a result, the full extent of wealth concentration in Germany was unknown. To close the existing data gap, the Socio-Economic Panel (SOEP) inte- grated a special sample in which individuals with high assets are overrepresented. New calculations using ...