Publications Based on SOEP Data: SOEPlit

Exploring the possibilities and boundaries of survey data for the analysis of wealth and wealth transfers

In Germany, a flagrant lack of official register or tax data for scholarly use leads to a situation wherein survey data is the last remaining source of evidence about the distribution of wealth. Two of the four research chapters in this thesis aim to evaluate methods for the improvement of available survey data. The other two contributions discuss the possibilities and limitations of survey data for ...

Significant Statistical Uncertainty over Share of High Net Worth Households

The analyses of wealth inequality based on survey data usually suffer from undercoverage of the upper percentiles of the very wealthy. Yet given this group’s substantial share of total net worth, it is of particular relevance. As no tax data are available in Germany, the largest fortunes can only be simulated using “rich lists.” For example, combining the Forbes list, with its approximately 50 German ...

Longitudinal Wealth Data and Multiple Imputation: An Evaluation Study

Statistical analysis in surveys is generally facing missing data. In longitudinal studies for some missing values there might be past or future data points available. The question arises how to successfully transform this advantage into improved imputation strategies. In a simulation study the authors compare six combinations of cross-sectional and longitudinal imputation strategies for German wealth ...

Real Estate Price Polarization Projected to Increase until 2030 in Germany

Demographic projections for Germany indicate a drop in the population of many regions by 2030. This is likely to have an impact on the real estate market. Our report presents the result of a model calculation of asking prices for residential real estate in Germany up to 2030 based on market data from empirica-systeme GmbH and a population projection from the Bertelsmann Foundation. Depending on the ...

The Prospects of the Baby Boomers: Methodological Challenges in Projecting the Lives of an Aging Cohort

In most industrialized countries, the work and family patterns of the baby boomers characterized by more heterogeneous working careers and less stable family lives set them apart from preceding cohorts. Thus, it is of crucial importance to understand how these different work and family lives are linked to the boomers’ prospective material well-being as they retire. This paper presents a new and unique ...

Transition into Retirement Affects Life Satisfaction: Short- and Long-Term Development Depends on Last Labor Market Status and Education

The effect of retirement on life satisfaction is a research topic that received a lot of attention, yet provided heterogeneous results. The current study suggests a remedy for this situation by taking two predictors of diversity (i.e. education and last labor market status) into account. We assumed that changes in social status and changes in resources influence retirement adjustment. The social status ...

Motherhood and Wages

Deprivation and Social Exclusion

Poverty Dynamics: An analysis of the 1994 and 1995 waves of the European Community Household Panel Survey

Recent poverty research based on analyses of panel data have highlighted the importance of income dynamics. In this paper we study mobility into and out of relative income poverty from one year to the next using data for twelve countries from the European Community Household Panel Survey (ECHP). The ECHP has unique potential as a harmonized data set to serve as the basis for comparisons of income and ...

Vulnerability and Multiple Deprivation Perspectives on Social Exclusion in Europe: A Latent Class Analysis