Publications Based on SOEP Data: SOEPlit

Labor Market Integration of German Immigrants and their Children: Does Personality Matter?

Educational attainment, length of stay, differences in national background and language skills play an acknowledged important role for the integration of immigrants. But integration is also a social process, which suggests that psychological factors are relevant. This paper explores whether and to what extent immigrants and their children need to believe in their ability to control their own success. ...

Do Acquaintances and Friends Make Us Learn? Social Capital and Lifelong Learning in Germany

This paper examines the relationship between social capital and adult learning. We test this association empirically using measures of various types of social capital and adult learning based on the German Socioeconomic Panel. We use predetermined measures of social capital to exclude social skills or friends encountered during the adult education class. Fixed effects for latent underlying factors ...

Employment chances of immigrants and their children in Germany: does sense of personal control matter?

Labour market integration is a social process suggesting that personality traits are relevant. This paper explores whether immigrants with a higher belief in their ability to control outcomes tend to be more likely to be employed. This trait is known in psychology as the locus of control (LOC). I employ a model framework that allows LOC to depend on a set of observable determining variables. Results ...

Comparing Wealth - Data Quality of the HFCS

The Household Finance and Consumption Survey (HFCS) provides information about house-hold wealth (real and financial assets as well as liabilities) from 15 Euro-countries around the year 2010 (first wave). The survey will be the central dataset in this topic in the future. However, several aspects point to potential methodological constraints regarding cross-country comparability. Therefore the aim ...

Stability of Gosta Esping-Andersen's "The Three Worlds of Welfare Capitalism"

Poverty Is a Public Bad: Panel Evidence from Subjective Well-Being Data

Previous research has found that subjective well-being (SWB) is lower for individuals classified as being in poverty. We extend the poverty-SWB literature by focusing on aggregate poverty. Using panel data for 39,239 individuals living in Germany from 2005–2013, we show that people's SWB is negatively correlated with the regional (state-level) poverty ratio while controlling for individual poverty ...

Income Comparison, Income Formation, and Subjective Well-Being: New Evidence on Envy versus Signaling

Drawing on the distinction between envy and signaling effects in income comparison, this paper uses panel data on subjective well-being from Germany over the period 1991–2009 to study whether the nature of income comparison has changed in the process of economic development and institutional change. We conceptualize a person's comparison income as the income predicted by indicators of her productivity ...

The Effect of Unempolyment Insurance on Unemployment Duration and the Subsequent Employment Stability

Residential Mobility and Housing Adjustment of Older Households in Europe

Unemployment Insurance in Europe: Unemployment Duration and Subsequent Employment Stability