Publications Based on SOEP Data: SOEPlit

Separate paths, same direction? De-standardization of male employment biographies in East and West Germany

Until the mid-1980s, labour markets in Germany were characterized by a high level of employment stability. Employment biographies of men were dominated by full-time employment in both East and West Germany and were hence quite similar in this respect, despite the two regions’ enormously different institutional settings. Since that time however, important changes have occurred. Labour markets have become ...

DC-Obesity: A New Model for Estimating Differential Lifetime Costs of Overweight and Obesity by Socioeconomic Status

Objective :The aim of this study was to quantify the magnitude of lifetime costs of overweight and obesity by socioeconomic status (SES). Methods: Differential Costs (DC)-Obesity is a new model that uses time-to-event simulation and the Markov modeling approach to compare lifetime excess costs of overweight and obesity among individuals with low, middle, and high SES. SES was measured by a multidimensional ...

The Automation of Jobs: A Threat for Employment or a Source of New Entrepreneurial Opportunities?

New and emerging technologies pose a serious challenge for the future of employment. As machines learn to accomplish increasingly complex production tasks, the concern arises that automation will wipe out a great number of jobs. This paper investigates the relationship between the risk posed by the automation of jobs and individual-level occupational mobility using a representative German household ...

Occupational Choice and Self-Employment—Are They Related?

Often, a person will become an entrepreneur only after a period of dependent employment, suggesting that occupational choices precede entrepreneurial choices. We investigate the relationship between occupational choice and self-employment. The findings suggest that the occupational choice of future entrepreneurs at the time of labor market entry is partly guided by a taste for skill variety, the prospect ...

Labour market transitions of youth in Germany and Italy

Who Can Buy Happiness? Personality Traits Moderate the Effects of Stable Income Differences and Income Fluctuations on Life Satisfaction

The present research tested whether the Big Five personality dimensions - extraversion, agreeableness, conscientiousness, neuroticism, and openness to experience - moderate the effects of income on life satisfaction. The authors analyzed data from three large-sample, nationally representative, longitudinal studies: the British Household Panel Survey, the German Socio-Economic Panel Study, and the Household ...

Transitioning Towards More Equality? Wealth Gender Differences and the Changing Role of Explanatory Factors over Time

The objective of the study is to investigate the changing role of explanatory factors of wealth and the gender wealth gap in Germany over the period 2002-2012 using individual level microdata from the German Socio-Economic Panel. The authors apply distributional decomposition methods and focus on the role of changes in labor supply, permanent income, portfolio composition, and marital status in this ...

The Luxembourg Wealth Study - A cross-country comparable database for household wealth research

The paper describes the Luxembourg Wealth Study (LWS), an international project launched in 2003 by the Luxembourg Income Study and by institutions from Canada, Cyprus, Finland, Germany, Italy, Norway, Sweden, the United Kingdom, and the United States. The aim of the project is to assemble and to harmonise existing micro-data on household wealth, in order to provide a sounder basis for comparative ...

Cross-National Comparison of Income and Wealth Status in Retirement: First Results From the Luxembourg Wealth Study (LWS)

This paper provides a first glance at the role of income and wealth in comparing economic security of older persons in the United States in cross-national perspective. We compare our elders to those in six other rich OECD countries (Canada, Finland, Germany, Italy, Sweden, and the United Kingdom). These countries have diverse social policy systems, with respect to both social insurance and public assistance; ...

To own or not to own? Household portfolios, demographics and institutions in a cross-national perspective

Using harmonized wealth data and a novel decomposition approach, we show that cohort effects exist in the income profiles of asset and debt portfolios for a sample of European countries, the U.S. and Canada. We find that younger households’ participation decisions in assets are more responsive to income than older households. Family structure plays a significant role in explaining cross-country differences ...