Publications Based on SOEP Data: SOEPlit

Change in body weight of older adults before and during the COVID-19 pandemic: longitudinal results from the Berlin Aging Study II

Objectives Change in body weight during the COVID-19 pandemic as an unintended side effect of lockdown measures has been predominantly reported for younger and middle-aged adults. However, information on older adults for which weight loss is known to result in adverse outcomes, is scarce. In this study we describe the body weight change in older adults before, during, and after the COVID-19 lockdown ...

Dealing with Censored Earnings in Register Data

Earnings are often top-coded (right-censored) in administrative registers. The censoring threshold in the case of Germany is the limit value for social security contributions, leading to a substantial fraction of censoring: For example, about 12 % of male workers in West Germany are affected, rising to above 30 % for highly educated prime-aged workers. This missing right tail of the earnings distribution ...

Prioritize to decarbonize: Thermal retrofits, carbon prices, and energy inequality

The energy crisis following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine exposed the heightened vulnerability of low-income households to rising heating costs, particularly those in energy inefficient buildings. Using data from the German Socio-Economic Panel (SOEP), this study examines the distributional impact of heating costs across income deciles and evaluates the effectiveness of policy interventions. We find ...

Involuntary Changes in Commuting Distances: Effects on Subjective Well-Being in the Era of Mobile Internet

Commuting is a fundamental aspect of employees’ daily routines and continues to evolve with technological advancements. Yet the effects of commuting on subjective well-being remain insufficiently investigated in the context of expanding digital connectivity. This paper examines the causal effects of changes in commuting distance on subjective well-being in an era of widespread mobile internet availability. ...

Asylum seekers and host country mental health: Evidence from Germany and Switzerland

Due to recent conflicts and humanitarian issues, millions of people have sought asylum in countries in Europe. The influx of asylum seekers has sparked debates about the impacts of such migratory flows on resident populations. We study how the recent migration of these forcibly displaced people into Europe affects the mental health of the receiving country residents in Switzerland and Germany. We exploit ...

Introduction to the symposium on reproducibility and replicability in economics: Part I

Is a sorrow shared a sorrow doubled? Parental unemployment and the life satisfaction of adolescent children

This paper examines the possible spillover effects of parental unemployment on the subjective well-being of 12- to 21-year-old children. Using German panel data (SOEP), we show that unemployment of fathers and mothers is negatively associated with their children’s life satisfaction. When controlling for time-invariant individual heterogeneity, our results suggest that maternal unemployment has adverse ...

Energy poverty and health: Micro-level evidence from Germany

This paper aims to understand the health effects of energy poverty in Germany using SOEP panel data from 2010 to 2020. Linear probability and fixed effects ordered logit models reveal a consistently negative relationship of three expenditures-based energy poverty indicators with general health: the odds ratio of being in better health decreases between about 6 % and 8 %. This association is stronger ...

Much to lose, no credentials to prove it – Educational aspirations and intentions of adult refugees as means of occupational status re-attainment

We analyse how educational aspirations and intentions of adult refugees in Germany are shaped by their foreign educational credentials and their previous occupational status. Because the allocation of medium-skilled jobs on the German labour market heavily relies on a variety of credentials, unlike in the countries of origin, where skills are usually acquired on the job but not formally certified, ...

Thanks, but no thanks: A microsimulation of BAföG eligibility and non-take-up

While the body of literature on the non-take-up of public aid has grown substantially in recent years, a notable gap remains in the literature of non-take-up rates for student aid programs, where research is still extremely limited. This paper examines the non-take-up rate of Germany's federal student aid program BAföG by creating a microsimulation based on data from the German Socio-Economic ...