Publications Based on SOEP Data: SOEPlit

The effect of unemployment on the mental health of spouses – Evidence from plant closures in Germany

Studies on health effects of unemployment usually neglect spillover effects on spouses. This study specifically investigates the effect of an individual's unemployment on the mental health of their spouse. In order to allow for causal interpretation of the estimates, it focuses on plant closure as entry into unemployment, and combines difference-in-difference and matching based on entropy balancing ...

Four Essays on Causal Inference in Health Economics (Dissertation)

Does job loss make you smoke and gain weight?

This paper estimates the effect of involuntary job loss on smoking behaviour and body weight using German SOEP data. Baseline non-smokers are more likely to start smoking due to job loss, while smokers do not intensify smoking. In particular, single individuals and those with lower health or socioeconomic status prior to job loss exhibit high rates of smoking initiation. Job loss increases body weight ...

Maternal labour supply and all-day primary schools in Germany

The economic literature provides vast evidence of how public provision of day care for children below school age increases the labour force participation of mothers. The causal effect of all-day schooling in primary school on maternal supply has been examined less since morning-only schooling is less common in developed countries. The present article summarises the findings of (mostly) economic studies ...

Intergenerational transmission of unemployment - evidence for German sons

This paper studies the association between the unemployment experience of fathers and their sons. Based on German survey data that cover the last decades we find significant positive correlations. Using instrumental variables estimation and the Gottschalk (1996) method we investigate to what extent fathers' unemployment is causal for offsprings' employment outcomes. In agreement with most ...

Rebound Effects in German Residential Heating: Do Ownership and Income Matter?

In this paper, by using panel data and a fixed effects model, we estimate the direct rebound effect related to space heating in German residential households. The data used are from a representative repeated survey among some 11,000 households in Germany provided by the German Institute of Economic Research (DIW Berlin). We find that for the size of the direct rebound effect, i.e. the amount of energy ...

To what extent does the timing and sequence of transitions to parenthood and new partnerships among young females in Europe affect the risk of poverty?

Social Welfare, Inequality and Deprivation

Equality of Opportunity in Four Measures of Well‐Being

A growing literature has tried to measure the extent to which individuals have equal opportunities to acquire income. At the same time, policy makers have doubled down on efforts to go beyond income when measuring well-being. We attempt to bridge these two areas by measuring the extent to which individuals have equal opportunities to achieve a high level of well-being. We use the German Socio-Economic ...

I'm not fat, just too short for my weight - Family Child Care and Obesity in Germany