Publications Based on SOEP Data: SOEPlit

Obesity and Happiness

This article provides insight on the relationship between individual obesity and happiness levels. Using the latest available panel data from Germany German Socio-Economic Panel (GSOEP), UK British Household Panel Survey (BHPS), and Australia Household, Income and Labour Dynamics in Australia (HILDA), we examine whether there is statistical evidence on the impact of overweight on subjective well-being. ...

The Right to Part-Time: Practical Implications from the Managerial Point of View

In 2001 the employee’s right to reduce working-time according to their own preferences was implemented in Germany. This legal title hardly effects the slowly but steadily growing number of part-time jobs. Nevertheless, data from the socioeconomic panel suggest that about 25% of employees wish to reduce their workingtime even if this is associated with a loss of income. The HR-manager is seen as a mediator ...

Same Same but Different – Changing Career Expectations in Germany?

Contemporary career research assumes more flexible career patterns implying increased job mobility. However, there is growing doubt that the proclaimed change is as drastic as has been suggested. We provide empirical evidence on career expectations in Germany between 1999 and 2009, arguing that objective career mobility is both a) mirrored by and b) a consequence of such expectations. Using data from ...

A quarter of a century of job transitions in Germany

By examining trends in intra-organizational and inter-organizational job transition probabilities among professional and managerial employees in Germany, we test the applicability of mainstream career theory to a specific context and challenge its implied change assumption. Drawing on data from the German Socio-Economic Panel (GSOEP), we apply linear probability models to show the influence of time, ...

Local Likelihood estimation and bias reduction in varying-coefficient models

Duration of unemployment in Germany and the UK: A case study of nonparametric hazard models and penalized spines (mimeo)

The paper investigates unemployment behaviour in Germany and the UK between 1995 and 2005 based on data from national panel studies. The study focuses on the investigation of covariate effects like gender, age and education on the duration of unemployment. Dynamic duration time models are used in which covariate effects are allowed to vary smoothly with unemployment duration. The intention of the paper ...

Residential mobility in East and West Germany: mobility rates, mobility reasons, reurbanization

Before unification, the processes of residential mobility in East and West Germany were very different, and remarkable variations in mobility still persisted until the mid 1990s. Following a wave of residential suburbanization and of heavy residential construction, as well as refurbishments in the new Länder during the second half of the 1990s, mobility rates strongly increased in East Germany. After ...

Health-Related Life Cycle Risks and Public Insurance

This paper proposes a dynamic life cycle model of health risks, employment, early retirement, and wealth accumulation in order to analyze the health-related risks of consumption and old age poverty. In particular, the model includes a health process, the interaction between health and employment risks, and an explicit modeling of the German public insurance schemes. I rely on a dynamic programming ...

Spillover Effects of Maternal Education on Child’s Health and Health Behavior

This study investigates the effects of maternal education on child’s health and health behavior. We draw on a rich German panel data set containing information about three generations. This allows instrumenting maternal education by the number of her siblings while conditioning on grandparental characteristics. The instrumental variables approach has not yet been used in the intergenerational context ...

The role of time preferences in educational decision making

We analyze the implication of time-inconsistent preferences in educational decision making and corresponding policies using a structural dynamic choice model. We make two important research contributions. First, we estimate our model using data from the German Socioeconomic Panel (soep) and provide quantitative evidence for time-inconsistent behavior in educational decision making. Second, we evaluate ...