Publications Based on SOEP Data: SOEPlit

Getting Older, Feeling Less? A Cross-Sectional and Longitudinal Investigation of Developmental Patterns in Experiential Well-Being

A large body of previous research suggests that people’s global evaluations of their well-being tend to increase as a function of age. Fewer studies, however, have examined the extent to which people’s in vivo experiences of well-being (e.g., felt emotions) vary as a function of age—and the existing findings are mixed. The present study used an approximately nationally representative sample of more ...

Day-To-Day Affect is Surprisingly Stable: A 2-Year Longitudinal Study of Well-Being

Previous research suggests global assessments of cognitive well-being—life satisfaction—are relatively stable over time. Far fewer studies have examined the extent to which experiential measures of affective well-being—the moods/emotions people regularly experience—are stable, especially over extended periods of time. The present study used longitudinal data from a representative sample of Germans ...

Healthier and Happier? A 3-Year Longitudinal Investigation of the Prospective Associations and Concurrent Changes in Health and Experiential Well-Being

Global well-being is positively correlated with health. Moreover, studies suggest that health and global well-being predict changes in one another across time. Fewer studies, however, have examined the extent to which health is associated with daily emotional experiences?especially longitudinally. The present study examined the longitudinal associations between health and both global and experiential ...

Income Reliably Predicts Daily Sadness, but Not Happiness: A Replication and Extension of Kushlev, Dunn, and Lucas (2015)

Kushlev, Dunn, and Lucas (2015) found that income predicts less daily sadness—but not greater happiness—among Americans. The present study used longitudinal data from an approximately representative German sample to replicate and extend these findings. Our results largely replicated Kushlev et al.’s results: Income predicted less daily sadness (albeit with a smaller effect size) but was unrelated to ...

The role of paternal risk attitudes in long-run education outcomes and intergenerational mobility

This paper studies the role of paternal risk attitudes in sons’ long-run education outcomes and in the intergenerational transmission of incomes and education. Based on 1984–2012 German Socio-Economic Panel Study data of sons and fathers, I show that fathers’ risk aversion is inversely related to sons’ long-run levels of education. A quasi-experimental setting provides no evidence for reverse causality. ...

Intergenerational Effects of Education on Risky Health Behaviours and Long-Term Health

This paper estimates the causal effects of parental education on their children's risky health behaviours and health status. I study the intergenerational effects of a compulsory schooling reform in Germany after World War II. Implemented across federal states at different points in time, the reform increased the minimum number of school years from eight to nine. Instrumental variable estimates ...

Eastern Germany Ahead in Employment of Women

Almost a quarter of a century after the fall of the Wall, there are still more women in employment in eastern Germany than in the west. Admittedly, the difference is marginal now but the two regions started from dramatically different levels. Immediately after reunification (1991), the employment rate for women in western Germany was 54.6 percent but since then, this has increased year on year, reaching ...

Women Still Greatly Underrepresented on the Top Boards of Large Companies

Executive and supervisory boards of large companies in Germany are still dominated by men - to an extraordinary degree. Only 2.5% of all executive board members in the200 largest companies (not including the financial sector) are women, and only 10% of all seats on supervisory boards are occupied by women. The situation in the financial sector is similar: in the 100 largest banks, 2.6% of all executive ...

Female Labor Supply and Taxes in the Federal Republic of Germany

Offshoring and labor income risk: an empirical investigation

This paper analyzes how increased offshoring affects labor income risk. Dealing with the variability of incomes, it is therefore distinct from a large number of studies explaining the level effects of globalization on income in the labor market. It provides an assessment that directly connects labor income risk and offshoring trends in a panel setting at the industry level using German data. Importantly, ...