Publications Based on SOEP Data: SOEPlit

Child poverty in Britain and Germany

Children in Poverty - A British-German Comparison for the 1990s

The Dynamics of Child Poverty: Britain and Germany Compared

We compare patterns of movements into and out of poverty by children in Britain and Western Germany using data from the British Household Panel Survey and the German Socio-Economic Panel for the period 1992-97. In Britain poverty persistence was greater, and poverty exit rates in particular were lower, than in Western Germany. In both countries, poverty was particularly persistent among children in ...

Reciprocal Associations between Parenting Challenges and Parents’ Personality Development in Young and Middle Adulthood

Having children affects many aspects of people’s lives. However, it remains unclear to what degree the challenges that come along with having children are associated with parents’ personality development. We addressed this question in two studies by investigating the relationship between parenting challenges and personality development in mothers of newborns (Study 1, N = 556) and the reciprocal associations ...

Developmental Tasks as a Framework to Study Personality Development in Adulthood and Old Age

Research consistently shows that personality development is a lifelong phenomenon, with mean-level and rank-order changes occurring in all life phases. What happens during specific life phases that can explain these developmental patterns? In the present paper, we review literature linking personality development in different phases of adulthood to developmental tasks associated with these phases. ...

Survey to Reveal True Face of Chinese Society

Comparison of the effects of low childhood socioeconomic position and low adulthood socioeconomic position on self rated health in four European studies

Social Comparisons and Attitudes towards Foreigners. Evidence from the 'Fall of the Iron Curtain'

We exploit the natural experiment of German re-unification to address the question whether distress from social (income) comparisons results in negative attitudes towards foreigners. Our empirical approach rests upon East German individuals who have West German peers. We use the exogenous variation of wealth of West German peers shortly after the fall of the Berlin Wall as an instrument to identify ...

Alternative Approaches for Econometric Analysis of Panel Count Data Using Dynamic Latent Class Models (With Application to Doctor Visits Data)

Cross-sectional latent class regression models, also known as switching regressions or hidden Markov models, cannot identify transitions between classes that may occur over time. This limitation can potentially be overcome when panel data are available. For such data, we develop a sequence of models that combine features of the static cross-sectional latent class (finite mixture) models with those ...

The labour market consequences of self-employment spells: European evidence