Publications Based on SOEP Data: SOEPlit

The ABC of Social Desires: Affiliation, Being Alone, and Closeness to Partner

We propose a triadic model of social desires directed at appetence/aversion of affiliation with friends (A), being alone (B), and closeness to one’s partner (C) that account for individual differences in subjectively experienced needs for proximity and distance in serious couple relationships. The model assumes that A, B, and C can be conceptualized at the individual level as correlated latent factors ...

Changing educational gradient in long-term care-free life expectancy among German men, 1997-2012

Background: The inverse association between mortality and individual socioeconomic status is well-documented. Due to the lack of appropriate data, little is known about the nature of this association among individuals with long-term care (LTC) needs. Objectives: We aim to fill in this knowledge gap by estimating life expectancy (LE), life expectancy without (CFLE) and with (CLE) long-term care by education ...

Inequality in Human Development: An Empirical Assessment of 32 Countries

One of the most frequent critiques of the HDI is that is does not take into account inequality within countries in its three dimensions. In this paper, we apply a simply approach to compute the three components and the overall HDI for quintiles of the income distribution. This allows a comparison of the level in human development of the poor with the level of the non-poor within countries, but also ...

Saving Behavior and Housing Wealth Evidence from German Micro Data

Housing property is the most important position in a household’s wealth portfolio. Even though there is strong evidence that house price cycles and saving patterns behave synchronously, the underlying causes remain controversial. The present paper examines if there is a wealth effect of house prices on savings using household-level panel data from the German Socio-Economic Panel for the period 1996-2012. ...

Income Maximization and the Selection and Sorting of International Migrants

Two prominent features of international labor movements are that the more educated are more likely to emigrate (positive selection) and more educated migrants are more likely to settle in destination countries with high rewards to skill (positive sorting). Using data on emigrant stocks by schooling level and source country in OECD destinations, we find that a simple model of income maximization can ...

Increasing Persistent Poverty in Germany

Persistent poverty is increasing in Germany

Non Take-Up of Social Assistance in Germany - A Longitudinal Perspective

Qualitative Interviewing of Respondents in Large Representative Surveys

Large representative surveys are using mixed methods to an ever-increasing degree. Biomarkers, register data, and experiments, for example, provide different types of data that can be linked with survey data. The use of qualitative interviewing of participants in longitudinal surveys is, however, still rare in the social sciences. Yet qualitative methods have proven just as valuable as quantitative ...

Precursors and consequences of youth poverty in Germany

We examine time trends, precursors and continuity of poverty during youth and young adulthood in Germany. Although Germany’s labour market performed well during the recent economic crisis, this occurred against the backdrop of growing social inequality and strong increase in the risk of poverty, especially among youth and young adults. Based on data from the German Socio-Economic Panel Study, we propose ...