Publications Based on SOEP Data: SOEPlit

Earnings Inequality in Europe: Structure and Patterns of Inter-Temporal Changes

The Determinants of Reservation Wages in Germany: Does a Motivation Gap Exist?

This paper investigates the reservation wages of unemployed persons on the basis of a job-search model with non-static reservation wages using panel data from Germany from 1987 to 1998. The results suggest that reservation wages are relatively high in Germany compared to other countries. Furthermore, pooled regression results show that most recent wages and personal characteristics of the unemployed ...

Reservation Wages, Offered Wages, and Unemployment Duration - New Empirical Evidence

Self-Productivity in Early Childhood

The intergenerational transmission of health in early childhood—Evidence from the German Socio-Economic Panel Study

Children's physical health problems have clear and lasting impacts on a variety of later life outcomes, as a growing body of research has shown. Furthermore, problems such as obesity, motor impairment, and chronic diseases entail high social costs, particularly when childhood health problems carry over into adulthood. This study examines intergenerational relationships between parent and child ...

Pollution exposure and child health: Evidence for infants and toddlers in Germany

This paper examines the impact of outdoor pollution and parental smoking on children’s health from birthuntil the age of three years in Germany. We use representative data from the German Socio-Economic Panel (SOEP), combined with five air pollution levels. These data were provided by the Federal Environment Agency and cover the years 2002–2007. Our work makes two important contributions. First, we ...

Intergenerational Transmission of Human Capital in Early Childhood

It is a well-known fact that the level of parents' education is strongly correlated with the educational achievement of their children. In this paper, we shed light on the potential channels through which human capital is transmitted from mothers to their children in early childhood. The main channels through which maternal human capital benefit the child's verbal and social skills are birth ...

Employment Outcomes Across Countries: A Cross-National Analysis of Differentials by Parenting Status

The Myth of Equal Opportunity in Germany? Wage Inequality and the Role of (Non-)academic Family Background for Differences in Capital Endowments and Returns on the Labour Market

While providing equal opportunities to all members of society independent of an individual’s socio-economic background is a major objective of German policy makers, educational opportunities of children with a non-academic family background are still unequally obstructed. When analysing the labour market implications of this disadvantage, social capital as an additional source of inequality often lacks ...

The Earnings of male and female Labour migrants and their Assimilation into the German Labor Market