Publications Based on SOEP Data: SOEPlit

The Link between Relative Pay and Job Satisfaction Revisited

This paper investigates the connection between job satisfaction and comparison pay (defined as a person’s rank within a reference group) with SOEP Data. Based on work values and social networks, we argue that the existing literature neglects heterogeneities in individual job satisfaction as well as wage trajectories along the career path. Thus, previous studies based on survey data likely overestimate ...

Cohort Changes in the Level and Dispersion of Gender Ideology after German Reunification : Results from a Natural Experiment

Modernization theorists’ ‘rising tide hypothesis’ predicted the continuous spread of egalitarian gender ideologies across the globe. We revisit this assumption by studying reunified Germany, a country that did not follow a strict modernization pathway. The socialist German Democratic Republic (GDR) actively fostered female employment and systematically promoted egalitarian ideologies before reunification ...

His and her working hours and well-Being in Germany: A longitudinal crossover-spillover analysis

This paper investigates the relationship between work time arrangements and personal well-being in married and cohabiting couples. Using data from the German Socio-Economic Panel Survey (SOEP), we study how the number of hours worked by the survey respondents and their partners influenced their own well-being. We also investigate possible transmission mechanisms between the two variables, namely income, ...

Risk Preference and Entrepreneurial Investment at the Top of the Wealth Distribution

We present first evidence how individual risk preferences shape entrepreneurial investment among the very wealthy using novel survey data from the top of the wealth distribution, which have been added to the 2019 German Socio-economic Panel Study. The data include private wealth balance sheets, in particular the value of own private business assets, and a standard measure of risk tolerance. We find ...

The effect of the fall of the Berlin Wall on children’s noncognitive skills

The noncognitive skill of conscientiousness has been linked to favourable labour market and health outcomes. But how is conscientiousness affected by events that happen in childhood? We investigate the effects of negative parental selection and economic and social upheaval on conscientiousness in adulthood using data from the German Socioeconomic Panel (SOEP). Our identification strategy exploits the ...

A Tale of Two Countries: The Long Shadow of the Crisis on Income and Wealth in Germany and Italy

Income, consumption and wealth inequality in Germany: Three concepts, three stories?

We quantify the contribution of rental income to pre- and post-government equivalent household income inequality and of housing wealth to net wealth inequality between 2002 and 2017 in Germany by means of a factor decomposition. Further, we differentiate by region types (urban vs. rural, large vs. small municipalities) and federal states. We find that housing wealth, housing ownership and rental income ...

The role of rental income, real estate and rents for inequality in Germany

We quantify the contribution of rental income to pre- and post-government equivalent household income inequality and of housing wealth to net wealth inequality between 2002 and 2017 in Germany by means of a factor decomposition. Further, we differentiate by region types (urban vs. rural, large vs. small municipalities) and federal states. We find that housing wealth, housing ownership and rental income ...

The Effect of Offspring Sex on Parents’ Migration Probabilities and Outcomes—A Natural Experiment

Scholars can rarely make causal claims about migration probabilities and outcomes. Leveraging a natural experiment based on the randomness of offspring sex, this paper uses the German SOEP Migration Sample to examine the effect of having a first-born son or daughter on parents’ likelihood to migrate and integrate. It shows that (non-Christian) parents of sons are more likely to migrate to Germany, ...

The shape of emotion regulation: Trait emotion regulation as density distributions of states

The Density Distribution approach to personality characterizes traits using both mean levels and within-person variability of behaviors. Recent theory highlights that emotion regulation (ER) is inherently variable, and this Density Distribution approach seems particularly suitable to understand both average tendencies and dynamics of ER as person-specific characteristics. However, there is not yet ...