Publications Based on SOEP Data: SOEPlit

The impact of family structure during childhood on later-life attainment

Childhood family structure and schooling outcomes: Evidence for Germany

We analyze the impact on schooling outcomes of growing up in a non-intact family in Germany. We find that this experience is associated with worse outcomes according to estimates from models that do not control for possible correlations between common unobserved determinants of family structure and educational performance. Evidence of adverse effects emerges also when endogeneity is accounted for. ...

The Effect of Lone Motherhood on the Smoking Behaviour of Young Adults

We provide evidence that living with an unmarried mother during childhood raises smoking propensities for young adults in Germany.

Who turned their back on the SPD? - Electoral disaffection with the German Social Democratic Party and the Hartz reforms

This paper proposes an empirical analysis of the declining support for the German Social Democratic Party (SPD) during Schröder government’s second term of office, which was marked by major reforms in the fields of unemployment insurance and labour market policy (Hartz reforms). Drawing on a panel of West Germans, we provide evidence that this disaffection was strongly related to a worker’s occupation ...

Maternity Leave and its Consequences for Subsequent Careers in Germany

Subject of this paper is the investigation of wage developments of women interrupting their careers for giving birth to children in comparison to men's wages not facing a parental interruption. We estimate OLS regression models for different subcategories defined by age and point in time. We use data from the German Socioeconomic Panel from 1984 to 2011 to show the importance of legal job protection ...

Let Bygones be Bygones? Socialist Regimes and Personalities in Germany

This paper investigates the influence of political regimes on personality, using the separation of Germany into the socialist GDR and the democratic FRG and its reunification in 1990 as a natural experiment. We show that there are significant differences between former GDR and FRG residents regarding important attributes of personality (particularly the locus of control, neuroticism, conscientiousness, ...

The Individual and Joint Performance of Economic Preferences, Personality, and Self-Control in Predicting Criminal Behavior

We explore the individual and joint explanatory power of concepts from economics, psychology, and criminology for criminal behavior. More precisely, we consider risk and time preferences, personality traits from psychology (Big Five and locus of control), and a self-control scale from criminology. We find that economic preferences, personality traits, and self-control complement each other in predicting ...

Do individuals try to maximize general satisfaction?

The mystery of the U-shaped relationship between happiness and age

In this paper, we address the puzzle of the relationship between age and happiness. Whilst the majority of psychologists have concluded there is not much of a relationship at all, the economic literature has unearthed a possible U-shape relationship with the minimum level of satisfaction occurring in middle age (35–50). In this paper, we look for a U-shape in three panel data sets, the German Socioeconomic ...

Individual Rationality and Learning: Welfare Expectations in East Germany Post-Reunification