Publications Based on SOEP Data: SOEPlit

Timing of first birth and well-being in later life

A large body of literature has documented a negative association between early childbearing and well-being in later life. The effects of late parenthood are mixed, due to different social and physiological mechanisms as well as selection processes for the timing of first birth. This article extends the literature by employing propensity score matching to estimate effects of birth timing on life satisfaction ...

Has Atypical Work Become Typical in Germany?

This paper gives an overview of the transformation of the German labor market since the mid-1990s with a special focus on the changing patterns of labor market segmentation or ‘dualization’ of employment in Germany. While labor market duality in Germany can partially be attributed to labor market reforms promoting in particular non-standard forms of employment and allowing for an expansion of low pay, ...

Not So Standard Anymore? Employment Duality in Germany

Dieser Beitrag gibt einen Überblick über den Wandel des deutschen Arbeitsmarktes seit Mitte der 90er Jahre, wobei der Fokus auf der Entwicklung der Arbeitsmarktsegmentierung oder der „Dualisierung“ der Beschäftigungsverhältnisse in Deutschland liegt. Während die Dualisierung des deutschen Arbeitsmarktes teilweise auf Arbeitsmarktreformen, die vor allem verschiedene Arten von atypischer Beschäftigung ...

Some Econometric Evidence on the Effectiveness of Active Labour Market Programmes in East Germany

In this paper we summarise our previous results on the effectiveness of different kinds of labour market training programmes as well as employment programmes in East Germany after unification. All the studies use the microeconometric evaluation approach and are based on different types of matching estimators. We find some positive earnings effect for on-the-job training and also some positive employment ...

Public Sector Sponsored Continuous Vocational Training in East Germany: Institutional Arrangements, Participants, and Results of Empirical Evaluations

Educational Assortative Mating and Household Income Inequality

We document the degree of educational assortative mating, how it evolves over time, and the extent to which it differs between countries. Our analysis focuses on the United States but also uses data from Denmark, Germany, the United Kingdom, and Norway. We find evidence of positive assortative mating at all levels of education in each country. However, the time trends vary by the level of education: ...

Assessing Intergenerational Earnings Persistence Among German Workers

'Die Vitalität und Stabilität der Demokratie - auch der Wirtschaft - hängen letztlich eminent von der Durchlässigkeit der Gesellschaft ab.' (Horst Köhler, Bundespräsident, 29. 12. 2007)In dieser Studie wird die Frage der Durchlässigkeit der Gesellschaft, die nach Ansicht des Bundespräsidenten (siehe Eingangszitat) eine wichtige Grundlage der Vitalität und Stabilität der Demokratie ist, empirisch ...

The Case of West Germany - Flexibility and continuity in the German labour market (Chapter IX)

Do Cross-National Differences in the Costs of Children Generate Cross-National Differences in Fertility Rates?

The Anticipation and Adaptation Effects of Intra- and Interpersonal Wage Changes on Job Satisfaction

This paper analyses how individual job satisfaction is affected by wage changes. In order to account for potential dynamic effects of wage changes on job satisfaction, we include lead and lag effects of income changes in our analysis. Furthermore, we examine the role of social comparisons, i.e., how an individual’s job satisfaction is driven not only by changes in his wages, but also by the size of ...