Publications Based on SOEP Data: SOEPlit

Immigrants' Identity, Economic Outcomes and the Transmission of Identity across Generations

In this article we address three issues relating to immigrants' identity, measured as the feeling of belonging to particular ethnic groups. We study the formation of identity with home and host countries. We investigate how identity with either country relates to immigrants' and their children's labour market outcomes. Finally, we analyse the intergenerational transmission of identity. ...

Immigrants, Natives and Social Assistance: Comparable Take-Up Under Comparable Circumstances

Virtual Life Satisfaction

We study life satisfaction data from the 2005 World Values Survey and a 2009 survey of users of the virtual world Second Life. Second Life users do not have the same demographic profile as the general population, but the differences are not as large as we expected. The mechanisms and causes of life satisfaction seem to be similar in the two samples. Among Second Life users, satisfaction with their ...

Job polarization, task prices and the distribution of task returns

We make two contributions to understanding the large shifts in occupational structure seen across developed countries. First, we estimate underlying prices on occupations, grouped by predominant task, using panel data from the UK and Germany. In both countries, price growth is positively associated with employment share growth. This pattern, which disappears with observed wages, is consistent with ...

A Comparison of the Relationship Between Obesity and Earnings in the U.S. and Germany

Obesity and Skill Attainment in Early Childhood

Unemployment and the Insurance Compensation Principle in Britain and Germany. A Report to the Anglo-German Foundation for the Study of Industrial Society

Happy People Have Children: Choice and Self-Selection into Parenthood

There is mixed evidence in the existing literature on whether children are associated with greater subjective well-being, with the correlation depending on which countries and populations are considered. We here provide a systematic analysis of this question based on three different datasets: two cross-national and one national panel. We show that the association between children and subjective well-being ...

How to Distinguish Voluntary from Involuntary Unemployment: On the Relationship between the Willingness to Work and Unemployment-Induced Unhappiness

Studies investigating the determinants of happiness show that unemployment causes high distress for most affected persons. Researchers conclude that the amount of this disutility demonstrates the involuntariness of unemployment. This paper applies the happiness research approach to German panel data in order to revive the underlying economic question of whether unemployment is voluntary or involuntary. ...

Employed But Still Unhappy? On the Relevance of the Social Work Norm

In the modern welfare state, people who cannot make a living usually receive financial assistance from public funds. Accordingly, the so-called social work norm against living off other people is violated, which may be the reason why the unemployed are so unhappy. If so, however, labour market concepts based on the notion of promoting low-paid jobs that are subsidised if necessary with additional payments ...