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This study investigates regional differences in pay fairness perceptions among employees in eastern and western Germany from 2009 to 2023. Using longitudinal data from the Socio-Economic Panel study, the analysis reveals substantial initial disparities: Employees in eastern Germany perceive their gross earnings as more unfair than employees in western Germany do. Over time, however, these regional ...
In:
KZfSS Kölner Zeitschrift für Soziologie und Sozialpsychologie
78 (2026), 2, 413–429
| Jule Adriaans, Carsten Sauer
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Objective: This article investigates for different cohorts how earnings inequalities evolve with the duration of cohabiting couples’ relationships and after childbirth. Background: Germany has undergone a paradigm shift in its family policies and so presents ideal contextual conditions to examine whether institutional change is reflected in a decrease in within-couple inequality overall and across ...
In:
Journal of Family Research
38 (2026), 309–329
| Martina Dieckhoff, Vanessa Gash, Antje Mertens, Laura Romeu-Gordo
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Social media usage by children and young people is an increasingly controversial topic. The focus is on risks, opportunities, and possible regulations. Politicians from all relevant parties are now open to a social media ban up to a certain age; the Federal Ministry for Family Affairs has set up a commission of experts. Based on a short survey in the Socio-Economic Panel (SOEP), conducted in September ...
In:
DIW Weekly Report
15 (2026), 10, 79–88
| Jörg Dollmann, Christian Hunkler, Nicolas Legewie, Julian Axenfeld, Andreas Franken, Felix von Heusinger
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We investigate the role of industrial relations for working from home during and after the COVID-19 pandemic in Germany. Using data from the German Socio-Economic Panel (SOEP) for the years 2020 to 2023 and a special COVID sample (SOEP-CoV) for 2020 and 2021, we examine how collective bargaining and plant-level co-determination are associated with the incidence and frequency of working from home. Controlling ...
In:
LABOUR
40 (2026), 3, 321–342
| Laszlo Goerke, Markus M. Grabka, Viola Hilbert, Yue Huang
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In Germany, employee absences due to illness rose sharply, particularly in 2022. Various sources argue that the introduction of the electronic certificate of incapacity for work (eAU) caused this. Official data previously did not include absences that were not reported to health insurance providers; since the introduction of the eAU, this is no longer the case. This gap does not exist in Socio-Economic ...
In:
DIW Weekly Report
20/21 (2026), 167–174
| Markus Grabka, Oskar Breer
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This paper studies inequality of opportunity (IOp) in individual net wealth in Germany from 2002 to 2019 using the Socio-Economic Panel (SOEP). Applying the ex-ante IOp framework, we quantify the share of wealth inequality attributable to immutable circumstances and benchmark it against IOp in gross labour earnings. Relative IOp in net wealth is high?slightly above one half of total wealth inequality?and ...
In:
Oxford Bulletin of Economics and Statistics
(online first) (2026),
| Daniel Graeber, Johannes König, Viola Hilbert
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This paper explores the effect of COVID-19 infection rates on individuals’ risk preferences using the Socio-Economic Panel (SOEP), a large population-wide random sample. Exploiting county-level variation in a difference-in-differences design, we find that risk preferences remain unchanged: the effect is precisely estimated at 2.1% of a standard deviation (95% CI: [−0.4%, +4.6%]), ruling out economically ...
In:
Journal of Risk and Uncertainty
(2026),
| Daniel Graeber, Ulrich Schmidt, Carsten Schröder, Johannes Seebauer
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Climate change triggers anxiety in many people. Concerns about the consequences of climate change vary significantly not just by age and generation but also over time. Using German Socio-Economic Panel (SOEP) data, this Weekly Report examines the extent to which these differences stem from age-related effects, generational socialization, or year-specific events. The results show that climate concerns ...
In:
DIW Weekly Report
18/19 (2026), 157–163
| Daniel Graeber, Laura Schmitz, Franziska Holz
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Longitudinal surveys play a central role in social science research and policy advice but increasing demands for timely data pose substantial challenges for managing time, resources, and data quality across survey waves. While the Survey Life Cycle (SLC) provides a well established framework for organizing survey production, it is primarily geared toward single wave studies and offers limited guidance ...
In:
Survey Practice
20 (2026),
| Florian Griese, Christian Hunkler, Sabine Zinn
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Parenthood has been linked to changes in health-related behavior, though studies have reported mixed findings on whether these changes are beneficial or harmful. To date, most research has focused on associations between parenthood and individual health behaviors, while research on the association with overall health lifestyles is limited. This study investigates how health lifestyles change following ...
In:
International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health
23 (2026), 7, 926
| Maja Großbach, Philipp Linden, Nadine Reibling