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Would a four-day-week improve individual well-being? Evidence on working hours and life satisfaction from German panel data

The four-day-week receives growing attention by companies, researchers, and governments. A core premise of the concept is that reducing working hours increases individual well-being. While trials in public and private organisations support this claim, empirical studies on the relationship between working hours and well-being do not offer conclusive evidence. This study contributes to the academic literature ...

Perceived Economic Uncertainty and Fertility - Evidence from a Labor Market Reform

Empirical evidence on the causal effect of perceived economic uncertainty (PEU) on fertility is sparse and results are ambiguous. To provide causal evidence on the effect of PEU on fertility, we exploit exogenous variation in PEU induced by the announcement of a major German unemployment benefit reform in an instrumental variable approach. Using data from the German Socio-Economic Panel, we estimate ...

“Like two peas in a pod?” Homogamous personalities, education, and union dissolution

This paper examines the association between the level of similarity in the “Big Five” personality traits of the partners in different-sex couples and their risk of union dissolution. Prior research has mainly focused on homogamy in socio-economic, demographic, and cultural characteristics, such as age, education, employment, and religion. The few studies on the effects of homogamy in the personalities ...

Drivers of Loneliness among Older Refugees

Although older refugees can be seen as particularly vulnerable to social isolation and loneliness, they are often overlooked by ageing and migration scholars. This article addresses this research gap by identifying and examining potential drivers of loneliness among older refugees. The study analysed data from the first two waves of the IAB-BAMF-SOEP Survey of Refugees, focusing on 958 individuals ...

Can television reduce xenophobia? The case of East Germany

Can television have a mitigating effect on xenophobia? To explore this question, we investigate a natural experiment in which individuals in some regions of East Germany could not - due to their geographic location - consume West German television until 1989. By analyzing survey data from the periods before and after German reunification, we provide evidence that individuals who received West German ...

The Public Sector Wage Gap in Spain: Evidence from Income Tax Data

This paper studies the public sector wage gap by gender and skill level in Spain using recent administrative data from tax records. We estimate wage distributions in the presence of covariates separately for men and women in the public sector and in the private sector. Then, we decompose the public sector wage gap along the wage distribution and isolate the part due to differences in the remunerations ...

Higher education funding in Germany: a distributional lifetime perspective

This paper analyzes higher education funding in Germany from a distributional perspective. For this, I first compare the quantitative importance of different funding instruments, from free tuition to subsidized health insurance for students. I show that free tuition is, by far, the most important instrument. Then, I take a lifetime perspective and assess how individuals of different expected lifetime ...

Problem Or Opportunity? Immigration, Job Search, Entrepreneurship and Labor Market Outcomes Of Natives In Germany

In this study we evaluate the effects of low-skilled immigration on small businesses, wages and employment in Germany. We develop a search and matching model with heterogeneous workers, cross-skill matching, and endogenous entry into entrepreneurship. The model is calibrated using German Socio-Economic Panel (SOEP) data. Quantitative analysis shows that low-skilled immigration benefits high-skilled ...

Essays on Households’ Contribution to Climate Change and Its Mitigation (Dissertation)

Risk factors for multimodal conservative approach failure before bariatric surgery

A multimodal conservative approach (MCA) is internationally recommended prior to bariatric surgery for the majority of patients. This research aimed to identify risk factors for therapy failure within the MCA.This study was conducted in a German bariatric obesity centre. Patients who underwent a 3- to 6-month preoperative MCA from November 2019 to October 2020 were prospectively recorded and analysed. ...