SOEP-Suche

Income Inequality Remains High in Germany — Young Singles and Career Entrants Increasingly At Risk of Poverty

According to calculations based on the Socio-Economic Panel (SOEP) study, average disposable household income rose by five percent in real terms between 2000 and 2012. Only the highest earners have benefited from this development. While real income in the top ten percent rose by more than 15 percent, the earnings of the middle income groups stagnated, and even fell in the lower income groups. As a ...

Shrinking Share of Middle-Income Group in Germany and the US

According to calculations based on the Socio-Economic Panel (SOEP) study, the proportion of middle-income group in Germany fell by six percentage points from 1991 to 2013, taking it to 54 percent. Germany is not the only country to have experienced such a downturn, however. Analyses of the situation in the US indicate a similar decline. To the middle-income group belong individuals in households earning ...

Has Income Inequality Spiked in Germany?

New analyses of personal income distribution in Germany, based on data from the German Socio-Economic Panel (SOEP), show that real market income in private households rose significantly from 2005 to 2010. An increase in real disposable income was also observed. At the same time, income inequality decreased in both western and eastern Germany. However, the latter showed a further spread at the lower ...

The evolution of income inequality in Germany and Switzerland since the turn of the millennium

This paper presents and compares trends in income inequality in Switzerland and Germany from 2000 to 2009 using harmonized data from the Socio-Economic Panel (SOEP) and the Swiss Household Panel (SHP). Whereas in Germany inequality has increased substantially during this period, in Switzerland inequality in market incomes has increased only marginally and inequality in disposable incomes has decreased ...

Wealth distribution within couples

While most studies on wealth inequality focus on the inequality between households, this paper examines the distribution of wealth within couples. For this purpose, we make use of unique individual level micro data from the German Socio-Economic Panel (SOEP). In married and cohabiting couples, men have, on average, 33,000 Euro more net worth than women. We look at five different sets of factors (demographics, ...

Inequality in Germany: decrease in gap for gross hourly wages since 2014, but monthly and annual wages remain on plateau

Despite the booming German labor market, wage inequality is still a relevant issue. In the present study, the authors report on the changes in wages and their distribution between 1992 and 2016. In addition to real contractual gross hourly wages, we closely examined gross monthly and annual wages. Based on Socio-Economic Panel (SOEP) data, the results show that wage inequality rose significantly between ...

The Low-Wage Sector in Germany Is Larger Than Previously Assumed

The total number of dependent employees in Germany has increased by more than four million since the financial crisis. Part of this growth took place in the low-wage sector. Analyses based on data from the Socio-Economic Panel, which in 2017 for the first time include detailed information on secondary employment, show that there were around nine million low-wage employment contracts in Germany that ...

Household income distribution in Germany in the years 1984, 1989 and 1994 - An analysis using the German Socio-Economic Panel. Report for the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD)

Household income distribution in Germany with special distinction between working age and retirement age population - An analysis using the German Socio-Economic Panel in the years 1984, 1989 and 1994. Report for the OECD

How unification and immigration affected the German income distribution

The German economy is not only affected by unification of Germany but by a significant influx of immigrants from abroad and huge migration from East to West Germany around the date of unification. Data from the German Socio-Economic Panel Study (GSOEP) allows one to disentangle those effects by decomposition of the Theil I(0)-Index of inequality. In addition, the paper offers insights into the transition ...