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Upward and downward social mobility probabilities have converged for men and women

This study investigates professional social mobility, i.e., changes in one’s occupational status compared to that of their parents. It uses data from the German Socio-Economic Panel (Sozio-oekonomisches Panel, SOEP) on middle-aged, western Germans who were born between 1939 and 1971. On average, social status relative to parents has increased (absolute social mobility). However, looking at how positions ...

Integrating Randomized Controlled Field Trials into (Existing) Panel Surveys : The "Mentoring of Refugees" Study

Randomized controlled trials (RCT) are the gold standard in research design for studying causal relationships. In migration studies, they can, for instance, help studying the effects of government and non-government programs on migrant integration. However, RCTs are challenging and cost-intensive to conduct. In this brief, we outline a research design that integrates RCTs into existing panel surveys ...

Time and Poverty in Western Welfare States. United Germany in Perspective

Family Policies in Germany

This chapter reviews the current state of German family policy with a special focus on rights and obligations. It identifies the peculiarities of family policies in the formerly socialist East and in the conservative-familist West. German unification merged two contrasting models of family policy: the East German dual-earner model and the West German male breadwinner model. While family policy in East ...

No Effect of Birth Order on Adult Risk Taking

Does birth order shape people’s propensity to take risks? Evidence is mixed. We used a three-pronged approach to investigate birth-order effects on risk taking. First, we examined the propensity to take risks as measured by a self-report questionnaire administered in the German Socio-Economic Panel, one of the largest and most comprehensive household surveys. Second, we drew on data from the Basel–Berlin ...

The causal effect of age at migration on youth educational attainment

We investigate the causal effect of age at migration on subsequent educational attainment in the destination country. To identify the causal effect we compare the educational attainment of siblings at age 21, exploiting the fact that they typically migrate at different ages within a given family. We consider several education outcomes conditional on family fixed effects. We take advantage of long running ...

The course of subjective sleep quality in middle and old adulthood and its relation to physical health

Objective: Older adults more often complain about sleep disturbances compared to younger adults. However, it is not clear whether there is still a decline of sleep quality after age 60 and whether changes in sleep quality in old age are mere reflections of impaired physical health or whether they represent a normative age dependent development.Method: Subjective sleep quality and perceived physical ...

Institutional rearing is associated with lower general life satisfaction in adulthood

We analyzed whether individuals reared in institutions differ in their general life satisfaction from people raised in their families. The data comprised of 19,210 German adults (51.5% female) aged from 17 to 101 years and were provided by the SOEP, an ongoing, nationally representative longitudinal study in Germany. Compared to people raised in families, individuals reared in institutions reported ...

Can Happiness Apps Generate Nationally Representative Datasets? - a Case Study Collecting Data on People’s Happiness Using the German Socio-Economic Panel

In the last few years, apps have become an important tool to collect data. Especially in the case of data on people’s happiness, two projects have received substantial attention from both the media and the scientific world: “Track your happiness” from Killingsworth and Gilbert (Science, 330, 932-932, 2010), and “Mappiness,” from MacKerron (2012). Both happiness apps used the experience sampling method ...

Valuing air quality using the life satisfaction approach

I use the life satisfaction approach to value air quality, combining individual-level panel and highresolution SO2 data. To avoid simultaneity problems, I construct a novel instrument exploiting the natural experiment created by the mandated scrubber installation at power plants, with wind directions dividing counties into treatment and control groups. I find a negative effect of pollution on well-being ...