SOEPnewsletter January 2022

• The SOEP Core v37 (data 1984-2020) will be ready for release on schedule in spring 2022. As announced, the data release will include the SOEP-CoV data. For more information, see: https://www.soep-cov.de. SOEP-Core v37 can be pre-ordered at: soepmail@diw.de (first come, first served).
• The EU-SILC clone will again be included in the v37 data release. In the EU-SILC Clone, the variables of the EU-wide survey EU-SILC are reconstructed using the data from the SOEP. We have compiled the possible uses of this dataset for research on this site.
• The measures taken to contain COVID-19 have had a significant impact on fieldwork for all of the SOEP studies. To minimize personal contact between interviewers and respondents, respondents have been offered the CAPI-by-phone interview mode as an alternative to the standard CAPI interview. In addition, SOEP offers CAWI and PAPI to SOEP-Core respondents and CAWI to respondents in the IAB-BAMF Refugee Survey. Fieldwork has been extended to increased difficulties in contacting respondents, especially recent migrants and refugees.
• In 2022, SOEP will refresh its main sample by 6,000 households. The aims are twofold: to counteract the sample attrition that occurred in 2021 and to significantly increase case numbers among younger population groups and households in rural areas.
• The 2018 SOEP-RV RTBN Scientific Use File became available on September 1, 2021, as special sample “SOEP-RV.RTBN2018.” The sample includes 2,120 SOEP respondents who agreed to have their survey data linked to anonymized data from the Research Data Center of the German Pension Insurance Association (FDZ-RV). The file merges detailed account information on pension entitlements as well as pension payment amounts with SOEP sociodemographic data on material well-being and the like at both the individual and household levels. The codebook for this dataset and how to order it can be found on this page of the Forschungsdatenzentrum der Rentenversicherung (FDZ-RV).
  
• New SOEP-IS deadlines: There are new deadlines for the submission of proposals for the SOEP-IS innovation modules. This is the result of a shift in SOEP-IS fieldwork to the beginning of the calendar year, simultaneously with the SOEP-Core fieldwork. Contact us by the end of May 2022 so that your research question can be included in SOEP-IS 2023. For the exact dates and procedures, please visit the RDC SOEP website. The next SOEP-IS survey will take place in the spring of 2022.

• SOEP Conference: The call for papers for the 14th International SOEP User Conference (SOEP 2022) is out. The conference is scheduled to take place in Berlin from June 30 to July 1, 2022. Further information can be found here.
• SOEPcampus: The next SOEPcampus@home seminar is scheduled to take place online February 22-25, 2022, from 4 to 6 pm. For more information on requirements and registration, please visit our site SOEPcampus Events.There you will also find the announcement of our next (hopefully) face-to-face workshop on April 20-21, 2022, at DIW Berlin.
• Project RKI-SOEP II: The second phase of the Nationwide Corona Monitoring (RKI-SOEP) antibody study has been underway since November 2021: More than 28,000 SOEP respondents aged 14 and older have been invited to participate in the second survey wave. For the first time, refugees are also being surveyed. For more information, see the project description and the RKI website (in German).
• Project InterVerm: Markus M. Grabka is working on the DFG project “The intergenerational reproduction of wealth inequality and its socio-demographic conditions in Germany (InterVerm)” with Philip Lersch from Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin and Daniel Schnitzlein from Leibniz-Universität Hannover. For more information, see the project site of the Humboldt University and the project site of the DFG.
• Project GapRisk: Researchers from the SOEP, the Robert Koch Institute (RKI), and the University of Bielefeld, are working on the collaborative project “Groups put at Particular Risk by COVID-19 (GaPRisk)” to find out how the pandemic affects different social groups and risk groups in Germany, what effects it has on social inequalities, and what role welfare state measures play. The project is using data from the SOEP and the SOEP’s special coronavirus studies, as well as data on the design and duration of policy measures.

• SOEP Survey Committee: At its meeting in early November 2021, the DIW Berlin Board of Trustees appointed five new members to the SOEP Survey Committee: Conchita D'Ambrosio, Frank Kalter, Jutta Mata, Annette Scherpenzeel, and Joachim Winter. We look forward working with them and also thank the SOEP Survey Committee members whose terms have come to an end: Melissa Hardy, Lucinda Platt, Susann Rohwedder, and especially Uwe Sunde, who served as chair for several years. More information

Publications

• The German Advisory Council for Consumer Affairs (SVRV) is among the SOEP’s data users. Its major report on the situation of consumers (Gutachten zur Lage der Verbraucherinnen und Verbraucher) includes a  chapter on housing that is based largely on SOEP data. In addition, DIWecon is currently preparing a comprehensive analysis of SOEP data on behalf of the SVRV, which will also include the immigration sample and the top shareholder sample. The latter will also be used for an SVRV report entitled “Social Inequality and Consumption.” Supplemented by focus group analyses, the report is scheduled for publication in mid-2022.In the summer of 2021, a paper on inequality and the formation of political camps published on the basis of data from the SOEP Innovation Sample (“Keine eindeutige Lagerbildung bei Ungleichheitskonflikten”) was awarded first prize by the Fritz Thyssen Stiftung for the best social science essay in German in 2020. More information here.

SOEP in the Media

How people invest for retirement in Germany

Smart machines: How artificial intelligence is shaping our work today

Low-income workers need supportive care services six years earlier

• We are pleased to announce two more successful doctoral dissertations at the end of last year: Sandra Bohmann, who is continuing at the SOEP, defended her dissertation entitled “Whether you think you can or you can't—it's true. Locus of control in status reproduction” at Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin. Her supervisors were Jürgen Schupp and Johannes Giesecke. Lea Löbel also received her doctorate from HU Berlin. Her dissertation was entitled “Social Networks and Refugee Mental Health—From Social Isolation to Family Reunification.” Her supervisors were Martin Kroh and Zerrin Salikutluk. Congratulations and all the best to you.
• Jürgen Schupp officially retired at the beginning of December 2021. But he will remain with SOEP as a Senior Research Fellow—among other things to (finish) supervising doctoral theses and, above all, to support in the further development of the Basic Income Pilot Project, which he helped to organize and get off the ground. We sincerely thank Jürgen for his many years of work for the SOEP, including his work as head of the SOEP from 2011 to 2018. A farewell celebration befitting the occasion unfortunately had to be postponed until “after the pandemic.”
• In the last six months, SOEP team welcomed three new members:
  Carina Cornesse is working as a researcher in the SOEP as well as in the data center of the Research Institute Social Cohesion (RISC). She coordinates the Social Cohesion Panel (SOEP-related study ZHP-FGZ) and conducts research on data quality and innovative data collection techniques in surveys. Her research focuses on the recruitment and maintenance of panel studies, the benefits and limitations of probability-based and nonprobability samples, the application of mixed-mode data collection designs, and on linking survey data to data from other sources. She studied sociology in Mainz and Frankfurt and received her PhD from the Graduate School for Economic and Social Sciences at the University of Mannheim. Before starting her work at DIW and RISC, she was a researcher at GESIS—Leibniz Institute for the Social Sciences and at the Collaborative Research Center 884 “Political Economy of Reforms” at the University of Mannheim.
  Sascha-Christopher Geschke joined the SOEP team as a research assistant in January 2022. He previously studied social sciences at the Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, where he worked for Prof. Dr. Johannes Giesecke as a tutor of statistical methods in the Department of Empirical Social Research and as a research director of the study “Ratings as a field of labor policy conflict: The example of Zalando” with Prof. Dr. Philipp Staab for the Hans Böckler Foundation. At SOEP, he will be responsible for generating various retrospective biographical and spell data, which he has already worked on as a student assistant.
  Barbara Stacherl started working at the SOEP in September 2021, supporting the Leibniz ScienceCampus within the subproject SOEP RegioHealth. Before joining DIW Berlin, Barbara worked at the Institute for Advanced Studies, Vienna, in the research group Health Economics & Health Policy. She did her master’s degree in economics at the Vienna University of Economics and Business. Her research interest focuses on health economics, health services research, and regional inequalities.