SOEP Research: Inequality and Mobility

A Cohabitation Wealth Premium for Women and Men: Considering the Regulatory Framework and Normative Acceptance in France and Germany

We examine the association between cohabitation and women’s and men’s wealth, closely considering the distinct regulatory and normative contexts in France and Eastern and Western Germany. Using longitudinal data from the German Socio- Economic Panel Study (2002–2017) and the French wealth survey Histoire de Vie et Patrimoine (2014/15-2020/21), we apply fixed-effects regression models to examine potential ...

Perceived Discrimination Among Migrants in Germany: Does Social Capital Moderate Harmful Effects on Mental Health?

Background The harmful mental health effects of perceived discrimination for migrant populations are well established. The potential buffering effect of regional-level social capital, however, has not previously been explored. Methods Using data from the German Socio-Economic Panel (SOEP; 2009–2018) we apply multilevel models to assess the effect of frequent or infrequent perceived discrimination on ...

Poverty risk decreases - especially in eastern Germany and among single parents

Income Distribution: Signs of a Trend Reversal In the Poverty Risk; Single Parents Less Frequently at Risk of Poverty

Despite high inflation, the real gross hourly wages of employees grew by around 15 percent from 1995 to 2022. In particular, the lowest wage decile caught back up to all other deciles following a sharp drop in real wages. At the same time, the low-wage sector has shrunk by nearly five percentage points since 2007, and by even more in the east of Germany (14 percent). In 2022, 18.5 percent of employees ...

Loneliness in Germany: Low-Income Earners at Highest Risk of Loneliness

Loneliness poses a serious health risk: Along with negatively impacting life quality, it can even shorten the life span. This Weekly Report investigates loneliness in Germany using Socio-Economic Panel (SOEP) data from 2021 on loneliness. The analyses highlight the prevalence of three facets of loneliness (aloneness, isolation, exclusion) as well as regional differences and high-risk groups. The results ...

The Long-Term Implications of Destruction During the Second World War on Private Wealth in Germany

By the end of the Second World War, an estimated 20% of the West German housing stock had been destroyed. Building on a theoretical life-cycle model, this paper examines the persistent consequences of the war for individual wealth across generations. As our empirical basis, we link a unique historical dataset on the levels of wartime destruction in 1739 West German cities with micro data on individual ...

Wealth Creators or Inheritors? Unpacking the Gender Wealth Gap from Bottom To Top and Young to Old

There is growing interest in understanding how gender influences the accumulation of wealth. While prior studies focused on labor-related determinants, our research focuses on inheritances and gifts. Using unique survey data that oversamples the top 1% of wealth holders in Germany, we show that the gender wealth gap is small for individuals up to age 40, then widens, and declines for those past retirement ...

Testing Marx: Capital Accumulation, Income Inequality, and Socialism in Late Nineteenth-Century Germany

We study the dynamics of capital accumulation, income inequality, capital concentration, and voting up to 1914. Based on new panel data for Prussian regions, we re-evaluate the famous Revisionism Debate between orthodox Marxists and their critics. We show that changes in capital accumulation led to a rise in the capital share and income inequality, as predicted by orthodox Marxists. But against their ...

How Do My Earnings Compare? Pay Referents and Just Earnings

Comparisons are crucial in shaping evaluations of one’s own position. Following this notion, we investigated the role of historical, financial, partner, occupational, and regional pay referents in predicting the just gross hourly earnings in a representative sample of German workers. Looking at this broad range of pay referents, we find that higher reference earnings were generally associated with ...

Parent-Child Mismatches in Educational Aspirations: Prevalence, Stability, and Convergence over Time

Parent-child mismatches in educational aspirations may negatively affect child development. We examine (1) the prevalence of mismatching aspirations across school grades 3–9 (ages 8–15), (2) their stability over time, and (3) whether mismatching aspirations converge to parents’ or to children’s aspirations. We use data from two German National Educational Panel Study cohorts (“kindergarten”: N=4,217, ...