SOEP-Core v31.1i (update international edition, data 1984-2014)

The German Socio-Economic Panel (SOEP) study is a wide-ranging representative longitudinal study of private households, located at the German Institute for Economic Research, DIW Berlin. Every year, there were nearly 11,000 households, and more than 20,000 persons sampled by the fieldwork organization TNS Infratest Sozialforschung. The data provide information on all household members, consisting of Germans living in the Old and New German States, foreigners, and recent immigrants to Germany. The Panel was started in 1984. Some of the many topics include household composition, occupational biographies, employment, earnings, health and satisfaction indicators. As early as June 1990—even before the Economic, Social and Monetary Union—SOEP expanded to include the states of the former German Democratic Republic (GDR), thus seizing the rare opportunity to observe the transformation of an entire society. An immigrant sample was added as well to account for the changes that took place in German society in 1994/95. Further new samples were added in 1998, 2000, 2002, 2006, 2009, 2011, 2012 and 2013 The survey is constantly being adapted and developed in response to current social developments. The international version contains 95% of all cases surveyed.

Dataset Information

Title: German Socio-Economic Panel (SOEP), data of the years 1984-2014, International Scientific Use Version

DOI: 10.5684/soep.v31.1i
Collection period: 1984-2014
Publication date: March 18, 2016
Principal investigators: Jürgen Schupp, Jan Goebel, Martin Kroh, Carsten Schröder, Klaudia Erhardt, Alexandra Fedorets, Marco Giesselmann, Markus Grabka, Peter Krause, Simon Kühne, Maximilian Priem, David Richter, Rainer Siegers, Paul Schmelzer, Christian Schmitt, Daniel Schnitzlein, Ingrid Tucci, Knut Wenzig

You can see the complete information by clicking at the DOI of the original data set
http://dx.doi.org/10.5684/soep.v31i


Data set information

 Number of units 104,320
 Number of variables 57,670 in 396 data sets
Data formats STATA, SPSS, SAS, CSV

MD5 fingerprints

Distribution format
 zip file Einzeldatensätze
Stata bilingual e20486dd3a610b020561557823efa4cc   | TXT, 17.35 KB
Stata German a7db606f29f56442f59cae6f080efee7   | TXT, 17.35 KB
Stata English 4aab19142ae5e88cbceaa1fbbd80a555   | TXT, 17.35 KB
SPSS German 9d8d9a3ffa7eb4bcaebd38c8465a9851   | TXT, 17.35 KB
SPSS English 41521af83a62ead2d9c7f25b9c964e64   | TXT, 17.35 KB
SAS German a05e76377a652f246285491ea70037ea   | TXT, 19.38 KB
SAS English e6f8f6345d1066caa20660ab05dd6fbc | TXT, 19.38 KB
CSV 5c7b2c9fc0d655abd3674f820c8782d5   | TXT, 17.35 KB

Publications:

Gert G. Wagner, Joachim R. Frick, and Jürgen Schupp (2007): The German Socio-Economic Panel Study (SOEP) - Scope, Evolution and Enhancements, Schmollers Jahrbuch (Journal of Applied Social Science Studies), 127 (1), 139-169 (download).

Joachim R. Frick, Stephen P. Jenkins, Dean R. Lillard, Oliver Lipps und Mark Wooden (2007): The Cross-National Equivalent File (CNEF) and its Member Country Household Panel Studies,  Schmollers Jahrbuch, Jg. 127 (4) , 627-654 (download)

Publications using this file should refer to the above DOI infoFind an explanation on the usage of DOI here.and cite following references

  • Goebel, Jan, Markus M. Grabka, Stefan Liebig, Martin Kroh, David Richter, Carsten Schröder, and Jürgen Schupp. 2019. The German Socio-Economic Panel (SOEP). Jahrbücher für Nationalökonomie und Statistik (Journal of Economics and Statistics) 239 (2), 345-360. (https://doi.org/10.1515/jbnst-2018-0022)

If you do not exclude the cases of the migration samples in your analysis, then please also cite the following reference:

  • Herbert Brücker, Martin Kroh, Simone Bartsch, Jan Goebel, Simon Kühne, Elisabeth Liebau, Parvati Trübswetter, Ingrid Tucci & Jürgen Schupp. 2014. The new IAB-SOEP Migration Sample: an introduction into the methodology and the contents. SOEP Survey Paper 216 (PDF, 444.25 KB), Series C. Berlin, Nürnberg: DIW Berlin.

If you do not exclude the cases of the refugee samples in your analysis, please also cite: 

  • Herbert Brücker, Yuliya Kosyakova, Nina Rother, Sabine Zinn, Elisabeth Liebau, Wenke Gider, Silvia Schwanhäuser, & Manuel Siegert. 2025. Exploring Integration and Migration Dynamics: The Research Potentials of a Large-Scale Longitudinal Household Study of Refugees in Germany. European Sociological Review. https://doi.org/10.1093/esr/jcaf032.

If you use data from the SOEP-LEE2 surveys, please also cite:

  • Wenzel Matiaske, Torben Dall Schmidt, Christoph Halbmeier, Martina Maas, Doris Holtmann, Carsten Schröder, Tamara Böhm, Stefan Liebig, and Alexander S. Kritikos. 2023. SOEP-LEE2 : Linking Surveys on Employees to Employers in Germany. Jahrbücher für Nationalökonomie und Statistik Data Observer, 1–14. https://doi.org/10.1515/jbnst-2023-0031.

If you would like to refer more specifically, please also cite:

  • Schröder, Carsten, Johannes König, Alexandra Fedorets, Jan Goebel, Markus M. Grabka, Holger Lüthen, Maria Metzing, Felicitas Schikora, and Stefan Liebig. 2020. The economic research potentials of the German Socio-Economic Panel study. German Economic Review 21 (3), 335-371. (https://doi.org/10.1515/ger-2020-0033)
  • Giesselmann, Marco, Sandra Bohmann, Jan Goebel, Peter Krause, Elisabeth Liebau, David Richter, Diana Schacht, Carsten Schröder, Jürgen Schupp, and Stefan Liebig. 2019. The Individual in Context(s): Research Potentials of the Socio-Economic Panel Study (SOEP) in Sociology. European Sociological Review 35 (5), 738-755. (https://doi.org/10.1093/esr/jcz029)
  • Jacobsen, Jannes, Magdalena Krieger, Felicitas Schikora, and Jürgen Schupp. 2021. Growing Potentials for Migration Research using the German Socio-Economic Panel Study. Jahrbücher für Nationalökonomie und Statistik 241 (4), 527-549. (https://doi.org/10.1515/jbnst-2021-0001)
  • Fedorets, Alexandra, Stefan Kirchner, Jule Adriaans, and Oliver Giering. 2022. Data on Digital Transformation in the German Socio-Economic Panel. Jahrbücher für Nationalökonomie und Statistik 242 (5-6), 691-705. (https://doi.org/10.1515/jbnst-2021-0056)

Field-de Field-en
Individual (PAPI) 2014: Field-de Field-en
Household (PAPI) 2014: Field-de Field-en
Biography (PAPI) 2014: Field-de
Catch-up Individual 2014: Field-de
Youth (16-17 year-olds) 2014: Field-de
Pre-Teen (11-12 year-olds) 2015: Field-de
Mother and Child (Newborns) 2014: Field-de
Mother and Child (2-3-year-olds) 2014: Field-de
Mother and Child (5-6-year-olds) 2014: Field-de
Parents and Child (7-8-year-olds) 2014: Field-de
Mother and Child (9-10-year-olds) 2014: Field-de
Deceased Individual 2014: Field-de

Please find all sample specific questionnaires of this year and all questionnaires of previous years on this site

1) SOEP 2014 – Methodenbericht zum Befragungsjahr 2014 (Welle 2) des IAB-SOEP-Migrationssamples 2013 (M1)

2) SOEP 2014 – TNS Report of SOEP Fieldwork in 2014

3) SOEP 2014 – Methodenbericht zum Befragungsjahr 2014 (Welle 31) des Sozio-oekonomischen Panels

4) SOEP 2014 – Documentation on Biography and Life History Data for SOEP v31 and v31.1

5) Documentation of Sample Sizes and Panel Attrition in the German Socio Economic Panel (SOEP) (1984 until 2014)

6) SOEP Glossary

7) Die Vercodung der offenen Angaben zur beruflichen Tätigkeit nach der International Standard Classification of Occupations 2008 (ISCO08) - Direktvercodung - Vorgehensweise und Entscheidungsregeln bei nicht eindeutigen Angaben

8) Die Vercodung der offenen Angaben zur beruflichen Tätigkeit nach der Klassifikation der Berufe 2010 (KldB 2010): Vorgehensweise und Entscheidungsregeln bei nicht eindeutigen Angaben

9) SOEP 2014 – Documentation of the Person-Related Meta-Dataset PPFAD for SOEP v31

10) SOEP 2014 – Documentation of the Person-related Meta-dataset PPFAD for SOEP v31.1

11) SOEP 2014 – Documentation of the Household-Related Meta-Dataset HPFAD for SOEP v31

12) SOEP 2014 – Documentation of the Household-related Meta-dataset HPFAD for SOEP v31.1

13) SOEP 2014 – Documentation of Person-Related Status and Generated Variables in PGEN for SOEP v31

14) SOEP 2014 – Documentation of Person-related Status and Generated Variables in $PGEN for SOEP v31.1

15) SOEP 2014 – Documentation of Household-Related Status and Generated Variables in HGEN for SOEP v31

16) SOEP 2014 – Documentation of Household-related Status and Generated Variables in $HGEN for SOEP v31.1

17) SOEP 2014 – Codebook for the $PEQUIV File 1984-2014: CNEF Variables with Extended Income Information for the SOEP

18) SOEP 2014 – Documentation of the Person-Related Meta-Dataset HEALTH for SOEP v31

19) SOEP 2014 – Documentation of the Person-related Meta-dataset HEALTH for SOEP v31.1

20) SOEP 2014 – Documentation of Person-related Variables on Children in BEKIND for SOEP v31.1

21) SOEP 2014 – Documentation of the Pooled Dataset on Children in KIDLONG for SOEP v31.1

22) SOEP 2014 – Documentation of the Dataset INTERVIEWER: Detailed Information on SOEP Interviewers for SOEP v31

1) Handgreifkraftmessung im Sozio-oekonomischen Panel (SOEP) 2006 und 2008

2) The Request for Record Linkage in the IAB-SOEP Migration Sample

3) Job submission instructions for the SOEPremote System at DIW Berlin – Update 2014

4) Editing and Multiple Imputation of Item Non-response in the Wealth Module of the German Socio-Economic Panel

5) Die Vercodung der offenen Angaben zu den Ausbildungsberufen im Sozio-Oekonomischen Panel

6) SOEP 2010 – Preparation of data from the new SOEP consumption module: Editing, imputation, and smoothing

7) Kognitionspotenziale Jugendlicher - Ergänzung zum Jugendfragebogen der Längsschnittstudie Sozio-oekonomisches Panel (SOEP)

8) Multi-Itemskalen im SOEP Jugendfragebogen

9) Missing Income Data in the German SOEP: Incidence, Imputation and its Impact on the Income Distribution

10) Zur Erhebung des adaptiven Verhaltens von zwei- und dreijährigen Kindern im Sozio-oekonomischen Panel (SOEP)

11) SOEP 2006 – TIMEPREF: Dataset on the Economic Behavior Experiment on Time Preferences in the 2006 SOEP Survey

12) Assessing the distributional impact of "imputed rent" and "non-cash employee income" in microdata : Case studies based on EU-SILC (2004) and SOEP (2002)

All documentation for filtering can be found on this page

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