Publications Based on SOEP Data: SOEPlit

Measuring Housing Costs and Housing Affordability Using SOEP: An Example Applied to Older Households

This paper explores the methodological issues to take into account when using SOEP as a database for calculating a measure of housing costs and housing affordability. For this purpose, we focus on the evolution of housing costs for households headed by elderly people between 1998 and 2018. Our review yields two clear conclusions: (1) that SOEP represents a valuable source of data for calculating household ...

Family Life During Corona (Version: 26 June 2020)

Social Integration of Refugees Is Improving

Five years ago, almost a million people came to Germany seeking refuge. Chancellor Angela Merkel responded to public concern over such a large influx of refugees with her well-known saying, “Wir schaffen das” (We can do this!). Much has happened since then. As this report shows, the German population’s concerns over immigration have been decreasing since 2016. Nevertheless, refugees are increasingly ...

Higher Order Risk Preferences: New Experimental Measures, Determinants and Field Behavior

We use a novel method to elicit and measure higher order risk preferences (prudence and temperance) in an experiment with 658 adolescents. In line with theoretical predictions, we find that higher order risk preferences - particularly prudence - are strongly related to adolescents' field behavior, including their financial decision making, eco-friendly behavior, and health status, including addictive ...

Millionaires under the Microscope: Data Gap on Top Wealth Holders Closed; Wealth Concentration Higher than Presumed

Individuals with assets in the millions of euros have been underrepresented in population surveys and accordingly little has been known about them. As a result, the full extent of wealth concentration in Germany was unknown. To close the existing data gap, the Socio-Economic Panel (SOEP) inte- grated a special sample in which individuals with high assets are overrepresented. New calculations using ...

LGBTQI* People on the Labor Market: Highly Educated, Frequently Discriminated Against

Societal acceptance of the LGBTQI* people has greatly improved over the past decades in Germany and legal equal treatment on the labor market has been improved by the General Equal Treatment Act (Allgemeines Gleichbehandlungsgesetz, AGG). However, about 30 percent of those who identify as LGBTQI* report experiencing discrimination in their work life, according to the results of a survey conducted by ...

Genome-wide association analyses of risk tolerance and risky behaviors in over 1 million individuals identify hundreds of loci and shared genetic influences

Humans vary substantially in their willingness to take risks. In a combined sample of over 1 million individuals, we conducted genome-wide association studies (GWAS) of general risk tolerance, adventurousness, and risky behaviors in the driving, drinking, smoking, and sexual domains. Across all GWAS, we identified hundreds of associated loci, including 99 loci associated with general risk tolerance. ...

Education Differences in Women’s Body Weight Trajectories: The Role of Motherhood

Studies have found that education differences in women’s body weight increase until middle adulthood. The explanatory mechanisms behind this increase are not well-understood. This study examined the role of education differences in the prevalence of motherhood as a risk factor for weight gain and in vulnerability to its effects on weight gain. We used longitudinal data from the German Socio-economic ...

The Need for Household Panel Surveys in Times of Crisis: The Case of SOEP-CoV

The spread of the novel coronavirus, SARS-CoV-2, poses major challenges for individuals and societies at large. The question now is how individuals and society are dealing with these challenges, and what health, psychological, social, and economic effects they will have to bear. Meaningful answers can only be provided using a generalizable database that contains contextual information such as family ...

Family Life in Lockdown (Version: September 22, 2020)