Publications Based on SOEP Data: SOEPlit

Wealth and mortality among late-middle-aged individuals in Norway: a nationwide register-based retrospective study

Background In recent decades, we have observed rising wealth inequality while the pace of growth of life expectancy has slowed in many Western welfare democracies. There is scarce evidence, however, on links between wealth and mortality. The main methodological limitation in this area of scholarship is its inability to account for individuals' unobserved heterogeneity, such as personality and ...

Unequal access to protection? Selection patterns over arrival cohorts of Syrians seeking refuge in Lebanon, Turkey, and Germany

Introduction: An ample scholarly literature on voluntary migration has shown that migration is a highly selective process, resulting in migrant populations that often differ significantly from their respective population of origin in terms of their socio-demographic characteristics. The literature attributes these differences to either migrants' active choice and agency in the migration decision ...

The perception of major life events across the life course

To better understand the effects of life events, research interest recently turned to the question of how life events are perceived (e.g., as positive, predictable, or controllable). However, research on this topic primarily focused on young adulthood, leaving it unclear whether and how the perception of life events varies across the life course. In this study, we examined the relationship between ...

Analysis of survey data in the presence of non-ignorable missing-data and selection mechanisms (Dissertation)

This thesis deals with methods for the appropriate handling of non-ignorable missing data and sample selection, which are two common challenges of survey data analysis. Both issues can dramatically affect the quality of analysis results and lead to misleading inferences about the population. Therefore, in three different research articles, I treat methods for the performance of so-called sensitivity ...

Involuntary Changes in Commuting Distances: Effects on Subjective Well-Being in the Era of Mobile Internet

Commuting is a fundamental aspect of employees’ daily routines and continues to evolve with technological advancements. Yet the effects of commuting on subjective well-being remain insufficiently investigated in the context of expanding digital connectivity. This paper examines the causal effects of changes in commuting distance on subjective well-being in an era of widespread mobile internet availability. ...

Asylum seekers and host country mental health: Evidence from Germany and Switzerland

Due to recent conflicts and humanitarian issues, millions of people have sought asylum in countries in Europe. The influx of asylum seekers has sparked debates about the impacts of such migratory flows on resident populations. We study how the recent migration of these forcibly displaced people into Europe affects the mental health of the receiving country residents in Switzerland and Germany. We exploit ...

Introduction to the symposium on reproducibility and replicability in economics: Part I

Is a sorrow shared a sorrow doubled? Parental unemployment and the life satisfaction of adolescent children

This paper examines the possible spillover effects of parental unemployment on the subjective well-being of 12- to 21-year-old children. Using German panel data (SOEP), we show that unemployment of fathers and mothers is negatively associated with their children’s life satisfaction. When controlling for time-invariant individual heterogeneity, our results suggest that maternal unemployment has adverse ...

Energy poverty and health: Micro-level evidence from Germany

This paper aims to understand the health effects of energy poverty in Germany using SOEP panel data from 2010 to 2020. Linear probability and fixed effects ordered logit models reveal a consistently negative relationship of three expenditures-based energy poverty indicators with general health: the odds ratio of being in better health decreases between about 6 % and 8 %. This association is stronger ...

Much to lose, no credentials to prove it – Educational aspirations and intentions of adult refugees as means of occupational status re-attainment

We analyse how educational aspirations and intentions of adult refugees in Germany are shaped by their foreign educational credentials and their previous occupational status. Because the allocation of medium-skilled jobs on the German labour market heavily relies on a variety of credentials, unlike in the countries of origin, where skills are usually acquired on the job but not formally certified, ...