Publications Based on SOEP Data: SOEPlit

Desperate Housewives and Happy Working Mothers: Are Parent-Couples with Equal Income More Satisfied throughout Parenthood? A Dyadic Longitudinal Study

Are parent-couples with equal income more satisfied as their children grow up, than those who prioritize the father’s career (specialize)? For the first time, 384 German Socio-Economic Panel (SOEP) study couples were categorized into life-course coupled earnings types, by tracing how earnings were divided within couples between the ages of 1 to 15 of their youngest child. Multivariate, multilevel analysis ...

The Health of Catholic Order Members: A Comparison with the General Population (Chapter 3.1)

Diverging Trends in Single-Mother Poverty across Germany, Sweden, and the United Kingdom: Toward a Comprehensive Explanatory Framework

To explain single-mother poverty, existing research has either emphasized individualistic, or contextual explanations. Building on the prevalences and penalties framework (Brady et al. 2017), we advance the literature on single-mother poverty in three aspects: First, we extend the framework to incorporate heterogeneity among single mothers across countries and over time. Second, we apply this extended ...

Wage Risk and Portfolio Choice: The Role of Correlated Returns

From standard portfolio-choice theory it is well-understood that background risk, overwhelmingly due to wage risk, is one of the central determinants of individuals’ portfolio composition: higher background risk reduces risky investments. However, if background risk is negatively correlated with financial market risk, higher background risk implies more risky investment. We quantify the influence of ...

The dynamics of recent refugees’ language acquisition: how do their pathways compare to those of other new immigrants?

Do the processes underlying destination-language acquisition differ between recently arrived refugees and other new immigrants? Based on a well-established model of language learning according to which language fluency is a function of efficiency, incentives, and exposure, this study addresses general processes of language learning as well as conditions specific to refugees. Longitudinal data on refugees ...

The legacy of state socialism on attitudes toward immigration

Does the politico–economic system affect preferences for immigration? In this study, I show that individuals exposed to life under state socialism have formed and persistently hold different attitudes toward immigration. By exploiting the division and reunification of Germany, I estimate the influence of state socialism on attitudes toward immigration. Drawing on rich individual panel data, I find ...

Does More Schooling Lead to Less or More Inequality of Educational Opportunity?

Critical theories of education but also the dynamics of skill formation model predict that the education system reproduces educational inequalities. Contrary to this hypothesis, empirical studies comparing the change in inequalities in academic performance over the summer to the change in these inequalities during the school year, have argued that schooling reduces inequalities in educational performance. ...

Health-Related Quality of Life of Persons with Direct, Indirect and No Migration Background in Germany: A Cross-Sectional Study Based on the German Socio-Economic Panel (SOEP)

Global migration towards and within Europe remains high, shaping the structure of populations. Approximately 24% of the total German population had a migration background in 2017. The aim of the study was to analyze the association between migration background and health-related quality of life (HrQoL) in Germany. The analyses were based on 2014 and 2016 data of the German Socio-Economic Panel. Differences ...

Earn More Tomorrow: Overconfident Income Expectations and Consumer Indebtedness

This paper examines whether biased income expectations due to overconfidence lead to higher levels of debt-taking. In a lab experiment, participants can purchase goods by borrowing against their future income. We exogenously manipulate income expectations by letting income depend on relative performance in hard and easy quiz tasks. We successfully generate biased income expectations and show that participants ...

Working Time Mismatch and Job Satisfaction – The Role of Employees' Time Autonomy and Gender

Evidence shows that working time mismatch, i.e. the difference between actual and desired working hours, is negatively related to employees' job satisfaction. Using longitudinal data from the German Socio-Economic Panel, we examine the potential moderating effect of working time autonomy on this relation and we also consider the corresponding role of gender. First, individual fixed effects panel ...