Publications Based on SOEP Data: SOEPlit

The Role of Polygenic Indices in Inequality of Opportunity

Equality of opportunity is a principle of social justice, although there are different conceptions of it. We distinguish between fair and luck egalitarian equality of opportunity. Both conceptions consider to be unfair inequalities in life chances resulting from ascribed characteristics such as social origin and sex. They differ, however, in that fair equality of opportunity considers it fair when ...

Homeownership rates, housing policies, and co-residence decisions

Homeownership rates differ widely across European countries. We document that part of this variation is driven by differences in the fraction of adults co-residing with their parents. Comparing Germany and Italy, we show that in contrast to homeownership rates per household, homeownership rates per individual are very similar during the first part of the life cycle. To understand these patterns, we ...

Physical activity, health, and life satisfaction: Four panel studies demonstrate reciprocal effects

We examined the between-person correlations and within-person reciprocal effects of physical activity, long-standing health issues, self-rated health, and life satisfaction across four panels using random intercept cross-lagged panel models. Data were analyzed from the Household, Income and Labour Dynamics in Australia Survey (HILDA, N = 32,913, 21 waves, 1-year intervals), the German Socio-Economic ...

SOEP Annual Report 2021

SOEP Annual Report 2022

The Speed of Earnings Responses to Taxation and the Role of Firm Labor Demand

This paper studies the speed at which workers’ pretax earnings respond to tax changes along the intensive margin. We do so in the context of Germany, where a large notch in the tax schedule induces sharp bunching in the earnings distribution. We analyze earnings responses to two policy reforms that shift this notch outward and find clear evidence that frictions delay the earnings responses of more ...

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 ...