Publications Based on SOEP Data: SOEPlit

Labor Income Risk and Consumption / Saving Behavior (Dissertation)

Income Inequality, Life Satisfaction, and Economic Worries

We analyzed the effect of income inequality on Germans’ life satisfaction considering factors explaining the mechanism of this relationship. Based on data from the German Socio-Economic Panel Study for the years 1984 to 2012, we found a negative relationship between national-level income disparity and average life satisfaction, meaning that people felt happier in years with lower inequality. The effect ...

Where did all the unemployed go?: Non-standard work in Germany after the Hartz reforms

The number of unemployed workers in Germany decreased dramatically from its peak in February 2005 at over 5.2 million to 3.6 million by 2008. At the same time, employment increased by 1.2 million. Most theoretical and empirical analyses of this episode assume that a worker leaving unemployment moves into full employment. We ask where the unemployed actually went. Using and merging two large micro data ...

Fair financing in Germany's public health insurance: Income-related contributions or flat premiums?

The Capacity of Social Policies to Combat Poverty Among New Social Risk Groups

This paper considers groups who are most likely to be vulnerable to new social risks and tests the effects of social policies on their poverty levels. Specifically, the paper conducts multi-level regression analyses across 18 OECD countries near the year 2004, analyzing the effects of social policies on the likelihood of being poor of low-skilled young women and men aged 18-30, and of those at risk ...

Micro Income Change in the Federal Republic of Germany between 1984 and 1989

Self-employment, Internal Migration and Place Embeddedness

Little is known about the individual location behaviour of self-employed entrepreneurs. Population geography has not researched this issue and entrepreneurship literature has given it little attention. This paper examines whether self-employed entrepreneurs are ‘rooted’ in place and also whether those who are more rooted in place are more likely to enter self-employment, thereby shedding new light ...

Testing the ‘Residential Rootedness’-Hypothesis of Self-Employment for Germany and the UK

Based on the notion that entrepreneurship is a ‘local event’, the literature argues that entrepreneurs are ‘rooted’ in place. This paper tests the ‘residential rootedness’ hypothesis of self-employment by examining for Germany and the UK whether the self-employed are less likely to move over long distances (internal migration) than workers in paid employment. Using longitudinal data from the German ...

Long Maternal Leaves and The Gender Wage Gap (thesis)

This article examines the effect of long parental leave policies on the gender wage gap. I analyze the general equilibrium consequences of the introduction of generous job-protected parental leaves on female wages and female labor force composition. My evidence supports the hypothesis that generous child support for families can be costly for firms; and moreover, that these costs are passed on to women ...

Is Occupational Mobility in Germany Hampered by the Dual Vocational System? The Results of a British-German Comparison

We compare occupational mobility in Germany and Britain and focus on the effects of the German dual vocational system. Based on a comparison of mobility rates for different occupations within each country and between the two countries, we find that mobility is particularly low in German apprenticeship occupations and conclude that the dual system impedes occupational changes. However, German mobility ...