Publications Based on SOEP Data: SOEPlit

Improving Contact Tracing by Prioritizing Influential Spreaders Identified Through Socio-Demographic Characteristics

To mitigate the spread of contagious diseases, there is an ongoing discussion surrounding interventions that strategically target individuals who, due to their social network position, are responsible for more infections than others. However, the practical identification of these individuals using conventional network metrics is considerably challenging due to the lack of required data. A potential ...

Working-Time flexibility and Union Dissolutions: Evidence for couples in Germany

Objective: This study examines the relationship between men's and women's working-time flexibility and relationship dissolutions (cohabitating and married couples) in Germany. Background: Globalisation and technological advancements have popularised flexible working hours, necessitating a deeper understanding of their implications on family dynamics and relationship stability. Employee-oriented ...

Intra-couple gaps in retirees’ financial resources: their extent and predictors across Eastern and Western Germany

Intra-couple disparities in economic resources are often downplayed, yet they substantially affect power dynamics, marital satisfaction, and financial well-being during the marriage and have lasting economic consequences in the event of separation. With the growing privatization of old-age security amidst population aging and welfare cuts, understanding economic intra-couple disparities among retired ...

Interaction effects on health between perceived neighbourhood social cohesion and demographic changes: a longitudinal study

Background Perceived neighbourhood social cohesion is associated with better health in particular as a conveyor of social norms. Small-area demographic changes affect social structures related to health and so, could modify neighbourhood norms, lead to loneliness, or increased stress. Thus, demographic changes and perceived neighbourhood social cohesion are likely to interact in their relation to health. ...

Gratitude in fundraising: do ‘thank you in advance’ and handwritten thank you notes impact fundraising success?

While almost all charities rely on a set of donor appreciation strategies, their effectiveness for the success of fundraising campaigns is underresearched. Through two preregistered field studies conducted in collaboration with a leading German opera house (N = 10,000), we explore the significance of expressing gratitude and examine two different approaches to doing so. Our first study investigates ...

An Updated Polygenic Index Repository: Expanded Phenotypes, New Cohorts, and Improved Causal Inference

Polygenic indexes (PGIs) — DNA-based predictors of individual phenotypes — have become essential tools across biomedical and social sciences. We introduce Version 2 of the Polygenic Index Repository, which expands phenotype coverage from 47 to 61, increases the number of participating datasets from 11 to 20, and adopts a more consistent and improved methodology for PGI construction. For 16 phenotypes, ...

Is Germany Missing Out or Catching Up? Gender Inequality and the German Skilled Immigration Act

Germany?s Skilled Worker Immigration Act addresses labor shortages by targeting non-EU migrants. The literature emphasizes that such policies often overlook gender-specific challenges, reinforcing inequalities. Using the German Socio-Economic Panel (2013?2022), we reveal significant disadvantages for non-EU migrant women. We find that deskilling and the sexual division of paid and unpaid working time ...

Consortium Proposal National Research Data Infrastructure for the Second Funding Phase

Backlash or Inclusion? The Political Effects of Co-Ethnic Immigration

Immigration often causes backlash, to the benefit of anti-immigrant parties. Most studies that identify the effect of immigration on native attitudes and behaviors leverage variation in inflows of newcomers who are ethnically distinct from natives. Can we therefore conclude that backlash is the general consequence of exposure to large migration flows? We theorize co-ethnic migrants are not met with ...

Split Questionnaire Designs as a clever way to make surveys shorter

Long questionnaires are a challenge for respondents and researchers alike. Split Questionnaire Designs (SQDs, Raghunathan and Grizzle, 1995) offer a clever way to make surveys shorter: instead of answering every question, respondents receive only parts of the full questionnaire. But how these parts—or “modules”—are constructed makes a difference for data quality. Our study tests strategies to balance ...