Publications Based on SOEP Data: SOEPlit

The Role of Risk Propensity in Predicting Self-Employment

This study aims to untangle the role of risk propensity as a predictor of self-employment entry and self-employment survival. More specifically, it examines whether the potentially positive effect of risk propensity on the decision to become self-employed turns curvilinear when it comes to the survival of the business. Building on a longitudinal sample of 4,973 individuals from the German Socio-Economic ...

Family Policies, Women's Earnings, and Between-Household Inequality: Trends in 18 OECD countries from 1981 to 2005

This paper examines to what extent family policies have affected earnings inequality within and between coupled households. Previous studies had found cross-country variation in the degree to which women’s earnings attenuate earnings inequality between households. In this paper we explain this variation with reconciliation policies and financial support policies. We used person-level data from the ...

Women’s Earnings: Trends in earnings inequality within and between coupled households in 18 OECD countries, 1981-2005

In this paper we show that women’s earnings attenuate inequality between coupled households, even though the earnings of spouses are positively correlated. We use data from the Luxembourg Income Study (LIS, 2013) on 572,222 coupled households, covering the period from 1981 to 2005 in 18 OECD countries. Three trends are described. Firstly, over time women’s earnings increasingly contributed to total ...

Your Spouse Is Fired! How Much Do You Care?

This study is the first to provide a causal estimate of the subjective well-being effects of spousal unemployment at the couple level. Using German panel data on married and cohabiting partners for 1991-2013 and information on exogenous job termination induced by workplace closure, we show that spousal unemployment reduces the life satisfaction of indirectly-affected spouses. The impact is equally ...

German study finds happiness is based on choices, not genes

Labour Market Outcomes of Spatially Mobile Coupled Women: Why is the locational context important?

Previous research on the labour market outcomes of spatially mobile couples has shown that mobility has serious detrimental effects on the employment situation of women. This has been largely attributed to their prevalence as secondary earners playing a minor role in job-related mobility decisions of the household. Yet the impact of regional opportunity structures in determining labour market outcomes ...

Smaller Differences in Bigger Cities? Assessing the Regional Dimension of the Gender Wage Gap

Although structural determinants have been emphasized for explaining wage differences between men and women, the role of regional opportunity structures still warrants research. This investigation focuses on the relevance of urban labour markets and agglomeration effects for the spatial variation in the gender wage gap and provides comprehensive insights into the underlying mechanisms by combining ...

Explaining Gender Inequalities That Follow Couple Migration

By exploiting the unique social and economic differences between East and West Germany, the authors investigated how macro-level opportunities interact with couple-level decision making to explain gender differences in the determinants and economic outcomes of household migration. By incorporating regional socioeconomic conditions into household bargaining theory, 4 hypotheses for each region were ...

Economic inequality, poverty, and social exclusion

Ireland's Income Distribution in Comparative Perspective