Publications Based on SOEP Data: SOEPlit

Wages in Eastern Germany Still Considered More Unjust Than in the West

Almost 25 years after the fall of the Wall and far more eastern Germans are unhappy with their income than western Germans. In 2013, around 44 percent of employed eastern Germans rated their earnings as unfair compared with approximately one third in western Germany. Although the east-west gap has been diminishing since 2005--to around 12 percent in 2013--this is not because eastern Germans feel that ...

A Factorial Survey on the Justice of Earnings Within the SOEP-Pretest 2008

This research note describes the Factorial Survey and its implementation in the Pretest 2008 of the German Socio-Economic Panel (SOEP). The main research objective of this study was to investigate the capability of Factorial Surveys in large population surveys. Therefore, we created a vignette module that was part of the CAPI-questionnaire with 24 descriptions of fulltime employees. Respondents gave ...

The Justice of Earnings in Dual-Earner Households

The rise in female labor market participation and the growth of “atypical” employment arrangements has, over the last few decades, brought about a steadily decreasing percentage of households in which the man is the sole breadwinner, and a rising percentage of dual-earner households. Against this backdrop, the present paper investigates the impact of household contexts in which the traditional male ...

Unjust Divergence in Earnings in Germany? Many believe top executives earn too much

Justice of Wages in Germany and Abroad? An Empirical Investigation (Chapter 55)

This paper deals with empirical studies on peoples’ opinions on justice of wages. Its material focuses on Germany, but it also takes other Western countries into account. There were some variations, but in general, for all societies researched, a majority estimated the distribution of wages to be unjust at the extremes: in their eyes, unskilled workers are paid too little and, even more clearly, executives ...

Perceived Income Justice Depends on the Economy

At least half of all employees in Germany described their wages in all three survey years under consideration here - 2005, 2007, and 2009 - as just. Still, major changes occurred over this period in how people perceived their earnings. Data from the Socio- Economic Panel (SOEP) Study show that after an increase in income dissatisfaction in 2007, the percentage of the population who consider their income ...

The Labour Market Integration of Immigrants in Germany

Turkish migrants and native Germans compared: The effect of inter-ethnic and intra-ethnic friendships on the transition from unemployment to work

In this paper, we analyse whether having inter-ethnic and intra-ethnic friendships can be associated with a shorter duration of unemployment, comparing Turkish migrants and native residents in Germany. This allows us to examine the degree to which the returns from bridging and bonding social capital differ for the two groups. On the basis of the German Socio-Economic Panel (GSOEP) data, we find that ...

Group Conflict Theory in a Longitudinal Perspective: Analyzing the Dynamic Side of Ethnic Competition

One of the most established approaches to explain attitudes toward immigration is group conflict theory. However, even though the theory was articulated in dynamic terms, previous research has almost exclusively tested it through cross sectional analyses. The aim of this study is to disentangle the dynamic character of ethnic competition from more permanent determinants of ethnic threat. The findings ...

Social Connectedness and the Transition From Work to Retirement

Although there are numerous studies on the role of social connections in early working life, research that examines how social connectedness matters in the later stages of a career is scarce. The present study analyzes to what extent social connectedness affects the timing of the transition from work to retirement. We draw on data from the German Socioeconomic Panel Study (GSOEP) from the years 1985 ...