Publications Based on SOEP Data: SOEPlit

Genetic and environmental contributions to the subjective burden of social isolation during the COVID-19 pandemic

Feelings of loneliness and the burden of social isolation were among the most striking consequences of widespread containment measures, such as “social distancing”, during the COVID-19 pandemic. Because of the potential impact on people’s health, there has been increased interest in understanding the mechanisms and factors that contributed to feelings of loneliness and the burdens of social isolation. ...

Social Relationships, Personality, and Subjective Well-Being: Investigating Social Processes Across Different Methods and Temporal Resolutions (Dissertation)

Based on the assumption that social relationships are universally important to human well- being, this dissertation investigates the role of individual differences in different social contexts. Three empirical studies investigate the longitudinal interplay between personality, well-being, and social relationships at different temporal resolutions and using various assessment methods. Study I investigated ...

Social dynamics and affect: Investigating within-person associations in daily life using experience sampling and mobile sensing

Social interactions are crucial to affective well-being. Still, people vary interindividually and intraindividually in their social needs. Social need regulation theories state that mismatches between momentary social desire and actual social contact result in lowered affect, yet empirical knowledge about this dynamic regulation is limited. In a gender- and age-heterogenous sample, German-speaking ...

Urban Inequalities and Diversities in Germany

Germany has emerged over centuries as a central European country marked by political shifts that have resulted in deep regional fragmentation. The political burdens of two world wars led, in the late 1940s, to a separation of the country into the communist German Democratic Republic (GDR) and the western Federal Republic of Germany (FRG), a separation that ended with German (re)unification in 1990. ...

Female employment and migration in European countries: Introduction to the Special Issue

Objective: This chapter introduces the reader to the Special Issue Female Employment and Migration in European Countries. Background: While there is a large body of research on the labour market performance of male migrants, women’s employment behaviour after migration has only recently moved into the focus of attention. Method: This Special Issue draws on various research methods and data sources, ...

Urban Green Is More than the Absence of City: Structural and Functional Neural Basis of Urbanicity and Green Space in the Neighbourhood of Older Adults

The relationship between urbanization, the brain, and human mental health is subject to intensive debate in the current scientific literature. Particularly, since mood and anxiety disorders as well as schizophrenia are known to be more frequent in urban compared to rural regions. Here, we investigated the association between cerebral signatures, mental health and land use indicators (Urban Fabric and ...

Health implications of housing retrofits: Evidence from a population-wide weatherization program

This study provides the first population-representative quasi-experimental estimates on the impact of housing upgrades on occupant health. We analyze the exceptional period of renovations in East Germany following the German reunification during the 1990s. Triggered by one of the largest governmental loan programs in history, 3.6 million dwellings were renovated, focussing on upgrades to the building ...

Measuring Loneliness: The European Union Loneliness Survey Covering 27 European Countries

While Chap. 1introduces the concept of loneliness as a negative feeling associated with perceived deficiencies in the quantity and quality of social relationships, this chapter focuses on how this concept is operationalised and measured in surveys. We start by discussing the literature on the measurement of loneliness, which often relies on the use of psychometric scales. In large-scale surveys the ...

Evaluating sampling methods for ethnic minorities

Ethnic minorities are often underrepresented in survey research, due to the challenges many researchers face in including these populations. While some studies discuss several methods in comparison, few have directly compared these methods empirically, leaving researchers seeking to include ethnic minorities in their studies unsure of their best options. In this article, I briefly review the methodological ...

Covid-19 Pandemic: A Gender Perspective on how Lockdown Measures have affected Mothers with young Children