Publications Based on SOEP Data: SOEPlit

Cross-National Comparisons of Earnings and Income Inequality

Empirical Evidence on Income Inequality in Industrialized Countries

This chapter reviews the evidence on cross-national comparisons of annual disposable income inequality in over 20 wealthy nations. We begin by reviewing a number of conceptual and measurement issues which must be addressed by any cross-national comparison of survey-based household income data. With these caveats in mind, we present data on both the level of inequality during the early to mid-1990s, ...

On the Evaluation of Economic Mobility

The Effect of Health and Employment Risks on Precautionary Savings

This paper extends the idea of using ex-ante risk measures in a model of precautionary savings by explicitly simulating future net-income risks. The uncertainty measure takes into account the interdependency of labour market and health status. The model is estimated for prime age males using the German Socio-Economic Panel Study for years 2001-2007. The empirical analysis is conducted using a measure ...

Indirect Fiscal Effects of Long-term Care Insurance

Die Organisation der Altenpflege stützt sich in vielen Ländern auf die Bereitstellung informeller Pflege durch Familienangehörige. In alternden Gesellschaften gerät dieses System jedoch zunehmend unter Druck, da die Nachfrage nach Pflege steigt und gleichzeitig das Potenzial für Familienpflege sinkt. Die informelle Pflege wird aus fiskalpolitischer Sicht häufig als die kostengünstigste Variante der ...

The effects of family policy on maternal labor supply: Combining evidence from a structural model and a quasi-experimental approach

Parental leave and subsidized child care are prominent examples of family policies supporting the reconciliation of family life and labor market careers for mothers. In this paper, we combine different empirical strategies to evaluate the employment effects of these policies for mothers with young children. In particular we estimate a structural labor supply model and exploit quasi-experimental variation ...

Long-term Care Insurance and Carers’ Labor Supply – A Structural Model

In Germany, individuals in need of long-term care receive support through benefits of the long-term care insurance. A central goal of the insurance is to support informal care provided by family members. Care recipients can choose between benefits in kind (formal home care services) and benefits in cash. From a budgetary perspective, family care is often considered a cost-saving alternative to formal ...

Long-term care reform and the labor supply of household members – evidence from a quasi-experiment

Germany introduced a new mandatory insurance for long-term care in 1995 as part of its social security system. It replaced a system based on meanstested social welfare. Benefits from the long-term care insurance are not means tested and depend on the required level of care. The insurance provides both benefits in kind and cash benefits. The new scheme improved the situation for households to organize ...

Labor supply effects of long-term care reform in Germany

Many informal caregivers are of working age, facing the double burden of providing care and working. Negative labor supply effects can severely reduce the comparative cost advantage of informal over formal care arrangements. When designing long-term care (LTC) policies, it is crucial to understand the effects not only on health outcomes but also on labor supply behavior of informal caregivers. We evaluate ...

Short-Run and Long-Term Effects of Childbirth on Mothers' Employment and Working Hours Across Institutional Regimes: An Empirical Analysis Based on the European Community Household Panel