Publications Based on SOEP Data: SOEPlit

Literacy and the Migrant-Native Wage Gap

Being able to read and write is one of the most important skills in modern economies. Literacy frequently is a prerequisite for employment and its relevance for productivity and wages is magnified by the fact that it is only through literacy that many other skills become usable. More so than for natives, this argument applies to migrants: even those with high levels of human capital acquired in the ...

Institute for the Study of Labor - IZA Highlights 1998-2008

Does the Calculation Hold? The Fiscal Balance of Migration to Denmark and Germany

Calculating the net fiscal effects of immigration not just for a fiscal year but over the lifespan of immigrant cohorts accentuates the assets and deficits in migration and integration policies and their long-term potential. The less national policies concentrate on a labor migrant selection process according to economic criteria, the higher the risk of generating economic losses or only a reduced ...

Geographically Referenced Data in Social Science - A service paper for SOEP data users

Do Employers Have More Monopsony Power in Slack Labor Markets?

This article confronts monopsony theory’s predictions regarding workers’ wages with observed wage patterns over the business cycle. Using German administrative data for the years 1985 to 2010 and an estimation framework based on duration models, the authors construct a time series of the labor supply elasticity to the firm and estimate its relationship to the unemployment rate. They find that firms ...

Women Move Differently: Job Separations and Gender

Using a large German linked employer-employee data set and methods of competing risks analysis, this paper investigates gender differences in job separation rates to employment and nonemployment. In line with descriptive evidence, we find lower job-to-job and higher job-to-nonemployment transition probabilities for women than men when controlling for individual and workplace characteristics and unobserved ...

Do high incomes reflect individual performance?

Personality and Environmental Concern

People vary considerably in their attitudes toward environmental issues. Although some individuals view the environment from a purely utilitarian perspective, others are concerned about environmental sustainability and maintaining an ecological balance. The current study examines the relationship between personality characteristics and environmental concern in a community sample of 2690 German adults. ...

Determinants of Positive Naturalisation Intentions among Germany's Labour Migrants

This study adds another piece to the puzzle of naturalisation among individuals with an immigrant background by further developing the application of social identity. I suggest that two important determinants of an intention to naturalise are identification with one’s country of origin, and discrimination. The effects of these and other predictors associated with social identity theory are empirically ...

Relations between Second-Language Proficiency and National Identification: The Case of Immigrants in Germany

This article discusses and empirically tests the relations between German language proficiency and national identification with Germany among first-generation immigrants in Germany. It presents three theoretical arguments: (i) language proficiency positively affects national identification; (ii) contrastingly, national identification positively influences language proficiency; and (iii) there is a ...