Publications Based on SOEP Data: SOEPlit

The Emergence of Multiple Role Patterns Among Women: A Comparison of Germany and the United States

Unhappiness and Job Finding

It is puzzling that people feel unhappy when they become unemployed, while simultaneously active labour market policies are needed to bring them back to work. We investigate this using GSOEP data. We find that nearly half of the unemployed do not experience a drop in happiness, which might explain why activation is sometimes needed. Furthermore, even though unhappy unemployed search more actively for ...

Socio-economic Risks of Atypical Employment Relationships: Evidence from the German Labour Market

In this article, I examine the impact of atypical working arrangements on both objective and subjective dimensions of social inequality. The analysed types of atypical employment are fixed-term contracts, temporary agency work, and part-time employment, respectively. It is argued that these working arrangements are not homogeneous with respect to their socio-economic consequences, because they modify ...

The Open Unemployment Trap: Life at the Intersection of Labour Market and Welfare State. The Case of Germany

Fixed-Term Contracts at Labour Market Entry in West Germany: Implications for Job Search and First Job Quality

Fixed-term contracts have become very relevant in the transition from school to work. Using data from the German Socio-Economic Panel (GSOEP) for the period 1984–2006, this article analyses differences in the timing of receiving a fixed-term contract or a permanent contract throughout the duration of first-job search and whether fixed-term contracts are associated with lower initial wages. Competing ...

Early career consequences of temporary employment in Germany and the UK

This article investigates the effects of temporary employment at labour market entry on subsequent individual careers, drawing on data from the British Household Panel Study (BHPS) and the German Socio-Economic Panel (GSOEP) from the period 1991 to 2007. The results show that German temporarily employed entrants suffer from higher initial wage penalties and risks of temporary employment cycles but ...

Is a Temporary Job Better Than Unemployment? A Cross-country Comparison Based on British, German, and Swiss Panel Data

While many previous studies on temporary work have found disadvantages for temporary workers as compared to workers with a permanent contract, this study compares temporary work to the alternative of unemployment. Specifically, this paper investigates the potential integrative power of taking up a temporary job for unemployed workers as compared to the counterfactual situation of remaining unemployed ...

The effects of unemployment and temporary employment on leaving the parental home in Germany

Educational Expansion and its Heterogeneous Returns for Wage Workers

The paper examines the evolution of returns to education in the West German labour market over the last two decades. During this period, graduates from the period of educational expansion in the sixties and seventies entered the labour market and an upgrading of the skill structure took place. In order to tackle the issues of endogeneity of schooling and its heterogeneous returns we apply two estimation ...

The impact of employment transitions on health in Germany. A difference-in-differences propensity score matching approach

This article investigates the effects of transitions between employment and unemployment on health. It also addresses the question of whether or not the widespread use of temporary employment has altered the positive health effects of employment. Drawing on data from the German Socio-Economic Panel for the period 1995-2010, we apply difference-in-differences propensity score matching to identify the ...