The German Socio-Economic Panel Study (SOEP): Scope, Evolution and Enhancements

After the introduction in Section 2, we very briefly sketch out current theoretical and empirical developments in the social sciences. In our view, they all point in the same direction: toward the acute and increasing need for multidisciplinary longitudinal data covering a wide range of living conditions and based on a multitude of variables from the social sciences for both theoretical investigation and the evaluation of policy measures. Cohort and panel studies are therefore called upon to become truly interdisciplinary tools. In Section 3, we describe the German Socio-Economic Panel Study (SOEP), in which we discuss recent improvements of that study which approach this ideal and point out existing shortcomings. Section 4 concludes with a discussion of potential future issues and developments for SOEP and other household panel studies.SOEP, household panel studies, survey design

Multidisciplinary household panel studies under academic direction

"This paper concentrates on the trends in peer-reviewed longitudinal panel studies under scientific direction. Household panel studies have succeeded in broadening their disciplinary scope. Numerous innovations such as questions dealing with psychological concepts, and age-specific topical modules, physical health measures, measures of cognitive capabilities, behavioral experiments have been incorporated into various panel studies or are soon to be introduced. In the UK, the household panel study Understanding Society comprising 40,000 households was launched in 2009 and recently added an “innovation sample”; in the Netherlands, the new LISS household panel study launched in 2006 with over 5,000 households will be used for the testing of innovative measurement methods. The microdata from household panel studies like PSID (US Household Panel Study), BHPS (the predecessor of UK HLS), HILDA (Australian Panel Study), and SOEP (German Socio-Economic Panel) are in continuously high demand by the research and policy advisory community. More important than "discovering" entirely new survey areas is "tailoring" the details of existing survey content to new, more specific (theoretical) questions, and thus maintaining proven and widely used elements of survey content. In the years to come, "tailoring" survey content will be the real challenge facing surveys that are integrated into the existing research infrastructure like HILDA, LISS, PSID, SHP (Swiss Panel), SOEP, and Understanding Society. We argue that, in the future, household panel studies should be designed to take the "margins" of the life course more fully into account. Indeed, household surveys are ideally suited to gather comprehensive data on these life phases. They can be improved, on the one hand, by including specific topics about the fetal phase of life and early childhood of children born into the panel, and on the other hand, by including better information about late life and death. In the middle of the life course, improved questions on income, savings, consumption, and wealth, as well as psychological constructs will play a central role, as will specific "event-triggered" questionnaires on central life occurrences such as marriage, divorce, and entry into and exit from unemployment. In order to substantially improve the statistical power of long-term longitudinal data, we propose an absolute minimum number of observations of about 500 persons per birth and age cohort. As of now, only the British Understanding Society will meet this target. A positive side-effect of such an enlargement is a significantly improved potential for analyses of relatively small groups within the population: for example, lone parents or specific immigrant groups. Another positive side-effect would be an improved potential for regional analyses. For example, in Germany, a cohort size of about 500 persons implies a survey sample size of about 20,000 households, which is large enough for analyses in the majority of federal states. Multidisciplinary panel studies will become even more important if they are accepted as reference datasets for specialized surveys that are independent of the original panel study (e.g., observational studies such as twin studies and laboratory or intervention studies). To enhance this important function, new types of service are needed, including advice on special surveys and possibly also data preparation for special surveys." (author's abstract

Multidisciplinary Household Panel Studies under Academic Direction

This paper concentrates on the trends in peer-reviewed longitudinal panel studies under scientific direction. Household panel studies have succeeded in broadening their disciplinary scope. Numerous innovations such as questions dealing with psychological concepts, and age-specific topical modules, physical health measures, measures of cognitive capabilities, behavioral experiments have been incorporated into various panel studies or are soon to be introduced. In the UK, the household panel study Understanding Society comprising 40,000 households was launched in 2009 and recently added an “innovation sample”; in the Netherlands, the new LISS household panel study launched in 2006 with over 5,000 households will be used for the testing of innovative measurement methods. The microdata from household panel studies like PSID (US Household Panel Study), BHPS (the predecessor of UK HLS), HILDA (Australian Panel Study), and SOEP (German Socio-Economic Panel) are in continuously high demand by the research and policy advisory community. More important than “discovering” entirely new survey areas is “tailoring” the details of existing survey content to new, more specific (theoretical) questions, and thus maintaining proven and widely used elements of survey content. In the years to come, “tailoring” survey content will be the real challenge facing surveys that are integrated into the existing research infrastructure like HILDA, LISS, PSID, SHP (Swiss Panel), SOEP, and Understanding Society. We argue that, in the future, household panel studies should be designed to take the “margins” of the life course more fully into account. Indeed, household surveys are ideally suited to gather comprehensive data on these life phases. They can be improved, on the one hand, by including specific topics about the fetal phase of life and early childhood of children born into the panel, and on the other hand, by including better information about late life and death. In the middle of the life course, improved questions on income, savings, consumption, and wealth, as well as psychological constructs will play a central role, as will specific “event-triggered” questionnaires on central life occurrences such as marriage, divorce, and entry into and exit from unemployment. In order to substantially improve the statistical power of long-term longitudinal data, we propose an absolute minimum number of observations of about 500 persons per birth and age cohort. As of now, only the British Understanding Society will meet this target. A positive side-effect of such an enlargement is a significantly improved potential for analyses of relatively small groups within the population: for example, lone parents or specific immigrant groups. Another positive side-effect would be an improved potential for regional analyses. For example, in Germany, a cohort size of about 500 persons implies a survey sample size of about 20,000 households, which is large enough for analyses in the majority of federal states. Multidisciplinary panel studies will become even more important if they are accepted as reference datasets for specialized surveys that are independent of the original panel study (e.g., observational studies such as twin studies and laboratory or intervention studies). To enhance this important function, new types of service are needed, including advice on special surveys and possibly also data preparation for special surveys.household panels, multidisciplinary surveys, reference datasets

Ältere Menschen in Deutschland: Einkommenssituation und ihr möglicher Beitrag zur Finanzierung der gesetzlichen Rentenversicherung

In der derzeitigen Debatte zur Finanzierung der gesetzlichen Rentenversicherung (GRV) werden verschiedene Wege zu einer ausgewogenen Beteiligung sowohl der Beitragszahler als auch der Rentenbezieher diskutiert. Neben einer Aussetzung bzw. Reduktion der Rentenanpassung und einer Anhebung der Regelaltersgrenze besteht auch die Möglichkeit, die Vorschriften zur Besteuerung von Renten neu zu gestalten. Ohnehin hat im März 2002 das Bundesverfassungsgericht (BVerfG) eine Angleichung der Besteuerung von GRV-Renten und Pensionen gefordert. Die "Sachverständigenkommission zur Neuordnung der Altersbesteuerung" schlägt als Einstieg eine Bemessungsgrundlage von 50 % aller Renteneinkünfte vor; langfristig soll eine Vollbesteuerung erreicht werden. Jegliche Rentenreform setzt eine möglichst detaillierte Bestandsaufnahme der Einkommenssituation der aktuellen Rentnergeneration in Deutschland voraus. Empirische Analysen auf Basis der repräsentativen Stichprobe des Sozio-oekonomischen Panels (SOEP) zeigen, dass die verfügbaren Einkommen der älteren Bevölkerung im Durchschnitt nur wenig unter jenen der erwerbsfähigen Jahrgänge liegen. Insbesondere GRV-Rentner mit sonstigem Einkommen (aus Kapitalerträgen, Vermietung und Verpachtung usw.) profitieren von der niedrigen Besteuerung ihrer Sozialversicherungsrenten aufgrund des derzeit steuerfreien geldwerten Vorteils aus Arbeitgeberbeiträgen und Bundeszuschuss. Modellrechnungen zu den Auswirkungen einer sachgerechten Anhebung der steuerlichen Bemessungsgrundlage von GRV-Renten verdeutlichen, dass aufgrund des geltenden Grundfreibetrages nur wenige gut verdienende alte Menschen von einer systematisch gebotenen Besteuerung aller Alterseinkommen tatsächlich betroffen sein würden. Ein Aussetzen der Rentenanpassung träfe hingegen auch Rentner mit geringen Renten.

Single-subject analyses of magnetoencephalographic evoked responses to the acoustic properties of affective non-verbal vocalizations

Magneto-encephalography (MEG) was used to examine the cerebral response to affective non-verbal vocalizations (ANVs) at the single-subject level. Stimuli consisted of nonverbal affect bursts from the Montreal Affective Voices morphed to parametrically vary acoustical structure and perceived emotional properties. Scalp magnetic fields were recorded in three participants while they performed a 3-alternative forced choice emotion categorization task (Anger, Fear, Pleasure). Each participant performed more than 6000 trials to allow single-subject level statistical analyses using a new toolbox which implements the general linear model (GLM) on stimulus-specific responses (LIMO-EEG). For each participant we estimated ‘simple’ models (including just one affective regressor (Arousal or Valence)) as well as ‘combined’ models (including acoustical regressors). Results from the ‘simple’ models revealed in every participant the significant early effects (as early as ~100 ms after onset) of Valence and Arousal already reported at the group-level in previous work. However, the ‘combined’ models showed that few effects of Arousal remained after removing the acoustically-explained variance, whereas significant effects of Valence remained especially at late stages. This study demonstrates (i) that single-subject analyses replicate the results observed at early stages by group-level studies and (ii) the feasibility of GLM-based analysis of MEG data. It also suggests that early modulation of MEG amplitude by affective stimuli partly reflects their acoustical properties

Timing, Fragmentation of Work and Income Inequality - An Earnings Treatment Effects Approach

Traditional welfare analyses based on money income needs to be broadened by its time dimension. In the course of time the traditional full-time work is diminishing and new labour arrangements are discussed (keyword: flexible labour markets). Our study is contributing to economic well-being by adding insights into particular work effort characteristics - the daily timing of work and its fragmentation - and its resulting income distribution. With our focus on ‘who is working when within a day with which earnings consequences’ we go beyond traditional labour market analyses with its working time division into aggregated full and part time work, working hours spread across a week and weekend, life time working etc. Whereas the first part of our study is describing the distribution of timing and fragmentation of daily work time and its resulting income based on more than 35.000 diaries of the recent German Time Budget Survey 2001/2002, the second part of our study quantifies determinants of arrangement specific earnings functions detecting significant explanatory pattern of what is behind. The economic theory behind is a human capital approach in a market and non-market context, extended by non-market time use, the partner’s working condition, social networking as well as household and regional characteristics. The econometrics use a treatment effects type interdependent estimation of endogenous participation (selection) in a daily working hour pattern (self-selection)and pattern specific earnings function explanation. The overall result: Individual earnings in Germany are dependent on and significant different with regard to the daily working hour arrangement capturing timing and fragmentation of work time. Market and non-market factors are important and significant in explaining earnings