It is still widely debated how non-cognitive skills can be affected by policy intervention. For example, universal music education programs are becoming increasingly popular among policy makers in Germany and other developed countries. These are intended to give children from poor families the...

Die Bildungsreformen der sechziger Jahre sollten das Bildungsniveau der Westdeutschen anheben. Die Analyse der Daten des Mikrozensus weist darauf hin, dass die durch die Bildungsreformen intendierte Bildungsexpansion schon vor 1960 begonnen hat. Mit dem Conditional Mean Independence Ansatz...

This 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 entered the labour market and an upgrading of the skill structure took place. In order to tackle the issues...

This paper examines how parental unemployment affects the transition to postsecondary education in different institutional contexts. Drawing on theoretical perspectives in intergenerational mobility research and sociology of higher education, we estimate the extent to which these...

Using the 41-year division of Germany as a natural experiment, we show that the GDR's gender-equal institutions created a culture that has undone the male breadwinner norm and its consequences. Since reunification, East Germany still differs from West Germany not only by a higher female...

This paper studies the long-term consequences of communism on present-day freedom of expression values in two settings - East Germany and the states linked to the sphere of influence of the former USSR. Exploiting the natural experiment of German separation and later reunification, we show that...

Following the fall of the Iron Curtain it was important for the acceptance of the new economic and political system that the former Communist elites did not maintain their privileges, and that protesters, who helped to overturn the old system, improved their situation. With newly available panel...

The affordability of housing has become a major topic of discussion in Germany among both social scientists and the public at large. Using data from the German Socio-Economic Panel (SOEP), we provide rent-income ratios over more than two decades and show how they change with households’...

Nationally representative panel survey data for Germany and Australia are used to investigate the impact of working-time mismatches (i.e., differences between actual and desired work hours) on mental health, as measured by the Mental Component Summary Score from the SF-12. Fixed effects and...