The income situation of families has always been a major topic for politicians and the public in modern welfare states. The ongoing call for better funding of families reflects the hardship of couples with children who seem to be unable to sustain the living standards of childless couples in...

This paper presents microeconomic simulation techniques to examine what drives differences in inequality across countries. The simulation decomposes cross-country inequality differences into the importance of individual decisions, such as fertility, mating, labor force participation, and...

Die Bevölkerung in Deutschland wird in den nächsten Dekaden schrumpfen und altern. Die mittleren Varianten verschiedener Bevölkerungsprojektionen gehen von einem Rückgang um über 12 Millionen auf rund 70 Millionen Einwohner im Jahr 2050 aus. Das Medianalter in der Bevölkerung wird...

Within less than one hundred years during the 20th century, the transition countries of Europe2 – as they are labelled today – experienced two radical social transformations. The communist take-over was the first which reached them at various points of time between 1917 and 1949. The period...