For people living in the former East Germany, reunification with the former West Germany fundamentally transformed the sociopolitical system and most domains of everyday life. Previous research has revealed temporal shifts in average life satisfaction after reunification in the former East...

Exploiting unique German administrative data, we estimate the association between an expansion in maternity leave duration from two to six months in 1979 and mothers' post-birth long-term sickness absence over a period of three decades after childbirth. Using a regression discontinuity design,...

In dieser Studie wird untersucht, inwieweit die Lebensbedingungen in der Kindheit und das Ausmaß sozialer Ungleichheit die individuelle Chance beeinflussen, erfolgreich, das heißt gesund und aktiv, zu altern. Europaweite Daten, die im Rahmen der SHARELängsschnittstudie erhoben wurden,...

This paper shows that the measurement of hand grip strength provides a non-invasive and reliable objective health indicator for social science research and is easy to collect in general population surveys. Grip strength is not only a useful complement of self-reported indicators of health, but...