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URL: http://www.diw.de/en/soep

Proper Citation: German Socio-Economic Panel (RRID:SCR_013140)

Description: A wide-ranging representative longitudinal study of private households that permits researchers to track yearly changes in the health and economic well-being of older people relative to younger people in Germany from 1984 to the present. Every year, there were nearly 11,000 households, and more than 20,000 persons sampled by the fieldwork organization TNS Infratest Sozialforschung. The data provide information on all household members, consisting of Germans living in the Old and New German States, Foreigners, and recent Immigrants to Germany. The Panel was started in 1984. Some of the many topics include household composition, occupational biographies, employment, earnings, health and satisfaction indicators. In addition to standard demographic information, the GSOEP questionnaire also contains objective measuresuse of time, use of earnings, income, benefit payments, health, etc. and subjective measures - level of satisfaction with various aspects of life, hopes and fears, political involvement, etc. of the German population. The first wave, collected in 1984 in the western states of Germany, contains 5,921 households in two randomly sampled sub-groups: 1) German Sub-Sample: people in private households where the head of household was not of Turkish, Greek, Yugoslavian, Spanish, or Italian nationality; 2) Foreign Sub-Sample: people in private households where the head of household was of Turkish, Greek, Yugoslavian, Spanish, or Italian nationality. In each year since 1984, the GSOEP has attempted to re-interview original sample members unless they leave the country. A major expansion of the GSOEP was necessitated by German reunification. In June 1990, the GSOEP fielded a first wave of the eastern states of Germany. This sub-sample includes individuals in private households where the head of household was a citizen of the German Democratic Republic. The first wave contains 2,179 households. In 1994 and 1995, the GSOEP added a sample of immigrants to the western states of Germany from 522 households who arrived after 1984, which in 2006 included 360 households and 684 respondents. In 1998 a new refreshment sample of 1,067 households was selected from the population of private households. In 2000 a sample was drawn using essentially similar selection rules as the original German sub-sample and the 1998 refreshment sample with some modifications. The 2000 sample includes 6,052 households covering 10,890 individuals. Finally, in 2002, an overrepresentation of high-income households was added with 2,671 respondents from 1,224 households, of which 1,801 individuals (689 households) were still included in the year 2006. Data Availability: The data are available to researchers in Germany and abroad in SPSS, SAS, TDA, STATA, and ASCII format for immediate use. Extensive documentation in English and German is available online. The SOEP data are available in German and English, alone or in combination with data from other international panel surveys (e.g., the Cross-National Equivalent Files which contain panel data from Canada, Germany, and the United States). The public use file of the SOEP with anonymous microdata is provided free of charge (plus shipping costs) to universities and research centers. The individual SOEP datasets cannot be downloaded from the DIW Web site due to data protection regulations. Use of the data is subject to special regulations, and data privacy laws necessitate the signing of a data transfer contract with the DIW. The English Language Public Use Version of the GSOEP is distributed and administered by the Department of Policy Analysis and Management, Cornell University. The data are available on CD-ROM from Cornell for a fee. Full instructions for accessing GSOEP data may be accessed on the project website, http://www.human.cornell.edu/che/PAM/Research/Centers-Programs/German-Panel/cnef.cfm * Dates of Study: 1984-present * Study Features: Longitudinal, International * Sample Size: ** 1984: 12,290 (GSOEP West) ** 1990: 4,453 (GSOEP East) ** 2000: 20,000+ Links: * Cornell Project Website: http://www.human.cornell.edu/che/PAM/Research/Centers-Programs/German-Panel/cnef.cfm * GSOEP ICPSR: http://www.icpsr.umich.edu/icpsrweb/ICPSR/studies/00131

Abbreviations: GSOEP

Synonyms: German Socio-Economic Panel (GSOEP), German Socio-Economic Panel (SOEP), German SOEP

Resource Type: data set, data or information resource

Keywords: longitudinal, international, education, family background, health, household composition, job history, life satisfaction, living condition, occupational mobility, late adult human, political change, social change, social indicator, social security, social service, time utilization, wage, salary, economic well-being, questionnaire, survey