There is growing interest in understanding how gender influences the accumulation of wealth. While prior studies focused on labor-related determinants, our research focuses on inheritances and gifts. Using unique survey data that oversamples the top 1% of wealth holders in Germany, we show that...

Several vaccines against COVID-19 have now been developed and are already being rolled out around the world. The decision whether or not to get vaccinated has so far been left to the individual citizens. However, there are good reasons, both in theory as well as in practice, to believe that the...

Für das Gros der Bevölkerung sind Erwerbseinkommen die zentrale materielle Ressource während des aktiven Berufslebens. Sie bestimmen nicht nur maßgeblich die gegenwärtigen finanziellen Möglichkeiten der Beschäftigten, sondern beispielsweise auch deren künftige Rentenansprüche. Das...

According to Socio-Economic Panel (SOEP) data, inequality in gross monthly earnings in Germany increased significantly between 1993 and 2003 and has been stagnating at a high level since 2008. As this Weekly Report shows, the increase is not being driven by higher hourly wage inequality, but...

We present evidence from a repeated survey on risky asset holdings carried out on a representative sample of the German population six times between April and June 2020. Given the size of the Covid‐19 shock, we find little evidence of portfolio rebalancing in April 2020. In May, however,...

Families’ economic wealth is a resource that can provide children with crucial advantages early in their lives. Prior research identified substantial variation of wealth levels between different family types with children from single-parent families being most disadvantaged. The causes of this...

We analyse a measure of loneliness from a representative sample of German individuals interviewed in both 2017 and at the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020. Both men and women felt lonelier during the COVID-19 pandemic than they did in 2017. The pandemic more than doubled the gender...

We carry out a difference-in-differences analysis of a representative real-time survey conducted as part of the German Socio-Economic Panel (SOEP) study and show that teleworking had a negative average effect on life satisfaction over the first two years of the COVID-19 pandemic. This average...

We analyse a measure of loneliness from a representative sample of German individuals interviewed in both 2017 and at the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020. Both men and women felt lonelier during the COVID-19 pandemic than they did in 2017. The pandemic more than doubled the gender...