Socio-Economic Panel

Socio-Economic Panel
(SOEP)

Established	1984
Faculty	Sociology, Economic, etc.
Location	Berlin, Germany
Address	Sozio-oekonomisches Panel (SOEP) DIW Berlin Mohrenstraße 58. 10117 Berlin - Germany
Website	www.diw.de/en/soep

The German Socio-Economic Panel (SOEP [/'zœp/], for Sozio-oekonomisches Panel) is a longitudinal panel dataset of the population in Germany. It is a household based study which started in 1984 and which reinterviews adult household members annually. Additional samples have been taken of East Germans (from 1990, coincident with reunification) and immigrants (in 1994) as well as in 1998, 2000, 2002 and 2006. In 2007, there will be about 12,000 households, and more than 20,000 adult persons sampled. Some of the many topics surveyed include household composition, occupation, employment, earnings, health and life satisfaction. The annual surveys are conducted by the German Institute for Economic Research (DIW Berlin). The survey is funded by the German Federal Government and the State of Berlin via the «Bund-Länder Komission» (State/Federal State Commission) for Educational Planning and Research Promotion.

Data are available to social science researchers in Germany and abroad in SPSS/PSPP, SAS/DAP, Stata, R/S-PLUS and ASCII format. Extensive documentation in English and German is available online.

SOEP data are integrated into the Cross National Equivalent File (CNEF) which contains panel data from Australia, Canada, Germany, Great Britain and the United States. The data distribution of the SOEP for researchers outside of Germany is supplied with the CNEF by a group at Cornell University. Application to use this international distribution has to be made to the DIW Berlin.

Subsamples

SOEP Subsamples 2011

Sample		Start-Year	Households	Persons	Description
A	West-German (residents)	1984	n=4,528	n=12,245	Head is either German or other nationality than those in Sample B
B	Foreigners	1984	n=1,393		Head is either Turkish, Italian, Spanish, Greek or from the former Yugoslavia
German reunification
C	East-Germans	1990	n=2,179	n=4,453	Head was a citizen of the GDR (expansion of survey territory)
D	Immigrants	1994/1995	n=522	n=1,078	At least one household member has moved to Germany after 1989 (expansion of survey population)
E	Refreshment	1998	n=1,067	n=1,923	Random sample covering all existing subsamples (total population)
F	Innovation	2000	n=6,052	n=10,890	Random sample covering all existing subsamples (total population)
G	High Income	2002	n=1,224	n=2,671	Monthly net household income is more than 4.500 Euro (7.500 DM)
H	Refreshment	2006	n=1,506	n=2,616	Random sample covering all existing subsamples (total population)
I	Incentive/Refreshment	2009	n=1,531	n=2,509	Random sample covering all existing subsamples (total population). Since 2011 it is no longer a part of the SOEP Core study. It is now a part of the new SOEP Innovation Study.
J	Refreshment	2011	n=3.136	n=5.161	Random sample covering all existing subsamples (total population)

See also

• Canadian Survey of Labour and Income Dynamics (SLID)
• Household, Income and Labour Dynamics in Australia Survey (HILDA)
• Panel Study of Income Dynamics (PSID)
• Swiss Household Panel (SHP) (URL:last access 2013-05-28)
• LISS panel (LISS)
• Survey on Household Income and Wealth (SHIW)
• UK households: a longitudinal study (UKHLS) / Understanding Society, UK
  • formerly British Household Panel Survey (BHPS), UK

External links

• SOEP (official) website (URL accessed 2013-05-28)
• Cross National Equivalent File (CNEF) (URL accessed 2013-05-28)
• Swiss Household Panel (URL accessed 2013-05-28)
• LISS panel (URL accessed 2013-05-28)