Welcome to the SOEPcompanion!¶

SOEP-Core is the centerpiece of the Socio-Economic Panel, a wide-ranging representative longitudinal study of private households in Germany, based at the German Institute for Economic Research, DIW Berlin. SOEP-Core was started in 1984, and in 1990—shortly after German reunification—it was enlarged to include a representative sample from East Germany. This feature makes the SOEP unique among household panel surveys worldwide. Every year since 1984, individuals in households have been surveyed by the SOEP’s fieldwork organization, infas Institut für angewandte Sozialwissenschaften GmbH. The data provide information on every member of every household taking part in the survey. Respondents include Germans living in both the former East and West Germany, foreign citizens residing in Germany, recent immigrants, and a new sample of refugees added in 2016. Some of the many topics include household composition, education, occupational biographies, employment, earnings, health, and satisfaction indicators.

The SOEPcompanion describes the current version of the SOEP-Core data (v38) and introduces users to the different SOEP-Core data structures. It also provides applications in Stata as well as instructions on how to use our various documentation services. We plan to revise the information in the SOEPcompanion annually to continue providing users a comprehensive, up-to-date introductory understanding of the SOEP.

We know that starting to use any new dataset is difficult, and this is especially true of panel data given their complexity. We hope that this introduction will help. We always welcome any feedback or tips on how to improve our documentation.

• Recommendation of our most recent version of a general short description of SOEP study: The German Socio-Economic Panel Study (SOEP)
• To the information system for efficient working with complex datasets: paneldata.org
• Changes in the datasets for the current version you find here: SOEP- Core

Table of Content¶

• Topics of SOEP-Core
  • Demography and Population
  • Work and Employment
  • Income, Taxes, and Social Security
  • Family and Social Networks
  • Health and Care
  • Home, Amenities, and Contributions of Private HH
  • Education and Qualification
  • Attitudes, Values, and Personality
  • Time Use and Environmental Behavior
  • Integration, Migration, Transnationalization
  • Survey Methodology
  • SOEP Questionnaires
    • Overview of the Questionnaires
    • Household Questionnaire
    • Individual Questionnaire
    • Biography Questionnaire
    • Mother and Child Instruments
    • Youth Instruments
    • Additional Instruments
    • Affective Well-Being
    • Anomie
    • Basic Social Justice Orientations Scale
    • Cognitive Competencies
    • Conspiracy Mentality
    • Effort-Reward Imbalance Model
    • Impulsiveness & Patience
    • Life Goals
    • Life Satisfaction
    • Locus of Control
    • Loneliness
    • Narcissistic Admiration and Rivalry Questionnaire Short Scale (NARQ-S)
    • Optimism/Pessimism – Attitudes toward the Future
    • Parenting Goals
    • Parenting Role
    • Parenting Style
    • Patient Health Questionnaire – 4 (PHQ-4)
    • Personality – Big Five
    • Reciprocity
    • Risk Aversion
    • Self Esteem
    • Sources of Social Inequality
    • Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire (SDQ)
    • Supportive Parenting
    • Temperament
    • Tendency to Forgive
    • Trust, Trustworthiness, Fairness
    • Vineland Adaptive Behavior Scales
    • The SOEP Samples in Detail
      • Sample-Specific Questionnaires
      • Data Editions of SOEP-Core
        • Teaching, International, and EU Edition
        • Add-ons: Area Types and Planning Regions
        • Remote Edition
        • Onsite Edition
        • Cross-Sectional Data Structure (CS)
        • Data Structure in “Wide” Format (wide)
        • Data Structure in “Long” Format (long)
        • Data Structure in Spell Format (spell)
        • Core Datasets
        • Raw Datasets
        • eu-silc-like-panel
        • Tracking Data
        • Original Data
        • Survey Data
        • Generated Data
        • Spell Data
        • Partner Identifier
        • Family Identifier
        • Interviewer Identifier
        • Tracking Data
        • Original Data
        • Survey Data
        • Generated Data
        • Naming Convention of Data Sets and Variables
        • Extended Variable Naming Convention
        • Working with Tracking Data (PPATHL)
        • Working with information on instruments (INSTRUMENTATION)
        • Generating a Cross-Sectional Dataset
        • Syntax Generator on paneldata.org
        • Generating a Longitudinal Dataset
        • Working with harmonized Variables
        • Longitudinal Data Analysis
          • Clean and inspect the data
          • Univariate inspection & analysis
          • Simple cross sectional analyses
          • Prerequisites
          • Reading data
          • Transformations
          • Plotting Spatial Data
          • Frequently Used Operations
          • Complete Example
          • Appendix
          • IGEL Workstation
          • Logging in
          • Working with SOEP DATA
          • Importing Scripts or External Data
          • Instructions for exporting from Hauser to user
          • Data transfer from Moran to Hauser
          • The Open Data Format
          • Using the opendf in R
          • Using the opendf in Stata
          • 1:1 merge - one-to-one on key variables
          • 1:m merge - one-to-many on key variables
          • m:1 merge – many-to-one on key variables
          • joinby
          • Variable Search with Questionnaires
          • Variable Search with paneldata.org
          • Topic Search with paneldata.org
          • Documentation on Generated Data
          • Working with SOEPhelp
            • Working with SOEPhelp in R
            • Working with SOEPhelp in STATA

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