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Publications in peer-reviewed journals are the most important currency in science. But what about publications in non-peer-reviewed magazines? The objective of this study was to analyze the publications of scientists, with a focus on pharmacologists, in the non-peer-reviewed German science magazine Biospektrum from 1999 to 2021. Biospektrum is edited by five scientific societies in Germany including the Society for Experimental and Clinical Society Pharmacology and Toxicology (DGPT) and provides opportunities to researchers to showcase their research to a broad audience. We analyzed 3197 authors of 1326 articles. Compared to the fields of biochemistry, microbiology, and genetics, pharmacology was largely underrepresented. Just three institutions in Germany contributed most papers to Biospektrum. Researchers with a doctoral degree were the largest author group, followed by researchers with a habilitation degree. Among all major fields, women were underrepresented as authors, particularly as senior authors. The Covid pandemic leads to a drop of publications of female first authors but not last authors. Compared to publications in the peer-reviewed journal Naunyn–Schmiedeberg's Archives of Pharmacology (Zehetbauer et al., Naunyn-Schmiedebergs Arch Pharmacol 395:39–50 (2022)), female pharmacologists were underrepresented in the Biospektrum. Thus, German pharmacologists as a group do not value investing in "social impact" gained by publications in Biospektrum, and this attitude is even more prominent among female pharmacologists. Investing less in "social impact" by female pharmacologists may result in reduced visibility on the academic job market and may contribute to reduced opportunities to achieve high academic positions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

From the early 1990s until 2005 the unemployment rate rose in Germany from 7.3 to 11.7%. While the unemployment rate reached its peak in 2005, it decreased steadily in the following years. The fourth stage of the German labor market reform (Hartz IV) was implemented in 2005 with the intent to cut the unemployment rate. This paper investigates the employment and welfare effects of the Hartz IV reform. Moreover, I am interested in the employment impact of German labor market reform due the rise of the East, which is the productivity increase in Germany and Eastern Europe that has fostered joint fast-growing trade. The focus lies on the national and county level (including 402 counties). As the effects on regional labor markets differ and take time, the paper builds on the dynamic and spatial trade model of Caliendo et al. (2019). I find that the Hartz IV reform is responsible for a 25% drop in unemployment, with a particular impact on eastern German counties. The rise of the East leads to an additional positive contribution to the labor market. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Kölner Zeitschrift für Soziologie und Sozialpsychologie ( KZfSS) is the property of Springer Nature and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

It is well known that German and Spanish labour markets are quite different from a macro point of view. In this paper, we look at these markets through the lenses of individual unstable spells. These include all forms of atypical employment (such as temporary contracts and mini-jobs) as well as unemployment. This combined unstable state captures a fuller picture of the individual experience of volatile income and uncertain employment status than unemployment alone. We find that the survival rates of unstable spells in the two countries are much more similar than those from unemployment. This suggests that the usual focus on unemployment stocks and durations exaggerates the contrast between the two countries in terms of workers' experience of instability. We place these findings in the context of very similar aggregate shocks in the two countries and different policy choices on labour market reforms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we investigate the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on German household income in 2020 using a micro-level approach. We combine a microsimulation model with novel labour market transition techniques to simulate the COVID-19 shock on the German labour market. We find the consequences of the labour market shock to be highly regressive with a strong impact on the poorest households. However, this effect is nearly entirely offset by automatic stabilisers and discretionary policy measures. We explore the cushioning effect of these policies in detail, showing that short-time working schemes and especially the one-off payments for children are effective in cushioning the income loss of the poor. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper investigates regional variation in migration policy implementation, focusing specifically on the underexplored role of policy ambiguity. It chooses a salient case study of internal migration control implementation: the application of labour market access policies for migrants with precarious legal status in German municipal immigration offices. Studying the implementation approaches of eleven offices within one Land by means of semi-structured interviews with senior officials, the research design allows for drawing inter-agency and inter-policy comparisons. The data provides empirical evidence for the claim that the more conflictive and hence ambiguous a policy, the more importance can be placed on local determinants of implementation. Different logics (economic welfare and regulatory control logic) legitimizing more restrictive or expansive implementation are identified and linked to the broader migration policy context. Moreover, the difficult task of officials to determine applicants' identity clarification efforts – a condition for receiving a work permit – serves as basis for conceptually distinguishing between collective and individual discretion of street-level bureaucrats. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper estimates the effect of an individual's unemployment on the level of social participation of their spouse. Using German panel data, it is shown that unemployment has a strong negative effect on public social activities of both directly and indirectly affected spouses. Private social activities of either spouse, however, are only found to increase if the indirectly affected spouse is not working. Conflict prevention strategies or habituation may help to rationalise this finding. Our results imply that active labour market policies should account for spillover effects within couples and adopt a family perspective. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Germany has undergone a significant migration policy shift since the early 2000s. This paper examines the total employment effect of immigration during the liberalization of migration policies from 2005 to 2018 using a regional approach. A set of methods, along with static and dynamic macro-econometric models, were applied on a balanced panel formed by a unique and first-hand-collected data for 156 statistical regions based on the definition of the German Federal Employment Agency. We find suggestive evidence that there has been a significant adverse impact of new immigrants on the overall employment rate, and this negative effect is substantially larger than those reported in previous studies on the employment effect of immigration in the German labor market. In a further step, we divide our sample into two subsamples to capture the employment effect of the massive humanitarian inflows that began in 2015. Our results indicate that, in addition to the new immigrants' lower rate of integration into the local labor markets, a sudden influx of asylum seekers may possibly lead to a substantial fall in the employment rates, because asylum seekers are not immediately allowed to work in the country. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Investigating the relationship between Gross Domestic Product and unemployment is one of the most important challenges in macroeconomics. In this paper, we compare French and German economies in terms of the dynamic linkage between these variables. In particular, we use an empirical methodology to investigate how much the relationship between Gross Domestic Product and unemployment growth rates are dynamically different in the two major European economies over the period 2003–2019. To this aim, a Vector Autoregressive model is specified for each country to jointly model the growth rate of the two variables. Then a new statistical test is proposed to assess the distance between the two estimated models. Results indicate that the dynamic linkage between Gross Domestic Product and unemployment is very similar in the two countries. This empirical evidence does not imply identical product and labor markets in France and Germany, but it ensures that in these markets there are common dynamics. This could favor the process of economic convergence between the two countries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper comparatively analyzes strategies of German Jobcenters to bring native and immigrant job seekers into employment. It focuses on clients who receive means-tested basic income for the unemployed, based on data from the Panel Study Labour Market and Social Security (PASS) from year 2015 to 2020. By way of logistic regression, the study identifies the impact of being an immigrant on the clients' probability of reporting different kinds of offers like job referrals or courses, controlling for a number of other influential factors. The study also looks deeper into the effects of immigrant-specific attributes, such as heterogeneous German language skills. We found that the likelihood of offers by Jobcenters largely depends on the amount of time since immigration. Recent immigrants have the lowest chance of reporting most of the studied measures of active labor market policies. For immigrants having stayed more than 4 years in Germany, however, we do not find a disadvantage, and some measures out of Jobcenters' toolbox are even more often offered to the longer-settled immigrants than to native clients. A possible explanation for the moderately under-average support of recent immigrants in terms of Jobcenters' measures could be an institutional focus on improving German language skills prior to approaching the labor market. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Using representative linked employer-employee data for Germany, this paper analyzes short- and long-run differences in labor market performance of workers joining start-ups instead of incumbent firms. Applying entropy balancing and following individuals over ten years, we find huge and long-lasting drawbacks from entering a start-up in terms of wages, yearly income, and (un)employment. These disadvantages hold for all groups of workers and types of start-ups analyzed. Although our analysis of different subsequent career paths highlights important heterogeneities, it does not reveal any strategy through which workers joining start-ups can catch up with the income of similar workers entering incumbent firms. Plain English Summary: Workers do not benefit from entering start-ups. This study analyzes a huge data set for Germany and compares similar workers who either join newly founded firms, so-called start-ups, or incumbent firms. It follows both groups of workers over ten years and finds substantial short- and long-run differences in their labor market performance. Entering a start-up instead of an incumbent firm is associated with huge drawbacks in terms of workers' wages, yearly income, and employment. These disadvantages exist for various types of workers analyzed and for different types of start-ups. There is no strategy through which workers who join start-ups can catch up with the income of comparable workers who enter mature firms. Thus, the practical implication of this study is that for most workers, it is advisable not to enter start-ups if they have a chance to obtain a decent job in a mature firm. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper studies how secular changes in the student sex ratio affect marriage market outcomes for university graduates. Using data from Germany, I find that a higher own-gender share within the field of study reduces marriage market opportunities for women, while the opposite is true for men. Moreover, an imbalanced student sex ratio changes the composition of couples. For women, a higher female share decreases the probability of having a spouse from the same field, while men are more likely to marry down with respect to educational status when the male share is high. These findings suggest that the secular changes in the sex ratio of university students have important implications beyond the labor market by affecting the household composition among the high-skilled population. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we assess the impact of international migration and the induced homecare service labor supply shock on fertility decisions and the labor supply of native females in Germany. Specifically, we consider the individual data of native women from the German Socio-Economic Panel and merge them with data on the share of female immigrants and other regional labor market characteristics. We provide evidence that areas with a high share of female immigrants are more likely to provide a larger amount of services related to household care and lower prices for such services. By controlling for unobserved individual characteristics, we find that an increase at the local level in the share of female immigrants positively affects the probability of having a child, induces women to work longer hours (intensive margin of labor supply) and reduces the number of hours they spend performing family duties (intensive margin of home production). The negative change in household working hours supports the validity of our results. These effects become stronger for (medium-) skilled women. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper focuses on the structure and extent of wage differences among graduates of different higher-education institutions in Germany. We ask how large these differences are and how they relate to fields of study and regional labour markets. The results from our application of cross-classified random-effects models to a cohort of the DZHW Graduate Panel show that there is a considerable amount of wage variation depending on the graduates' alma mater. However, this variation can be fully explained by structural characteristics: Selection based on individual characteristics is of only minor importance, while regional labour markets do matter. Most of all, however, the differences relate to fields of study. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An important aspect when analyzing economic inequality between households with children is time. At given monetary incomes, the material well-being of families may be very different depending on how much time parents have at their disposal. In this paper, we provide estimates of the subjectively perceived cost of children depending on the extent of parental time restrictions. Building on a study by Koulovatianos, Schröder and Schmidt (J. Bus. Econ. Stat. 27:42–51, 2009) that introduces a novel way of using subjective income evaluation data for such estimations, we conduct a refined version of the underlying survey, focusing on young women with children in Germany. Our study confirms that the perceived monetary cost of children is substantial and increases with parental nonmarket time restrictions. The experienced loss in material living standards associated with supplying time to the labor market is sizeable for families with children. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Dropping out of the educational system has marked negative consequences in the labour market. Dropping out is followed by an early termination that does not necessarily mean leaving the educational system without graduating. Trainees may reassess their initial choice by starting another vocational education and training (VET) programme and preserve their labour market chances when graduating. This paper examines the factors that drive the decision to stop out (start new vocational training) after an early termination. The analysis is based on a data set for VET in Germany (Ausbildungspanel Saarland) that contains detailed information on the VET careers and labour market outcomes of almost 3000 apprentices who terminated their education early. The results show that approximately 71 percent of apprentices continue with another VET programme after a termination. Termination at an early stage of VET and training in a small establishment are more likely to lead to stopping out than to dropping out. Stopouts who terminate their contracts during an early stage of their VET programme are more likely to change their occupation and obtain a formal VET degree. The results suggest that dissatisfaction with VET must be recognized at an early stage in order for students to take appropriate measures with the aim of graduation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Journal for Labour Market Research is the property of Springer Nature and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

The spatial activity patterns of firms in a multi-regional system are closely connected with the structure and evolution of regional labour markets. Based on an extensive data set (cross-section) on commuting flows in Germany, this paper aims to identify the relationship between entrepreneurial activity and spatial labour markets, by employing in particular the concept of ‘entrepreneurial city’. A network connectivity model is adopted to assess connectivity patterns, using the power-law and exponential law as a statistical test framework, in order to detect the presence of economic activity hubs that may resemble the concept of entrepreneurial cities. Various results are presented and interpreted in the final part of the paper. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper deals with the relation between population aging and the decline of unemployment in East Germany. For the analysis I adapt a direct and an indirect approach covering the years from 1996 to 2014. The direct approach quantifies the extent to which changes in the unemployment rate can be attributed to changes in the composition of the labor force. It includes a decomposition of the East German unemployment rate into changes in the workforce's age structure, labor market participation, and age-specific unemployment rates. The indirect approach centers on the effects of changing cohort sizes on the unemployment rate and involves spatial panel regressions on the small-scale regional level. Results of the direct approach show that changes in the age structure of the workforce exert only a minor impact on the unemployment rate, whereas results of the indirect approach attest aging a significant impact on unemployment. Evidently, demographic change seems to affect unemployment primarily through a general increase of competition for labor that is further fostered by feedback effects between regions than through a direct change of the age structure. I conclude that the declining unemployment rate in East Germany is indeed affected by aging as evidenced by a declining youth share and an increasing old-age share. This indicates that a reversed cohort crowding effect has taken place. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Self-reported satisfaction measures respond to a great variety of socio-demographic characteristics as well as the job and living environment. In this paper we ask whether the recent financial market crisis has caused a deterioration of satisfaction not only for the unemployed but also for those out of the labour force and especially those in employment. The focus of our analyses is on the pattern of life, job and health satisfaction over time and the influence of unemployment rates, inflation rates and GDP growth. We compare the UK and Germany, two countries with different employment protection regulations and different consequences of the crisis for the labour market. For our analysis we use data from the German Socio-Economic Panel and the British Household Panel Study for the period 1996-2010 and supplement this with annual information on macroeconomic indicators. We estimate Ordered Logit and OLS models, both with individual fixed effects. We find some limited psychological costs with respect to self-reported life satisfaction in the crisis years, and a considerable impact of regional and national unemployment rates. Looking at job and health satisfaction we get similar though somewhat weaker results. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In many Western and Eastern European countries, the habilitation is the highest formal qualification awarded by universities, ranking above the doctorate. Despite its central role in the European higher education system, little is known about the career trajectories of those who have obtained this degree. This paper systematically analyzes the career trajectories of scientists and scholars who have completed a habilitation in Germany, comparing these to those of individuals who did not complete a further degree after their PhD. To do so, linked social insurance data from a period of 2 years prior to 15 years after receiving the doctorate are used. My analysis reveals the substantial monetary costs of pursuing an additional qualification after the PhD. The empirical findings indicate that the benefits of an additional qualification beyond the PhD are primarily non-monetary, for example having a cognitively demanding and challenging job requiring a high level of education, and an increased likelihood of employment within the academic sector. These findings may indicate that beyond a certain level of education, and with an already fairly strong integration into the labor market, non-financial aspects of work could become more significant to individuals than income maximization. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Over the last years, the employment rate of older workers has increased sharply in Germany. Against this background, the question arose as to whether firms have contributed actively to the growing share of older employees, either by offering special human resource management (HRM) measures, such as further training (internal strategy) or by hiring older employees from the external labour market (external strategy). Our paper analyses the interrelation between both strategies. By using data from the IAB Establishment Panel, we investigate the determinants of the firms' decision to use one or the other strategy or to combine both strategies. Our analyses show that some factors, such as firm size, experiences with older staff or a shortage of skilled workers promote the decision for both strategies. Other characteristics, in contrast, have a positive effect on one strategy only. This applies in particular to industrial relations, but also to the share of qualified workers within a company. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Knowledge diffusion is argued to be strongly influenced by knowledge networks and spatial structures. However, empirical studies primarily apply an indirect approach in measuring their impact. Moreover, little is known about how policy can influence the spatial diffusion of knowledge. This paper seeks to fill this gap by testing empirically the effects of policy induced knowledge networks on the propensity of inter-regional patent citations. We use patent citation data for 141 labor market regions in Germany between 2000 to 2009, which is merged with information on subsidized joint R&D projects. Based on the latter, we construct a network of subsidized R&D collaboration. Its impact on inter-regional patent citations is evaluated with binomial and negative binomial regression models. Our findings do not indicate that inter-regional network links created by public R&D subsidies facilitate patent citations and, hence, inter-regional knowledge diffusion. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Review of Regional Research is the property of Springer Nature and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

In this paper, I contrast the effects of individual and spousal disability on subjective well-being and labor supply using data on couples from the German Socio-Economic Panel for the years 1984-2006. I find almost no effects in terms of labor market outcomes for both men and women, which stands in stark contrast to the effects of individual disability. The life-satisfaction of women, but not of men, is reduced considerably by their partners' disability. The effects are about 50-73 % as large as those of individual disability. I also find no evidence that individuals adapt to their partners' disability, although there is adaptation to individual disability. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The German educational system is characterized by a large sector of dual vocational training, which facilitates integration into the labour market. This system creates a specific training market for school leavers, which is characterized by strong regional disparities. These differences as well as their consequences have not been systematically analysed in previous research. In a theory-guided analysis this paper examines empirically which structural ‘handicaps’ affect regional transition rates from school to training and how regional training markets may be classified according to these structural factors. To this end, a new method is applied which combines regression and cluster analysis to avoid arbitrariness in the selection of classification variables. It generates a well-interpretable classification of vocational education markets, which is of broad use in research and labour market policy. The method may be applied to solve a broad variety of similar research problems in regional science. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

On average, temporary jobs are far less stable than permanent jobs. This higher instability could potentially lower workers' incentives to relocate towards the workplace, thereby resulting in longer commutes. However, surprisingly few studies have investigated the link between temporary employment and commuting length. Building on the notion that individuals strive to optimize their utility when deciding where to work and live, we develop and test a theoretical framework that predicts commuting outcomes for different types of temporary workers – fixed-term, casual and temporary agency workers – and in different institutional contexts. We estimate fixed-effects regression models using 17 waves of data from the Household, Income and Labour Dynamics in Australia (HILDA) Survey and the German Socio-Economic Panel (SOEP). As expected, the results show that the link between temporary employment and commuting length varies by employment type and institutional context. Agency work is associated with longer commutes than permanent work in both countries, whereas this applies to fixed-term contracts for Germany only. For casual work, the findings suggest no commuting length differential to permanent employment. In terms of policy, our findings suggest lengthy commuting can be a side effect of flexible labour markets, with potentially negative implications for worker well-being, transportation management and the environment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Germany's recovery from an unemployment disease and its resilience to the Great Recession is remarkable. Its success story makes it a showcase for labor policy and labor market reforms. This paper assesses the potential of the German experience as a model for effective, evidence-based policymaking. Flexible management of working time (through overtime and short-time work, time accounts, and labor hoarding), social cohesion and controlled unit labor costs, combined with a rigid, incentive-oriented labor policy supported by effective program evaluation, define the characteristics of a strong reference model. Austerity, sometimes seen as core to the German model, is not viewed as a key element. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Globalisation has transformed the seafarer labour market. As shipping companies have flagged vessels out to open registers, they have shifted from recruiting seafarers on a local hire, frequently permanent, basis to employing seafarers from developing countries on temporary contracts via third party crewing agencies. This has diminished opportunities for seafarers in developed countries and has also impacted on less visible groups-those transmigrants who formerly travelled to European hub ports to be hired directly by companies on European terms and conditions. Using the example of shipping, this paper presents an account of how changes in global labour markets impact differentially on groups and have the potential to cause particular problems for migrant workers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper proposed focuses on the unit-nonresponse in the IAB (Institute for Employment Research) Establishment Panel, a comprehensive data set describing the employer side of the labour market in Germany. Every year since 1993 (1996) the IAB Establishment Panel has surveyed the same establishments from all branches and different size categories in western (eastern) Germany. Although great efforts are taken to convince the owner/manager to take part in the survey there are always firms that do not answer the questionnaire. In this paper the authors try to find out why some establishments are not willing or able to respond to the questionnaire. If the respondent has the authority to provide relevant information, is able to give reliable answers to the questions with a justifiable amount of effort and is interested in the survey in business terms, participation is less frequently refused. The results also confirm the central significance of the interaction between the respondent and the interviewer. If one of the two individuals changes, the probability of further participation falls clearly. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we present a review of various computational experiments concerning neural network (NN) models developed for regional employment forecasting. NNs are nowadays widely used in several fields because of their flexible specification structure. A series of NN experiments is presented in the paper, using two data sets on German NUTS-3 districts. Individual forecasts are computed by our models for each district in order to answer the following question: How relevant are NN parameters in comparison to NN structure? Comprehensive testing of these parameters is limited in the literature. Building on different specifications of NN models-in terms of explanatory variables and NN structures-we propose a systematic choice of NN learning parameters and internal functions by means of a sensitivity analysis. Our results show that different combinations of NN parameters provide significantly varying statistical performance and forecasting power. Finally, we note that the sets of parameters chosen for a given model specification cannot be light-heartedly applied to different or more complex models. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper uses nonparametric techniques to study GDP convergence across German labor market regions and counties during the period 1992–2004. The main result is that regional convergence in unified Germany has been substantial. In the first years after German unification the distribution of GDP has been characterized by a pronounced bimodality. The dispersion of the GDP distribution has become substantially smaller over time. Although some bimodality remains in most recent years, this bimodality is weak in comparison to previous years. Nevertheless, disparities among regions located in the Eastern and Western part of the country are still apparent. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper contains a theoretical and empirical analysis of the labor supply of married women in the Federal Republic of Germany. The theoretical model is an intrafamily life cycle model. The empirical part uses individual census data of married women. The estimates are corrected for the selectivity bias using a two-stage probit method. Both dimensions of labor supply - hours and participation - are estimated along with an implicit estimation of the reservation wage function. The magnitude of the influence of economic variables and individual characteristics is evaluated and compared with other studies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper deals with some problems of international factor mobility with respect to labor using the case of the German labor market. A quarterly macroeconometric model of the German labor market is developed and estimated. It consists of equations explaining labor supply and demand for men and women. Most equations distinguish between labor measured in persons and hours. After a determination of the variables of this model which are influenced by foreign employment two groups of foreign workers which differ according to their EC-member status are discussed separately. Because of several legal and institutional regulations a different treatment of each group with respect to employment policy is necessary. I or foreigners from outside the EC alternative reaction functions of the government are discussed and estimated. As the officially published unemployment rate is not comparable intertemporally because of foreign involuntary remigration during recession a new unemployment series including these persons is constructed and explained. The influence of foreign employment on wages is examined and two wage equations are estimated. Finally, some simulation results of an enforced remigration policy are reported. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article analyzes age-group-related differences in the risk of losing a job and the chance to find new employment using regional administrative data for Germany. I also consider flows between inactivity (out of the labor force) and unemployment to examine the relative contributions of labor market flows to different age-group unemployment dynamics. Inactivity and activity flows account for about 23% (and 83% for the youth) of unemployment dynamics, and contributions of separation (11%-50%) and job finding (5%-30%) vary with age-groups. Counties with a larger share of the labor force youth have high dynamics and very low unemployment rates. In contrast, regions with a smaller percentage of youth experience twice as large unemployment rates. Overall, the results provide strong evidence for decreasing regional labor market dynamics when the share of older workers increases. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Journal for Labour Market Research is the property of Springer Nature and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

This paper provides a new examination of the gender pay gap for Germany based on a family of distribution-sensitive indicators. Wage distributions for men and women do not only differ by a fixed constant; differences are more complex. We show that focusing on the bottom of the wage distribution reveals a larger gender gap. Our distribution-sensitive analysis can also be used to study whether the statistical disadvantage of women in average pay might be 'offset' by lower inequality. Over a broad range of plausible preferences over inequality, we show however that 'inequality-adjusted' estimates of the gap can be up to three times higher than standard inequality-neutral measures in Eastern Germany and up to fifty percent higher in Western Germany. Using preference parameters elicited from a hypothetical risky investment question in our sample, inequality-adjusted gender gap measures turn out to be close to those upper bounds. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Using three waves of the Germany's individual-level panel data, this paper analyses whether there are any changes in the trust levels of East German migrants who move to the former Western German regions after the reunification. The results demonstrate that the duration of living in the West is positively associated with East German migrants' trust and that the labour market is the possible channel through which social trust is fostered. This finding suggests that trust is moulded through contemporaneous shocks or experiences. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Studying lifetime income inequality for individuals who belong to the same cohort can contribute valuable insights that cannot be obtained by usual analyses of annual incomes. Data from the social security system indicates that in West Germany, over the cohorts born between 1935 and 1972, lifetime earnings inequality has strongly increased. For male baby-boomers, lifetime inequality is predicted to be 85 % larger than in the case of their fathers. This is larger than the increase of inequality in the cross-section and points to dramatic intergenerational changes in the German labor market. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article provides an overview of the IAB Job Vacancy Survey and its research potential. The IAB Job Vacancy Survey is a quarterly establishment survey covering the (un-)satisfied labor demand in Germany. This survey identifies the entire number of vacancies on the German labor market, including those vacancies that are not reported to the Federal Employment Agency. The main questionnaire obtains information about the number and structure of vacancies, future labor demand, the current economic situation and the expected development of participating establishments. In addition, the questionnaire collects information about the last new hiring and the last case of a failed recruitment process. Finally, the questionnaire enquires about employer attitudes and firms' use of current labor market instruments. The Research Data Centre of the German Federal Employment Agency offers access to the data starting from the survey waves 2000 onwards. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We use a unique microdata set that covers the 1984–2009 period to estimate real wage flexibility in Eastern and Western parts of Germany. Empirical analysis reveals that wages of male job stayers in the Eastern and Western parts of Germany are rigid, which leads to significant wage flexibility for internal and external movers. At the aggregate level, wages of the external movers are more flexible than the wages of job stayers in bust periods (when labour market is slack) and more rigid than the wages of job stayers in boom periods (when labour market is tight). In overall terms, the West German labour market is mature but conditions in the East German labour market are consistent with transition economies. Wage flexibility in Germany's labour market can be attributed to relatively more flexible wages of the external and internal movers in a slack labour market. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

School tracking has been introduced as a means to provide skills the labor market demands, and as such has been in place for several decades in most Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) countries. The time is thus ripe for a critical review of the effects this has had on the equalities in education and opportunities later in life, and on the quality of vocational education in general. A synthesis of the existing literature reveals gaping holes between the dreams of superior vocational education and training that educational tracking ought to deliver, and the realities of lost opportunities and facilitated inequalities, especially in students with poor socioeconomic background, weak social capital, and sparse social networks. This is all the more true the sooner educational tracking comes into effect. While most OECD countries will start tracking students aged 15 or 16, some countries, such as Germany, will start doing this as early as age 10. Our review shows that this can have catastrophic consequences for students that for various reasons perform poorly early on, as they are indeed unable to recover due to the Matthew effect and preferential attachment in social networks, both of which punish false starts in life and reward first movers. To remedy the situation, we propose educational tracking be held off until later in life, and even then be undertaken with flexibility and late bloomers in mind. We also propose to restructure vocational education by decreasing the degree of curriculum differentiation, by allowing broader vocational education curricula, and by decreasing the number of training occupations in order to account for the changing labor market dynamics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In times of economic crisis, many employers in liberal labor markets reduce their employees' working hours, which leads to an increase in the incidence of involuntary part-time work. We analyze the effectiveness of working time regulation in preventing such an increase during downswings. For this we look at the case of Germany, where hours adjustments are highly restricted by law. Using a state-level panel regression approach, we find that the incidence of involuntary part-time work is positively associated with the unemployment rate but that the association is much weaker than in the US and in the UK. Transition probabilities between employment states over the cycle suggest two particular underlying mechanisms: First, already employed workers are more likely to want a full-time position in economic downturns ("added hours effect"). Second, job seekers make concessions with regards to their desired hours when labor market conditions are bad ("reservation hours effect"). We are the first to document these margins of cyclical hours adjustments which are fundamentally different from those in less regulated labor markets, where the cyclicality of involuntary part-time work is predominantly driven by hours changes at the same employer. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The ongoing growth of cities due to better job opportunities is leading to increased labour-related commuter flows in several countries. On the one hand, an increasing number of people commute and move to the cities, but on the other hand, the labour market indicates higher unemployment rates in urban areas than in the surrounding areas. We investigate this phenomenon on regional level by an alternative definition of unemployment rates in which commuting behaviour is integrated. We combine data from the Labour Force Survey with dynamic mobile network data by small area models for the federal state North Rhine-Westphalia in Germany. From a methodical perspective, we use a transformed Fay–Herriot model with bias correction for the estimation of unemployment rates and propose a parametric bootstrap for the mean squared error estimation that includes the bias correction. The performance of the proposed methodology is evaluated in a case study based on official data and in model-based simulations. The results in the application show that unemployment rates (adjusted by commuters) in German cities are lower than traditional official unemployment rates indicate. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines the link between immigrants' social capital and their labour market access (employment) and success (occupational status) in Germany and contributes to previous research in two ways. Firstly, based on insights from theories of social capital and immigrant integration, we overcome the mere distinction between inter- and intra-ethnic ties. Instead, we approximate resources immigrants can access and mobilize by considering both the ethnic and socioeconomic compositions of their networks. Secondly, by using autoregressive cross-lagged panel models, we properly deal with the methodological challenge of endogeneity inherent to studies concerned with the relationship between social capital and labour market outcomes. Based on longitudinal data from the German Socio-Economic Panel the empirical findings indicate the necessity of considering both the ethnic and socioeconomic compositions of immigrants' networks—as both have independent effects on immigrants' labour market integration. We conclude that future research on the relationship between immigrants' social capital and their economic integration may benefit from approximating resources available through social contacts by considering not only the ethnic dimension but also the socioeconomic dimension of contacts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper we study labor market transitions among self-employment, gainful employment, and unemployment across the business cycle comparing the performance of migrants and natives and controlling for individual characteristics. The Markov chain specification we use is an appropriate representation for our employment transition setting. Based on 19 waves of individual panel data the state probabilities for immigrants and Germans are the highest for paid-employment. While for Germans the next higher state is self-employment, for immigrants it is unemployment. The transition probabilities are highest for staying in the current state for both immigrants and natives. Germans are three times more likely to transition to self-employment from unemployment than immigrants. Good or bad times in the economy, however, do not have a significantly differential effect on any of the transitions related to self-employment for immigrants. In contrast, the business cycle affects Germans' self-employment probabilities. During the upswing, they leave unemployment to go into self-employment; they also leave self-employment to go back to paid-employment. Both immigrants and Germans use self-employment to transition in and out of the other employment states. They especially use it to escape unemployment and this is a relevant and applicable strategy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Using diversity climate theory and research, this paper examines the relationships among an organization's actions which indicate a value for age diversity and potential applicants' reactions toward that organization. Specifically, we investigate the interactive effects of an organization's age diversity, an organization's age diversity management practices, and potential applicants' individual attitudes toward age diversity on two outcome variables, organizational attractiveness and expected age discrimination. We conducted an experimental survey study with a sample of 244 German employees likely to be in the job market again in their careers. Organizational age diversity and age diversity management practices were positively related to organizational attractiveness and negatively related to expected age discrimination. Results also support a three-way interaction of an organization's age diversity, an organization's age diversity management practices, and potential applicants' attitudes toward age diversity on both dependent variables. The findings demonstrate the importance of considering individual attitudes toward age diversity in assessing the effectiveness of an organization's age diversity and age diversity management practices. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper studies the effect of both retirement and unemployment on life satisfaction, using subjective satisfaction indicators from the German Socio-Economic Panel. Moreover, we analyze how accurate individuals anticipate changes in satisfaction around retirement, as well as the correlation between the forecast error in life satisfaction and the labor market status. Being unemployed has a significant negative effect on life satisfaction; (in)voluntary retirement on the other hand has no significant effect on life satisfaction. A new finding is that unemployed individuals underestimate future life satisfaction. That is, their current labor market status has temporary negative effects on well-being, but, after 5 years, individuals are happier with their life than previously anticipated. We find no effects of (in)voluntary retirement on the forecast error. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The importance of repeat and circular migration starts receiving rising recognition. The paper studies this behavior by analyzing the number of exits and the total number of years away from the host country using count data models and panel data from the German guestworker experience. Beyond the myth, more than 60% of migrants in the sample from the guestworker countries living in Germany are indeed repeat or circular migrants. Migrants from European Union member countries, those not owning a dwelling in Germany, the younger and the older (excluding the middle-aged), are significantly more likely to engage in repeat migration and to stay out for longer. Males and those migrants with German passports exit more frequently, while those with higher education exit less; there are no differences with time spent out. Migrants with family in the home country remain out longer, and those closely attached to the labor market remain less; they are not leaving the country more frequently. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper develops an econometric model for studying the structure of regional labor markets. We estimate the model for three representative Western German federal states. The simulation results of these heterogeneous states reveal substantial structural differences in the short as well as the long-run. These differences impact on labor demand and labor supply and, hence, call for investigating demand and supply of labor instead of merely the unemployment rate. The revealed commonalities and differences may help regional as well as national policy makers to formulate policies tailored at the specific needs of regional labor markets. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]