Methodological Approach: Data, Variables, and Methods

Abstract

Data from the Socio-Economic Panel Study (SOEP) were used for my empirical analyses. Compared to other international and national panel surveys such as the PSID, BHPS, or the Panel Study “Labour Market and Social Security” (PASS), the SOEP provides the most comprehensive data on social involvement and on labor market status and socio-economic information. After a brief introduction to the SOEP, the process of selecting the social involvement and unemployment-related variables will be described. In a third step, my estimation strategies for examining the causal effect of unemployment on people’s social involvement in my analyses will be outlined. These include regression for ordered and count data, fixed effects techniques, and entropy balance combined with a first-difference approach.