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AbstractOccupational mobility is becoming increasingly important today owing to technological change and changing requirements in the employment system. This article examines the extent to which institutional characteristics of occupations hamper intragenerational occupational mobility on the labor market. By combining data from the Adult Cohort of the German National Educational Panel Study (NEPS) with occupational information from the German Federal Employment Agency, we test the power of the characteristics of the initial and target occupations to explain horizontal and vertical status mobility. The occupational characteristics that we focus on are the standardization of certificates, occupational licensing, and the specificity of skills. Using multinomial logistic regression, we find that both initial and target occupations with such characteristics might generate mobility constraints and impede the correction of a disadvantageous starting position. Status increases are mainly possible from standardized to nonstandardized, from specific to nonspecific and, in some instances, from nonlicensed to licensed occupations.

Eigentlich stehen heutzutage Frauen wie Männern alle Berufe offen. Trotzdem hat sich an der Geschlechterzusammensetzung der Berufe – trotz großer Bemühungen seitens der Politik und Wirtschaft, Männerberufe für Mädchen schmackhaft zu machen und trotz ihrer teilweise besseren schulischen Leistungen – seit mehr als 30 Jahren wenig verändert. Frauen studieren oder erlernen nach wie vor häufiger typische Frauenberufe im dienstleistungs- oder sozialen Bereich während es Männer weiterhin verstärkt in die naturwissenschaftlichen, technischen und Industrieberufe zieht. Doch die geschlechtsspezifische Berufswahl bleibt nicht folgenlos: Wie bereits empirisch belegt wurde, sinkt die Entlohnung mit dem Frauenanteil in einem Beruf, sodass Beschäftigte in Frauenberufen besonders wenig verdienen. In dieser Studie untersuchen wir, wie sich die geschlechtsspezifische Berufswahl auf die Aufstiegschancen für Frauen und Männer in typischen Frauen- und Männerberufen auswirkt. Dazu benutzen wir Daten aus der repräsentativen Befragung "Arbeiten und Lernen im Wandel" (ALWA), in der zwischen 1956 und 1988 Geborene befragt wurden. Zunächst analysieren wir, wie sich die berufliche Mobilität in den ersten 10 Jahren nach dem Erwerbseinstieg in Frauen-, Männer und Mischberufen entwickelt hat. Es zeigt sich, dass Beschäftigte in Frauenberufen ihrem Einstiegsberuf besonders häufig treu bleiben. Jedoch gelingt ein formaler Aufstieg innerhalb des Einstiegsberufs in allen Berufsarten etwa gleich oft. Beschäftigte in Männerberufen nutzen aber viel häufiger auch einen Berufswechsel, um auf der Karriereleiter aufzusteigen. Im Weiteren untersuchen wir, zu welchem Zeitpunkt ein Aufstieg realisiert werden kann und stellen fest, dass sich die Schere zwischen den Frauen- und Misch-/Männerberufen erst nach ca. vier Jahren öffnet und statistisch signifikante Unterschiede aufzeigt. Nach zehn Jahren haben dann etwa 20 Prozent der Beschäftigten in Frauenberufen und etwa 30 Prozent der Beschäftigten in Männer- oder Mischberufen einen formalen Aufstieg realisiert. Anschließend betrachten wir in multivariaten Analysen, wie sich die Beschäftigung für beide Geschlechter in den typischen Berufen auf ihre Aufstiegschancen auswirken. Wir finden empirische Evidenz dafür, dass Männer selbst in Frauen- und Mischberufen bessere Aufstiegschancen haben. Nur in Männerberufen unterscheiden sich die Aufstiegschancen zwischen den Geschlechtern nicht. Zum Abschluss diskutieren wir die Gründe für die unterschiedlichen Karriereopportunitäten und Implikationen für die Berufswahl.

The Covid‐19 pandemic caused a digitalization boost, mainly through the rise of telework. Even before the pandemic, advancing digital transformation restructured the way of working and thereby changed the quality of jobs - albeit at a different pace across occupations. With data from the German National Educational Panel Study (NEPS), we examine how job quality and the use of digital technologies changed during the first pandemic year in different occupations. Building on this, we analyze change score models to investigate how increased workplace digitalization connects to changes in selected aspects of employees' subjective job quality. We find only a weak association between the digitalization boost in different occupational fields and the overall decrease in subjective job quality. However, telework - as one aspect of digitalization - is connected to a smaller decrease in work–family reconciliation and conformable working hours. Thus, it may buffer some detrimental pandemic effects on job quality. In addition, telework is connected to increased information overload, creating a new burden for specific employee groups.

Questions on earnings are counted among sensitive topics that often produce high rates of item nonresponse or measurement error. Both types of bias are well documented in the literature and are found to concentrate in the tails of the earnings distribution. In this paper, we explore whether measurement error on earnings could be explained by socially desirable
reporting and whether the error is impacted by interviewer characteristics. Using the linked dataset NEPS-SC6-ADIAB, which contains survey data from the German National Educational Panel Study, Starting Cohort "Adults", linked to administrative earnings records from the German Federal Employment Agency, we analyze the extents of over- and underreporting and the influence of respondent and interviewer characteristics on these behaviors for different quartiles of the earnings distribution. Our results show that the average level of misreporting is relatively low (approximately 6% of median earnings). Our main logistic model reveals that female and more highly educated respondents report significantly more accurately while those with higher earnings misreport to a significantly greater extent. Regarding the impact of personality traits on reporting accuracy, we find significant positive effects for more agreeable respondents and significant negative effects for extraverted respondents. When differentiating by the direction of misreporting, we find, for instance, that women are less likely to overreport across all earnings quartiles. However, the influence of interviewer characteristics is negligible.

ABSTRACTObjectivesWe investigate characteristics of respondents and interviewers influencing the accurateness of reported income by comparing survey data with administrative data. Questions on sensitive topics like respondents' income often produce relatively high rates of item nonresponse or measurement error. In this context several analyses have been done on item nonresponse, but little is known about accuracy of reporting. Existing evidence shows that it is unpleasant for respondents to report very low or very high income. In presence of an interviewer income questions might produce incorrect responses due to social desirability bias. On the other hand side interviewers can create a trustful atmosphere in which respondents give more accurate answers.
ApproachUsing linked survey and administrative data we are able to measure the extent of deviation between reported and recorded incomes and explore the influence of respondent and interviewer characteristics on it. The starting point for the linkage is data from the German National Educational Panel Study (NEPS), Starting Cohort 6, which surveys adults from birth cohorts 1944 to 1986. More than 90% of the respondents consented to a linkage of their survey information with administrative data from the German Federal Employment Agency. These longitudinal earnings data are highly reliable as they are based on mandatory notifications of employers to the social security system.We include interviewer and respondent characteristics as well as their interactions into our model to estimate their respective impact on the incidence and size of any bias in reported incomes. This allows us to control for latent interviewer traits that might have influenced the respondent's answering behavior during each interview of a given interviewer.
ResultsThe average deviation of reported from administrative earnings is relatively small (less than 10% of median earnings). Descriptive evidence shows only small variation of deviation across subgroups. Most importantly, female respondents show higher report accuracy. Multivariate results hint at a negligible influence of interviewer characteristics. The major predictors for deviation in respondents' characteristics are their sex, their absolute monthly personal income, their educational level and being born abroad.
ConclusionAlthough the average measurement accuracy is rather high, there are some differences in deviations by subgroups. The impact of these deviations depends on the research question at hand. Research with a strong focus on the respondent's earnings, e.g. when using them as a dependent variable, should use the linked data rather than only the NEPS survey data.

Objective: We examine how care arrangements, general and altered working conditions, and worries influenced subjective well-being at the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic for working parents in Germany. Background: Prior research suggests several reasons for declines in subjective well-being, particularly for working mothers. We employ Pearlin's (1989) stress process model to explore the role of parental childcare, altered working conditions and amplified worries of working parents in terms of increased stressors and modified resources to cope with the extraordinary situation. Method: We use data from two starting cohorts from the National Educational Panel Study and its supplementary COVID-19 web survey from spring 2020 to examine possible heterogeneities in contextual factors for individual-level changes in the well-being of working mothers and fathers. Results: We confirm a more pronounced decline in well-being for working mothers than fathers. Part-time work and access to emergency care reduce the gender gap in decreased well-being. Conversely, young children in the household and personal worries are associated with lower well-being for both parents. However, we cannot explain the more significant decrease in mothers' well-being by increased childcare responsibilities or altered working conditions. Conclusion: A greater decline in well-being indicates a particular burden among working mothers. However, it cannot be linked solely to gendered inequalities in the changes of paid and unpaid work during the first months of the pandemic.

The COVID-19 pandemic has made access to face-to-face learning opportunities - the most common form of adult learning - impossible. Many firms have scaled back their training investments due to economic uncertainty. One way to fill these gaps is through self-directed learning via the Internet. Learning opportunities via apps and online videos are available flexibly in terms of time and location. But can online learning substitute for the lack of face-to-face courses, especially in the workplace where constant skill updating becomes ever more important? We wanted to know if online learning opportunities were used more in the first months of the pandemic, and if so, for which purposes and by which groups. Using data from the Adult Cohort of the German National Educational Panel Study (NEPS-SC6) and a supplementary web survey conducted in May and June 2020, we show that the work-related use of online learning was stronger in these months than before the crisis. At the same time, however, educational inequalities in the use of such opportunities were larger than before the pandemic. Thus, the expansion of online learning seems to benefit highly educated workers rather than educationally disadvantaged groups.

AbstractThis article outlines the German National Educational Panel Study, which collects comprehensive data on lifelong learning in a multi‐cohort sequence design, covering early childhood, childhood, adolescence, young adulthood and adulthood. It outlines data collection for all the cohorts and educational phases across the life course whilst focusing on the educational stage 'Adult Education and Lifelong Learning'. Data can be accessed for academic purposes as scientific use files under data contract.

Digitalization and automation have increased substantially in recent years and are reshaping the working world. These fundamental changes alter employee training needs and training programs. They create new employment opportunities, may cause excessive demands or raise fears of job loss. The extent of the societal transitions induced by the ongoing digitalization call for high-quality research data. In this paper, we introduce a new multi-dimensional survey module on digitalization and its consequences for the working world, which has recently been implemented in the adult cohorts of the German National Educational Panel Study (NEPS). We show how well and for which employee groups the newly developed survey questions capture experiences with digital technologies at the workplace. We test for the applicability of the instrument with regard to gender, age, education, and job tasks and show that it predicts employee's actual participation in further training. Moreover, we show the potential that results from the combination of the new survey module with further key strengths of the NEPS data such as its life-course or competence measures.

Das Datenprodukt NEPS-SC6-ADIAB wird gemeinsam angeboten vom Institut für Arbeitsmarkt- und Berufsforschung (IAB), Nürnberg, und dem Leibniz-Institut für Bildungsverläufe e.V. (LIfBi), Bamberg. NEPS-SC6-ADIAB setzt sich zusammen aus den Befragungs- und Testdaten der Erwachsenen-Startkohorte 6 "Bildung im Erwachsenenalter und lebenslanges Lernen" des Nationalen Bildungspanels (NEPS) sowie den administrativen Daten des IAB. Zur Stichprobe dieser Startkohorte gehören in Deutschland lebende Personen im Erwerbsalter (Geburtsjahrgänge 1956 bis 1986), die für die ALWA-Studie des IAB rekrutiert wurden, eine Auffrischungsstichprobe dieser Jahrgänge für das NEPS und eine Aufstockungsstichprobe der Geburtsjahrgänge 1944 bis 1955. Die Datenerhebung fand ab der zweiten Welle 2009/2010 im jährlichen Turnus statt. Allgemein zielt die NEPS-Studie darauf ab, Bildungsverläufe in verschiedenen Kontexten sowie die Entwicklung von Kompetenzen über den individuellen Lebensverlauf hinweg zu untersuchen. Dafür werden Daten zur Kompetenzentwicklung, zu Bildungsprozessen und Bildungsentscheidungen sowie zu Bildungsrenditen erhoben. Darüber hinaus verfügt das NEPS über ein breites Fragenspektrum, das insbesondere zahlreiche biografische und soziodemografische Merkmale beinhaltet.
Mithilfe von NEPS-SC6-ADIAB können beispielsweise Forschungsfragen untersucht werden, für die sehr genaue Einkommensdaten im Lebensverlauf erforderlich sind. Weiterhin ist durch die Anreicherung der NEPS-SC6-Daten eine Erweiterung des Beobachtungszeitraums verbunden, da die administrativen Daten des IAB bis 1975 zurückreichen.

Digitalization and automation have increased substantially in recent years and are reshaping the working world. These fundamental changes alter employee training needs and training programs. They create new employment opportunities, may cause excessive demands or raise fears of job loss. The extent of the societal transitions induced by the ongoing digitalization call for high-quality research data. In this paper, we introduce a new multi-dimensional survey module on digitalization and its consequences for the working world, which has recently been implemented in the adult cohorts of the German National Educational Panel Study (NEPS). We show how well and for which employee groups the newly developed survey questions capture experiences with digital technologies at the workplace. We test for the applicability of the instrument with regard to gender, age, education, and job tasks and show that it predicts employee's actual participation in further training. Moreover, we show the potential that results from the combination of the new survey module with further key strengths of the NEPS data such as its life-course or competence measures.



The files provided here use data from the National Educational Panel Study (NEPS): Starting Cohort Adults, https://doi.org/10.5157/NEPS:SC6:12.0.0 . From 2008 to 2013, NEPS data was collected as part of the Framework Program for the Promotion of Empirical Educational Research funded by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF). As of 2014, NEPS has been carried out by the Leibniz Institute for Educational Trajectories (LIfBi) in cooperation with a nationwide network.

Inhalt: Einführung und Resümee; Entwicklung des Bildungsniveaus; Bildungserträge; Übergang von der Schule in die Ausbildung; Übergang von der Ausbildung in den Beruf; Ausgleichsprozesse auf beruflichen Teilarbeitsmärkten; Formale Überqualifizierung; Die Bedeutung von Persönlichkeitseigenschaften für den individuellen Arbeitsmarkterfolg; Karriere in typischen Männer- und Frauenberufen.