Panel Study "Labour Market and Social Security"
Department
Research Department E3
Research task
This Research Department is responsible for planning and carrying out the Household Panel Study PASS. The Panel Study, financed by the Federal Ministry of Labour and Social Affairs, first went into the field in December 2006.
The data from PASS form the basis for answering a multitude of questions relating to labour market and poverty research as well as to the evaluation of social policy measures. One of the things the data shall facilitate is the detailed description and analysis of the living conditions of those receiving benefits and of employed persons in the low income bracket. In addition to this, they should allow to analyse the determinants of entry into and exit from drawing benefits as well as to evaluate measures applied in accordance with the SGB II (Social Code, Book II). The study comprises two subsamples of 6,000 households each. For the first subsample, households receiving benefits were selected from the register data of the Federal Employment Agency. The second subsample is a random sample of the population with an overproportional representation of low-income households. Details of the methodological particularities can be found in the detailed study description.
The department's research efforts concentrate on three central topics:
1. The duration and dynamics of receiving benefits and/or staying in poverty
The use of panel data allows to analyse the dynamic elements of poverty and receiving benefits. The central topics in this context are the duration of poverty spells as well as the pathways into, and out of, poverty and/or receiving benefits.
2. Living conditions of recipient and low income households
The analysis of households' material situation should rest upon a broad conceptual basis and should therefore take various different theoretical approaches into account. This is why in PASS, in contrast to many other surveys, the material situation of households is not only assessed by measures for their income and wealth (resource approach), as is usually the case. In addition to that direct measures of poverty are applied, gathering information on goods, services and activities the household can afford (deprivation approach). Moreover, in order to properly take into account the complex character of poverty, further dimensions of the households' living conditions are also taken into account. Examples of such dimensions are health, residential conditions, the domestic situation and levels of integration into social networks.
3. Concomitant research on methodological issues
From a survey-methodological point of view, panel-study PASS comprises various innovative features, such as its inventive sample-design, combining two subsamples. Research questions arising from such particular methodological features of PASS, along with the analyses of item and unit non-response or small methodical experiments, will constitute an important part of the research activities of the department.
Projects
Projects of department
Staff members
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