IAB-SOEP Migration Sample

The IAB-SOEP Migration Sample is conducted jointly by the Institute for Employment Research (IAB) and the Socio-Economic Panel (SOEP) at the German Institute for Economics Research (DIW Berlin).

All samples from the IAB-SOEP Migrations Sample are included in the regular SOEP data release and therefore a subset of SOEP-Core.

Citation

• Title: IAB-SOEP Migration Sample

• Principal Investigators: Herbert Brücker, Yuliya Kosyakova, Sabine Zinn

Publications using these data must cite the DOI doi:10.5684/soep.iab-soep-mig.2023.1 (or the DOI of another used edition) and also cite the following reference article:

• Herbert Brücker, Martin Kroh, Simone Bartsch, Jan Goebel, Simon Kühne, Elisabeth Liebau, Parvati Trübswetter, Ingrid Tucci & Jürgen Schupp (2014): The new IAB-SOEP Migration Sample: an introduction into the methodology and the contents. SOEP Survey Paper 216, Series C. Berlin, Nürnberg: DIW Berlin.

If you do not exclude the cases of the IAB-BAMF-SOEP Survey of Refugees in your analysis, then also cite the following reference:

• Brücker, H., Kosyakova, Y., Rother, N., Zinn, S., Liebau, E., Gider, W., Schwanhäuser, S., & Siegert, M. (accepted) Exploring Integration and Migration Dynamics: The Research Potentials of a Large-Scale Longitudinal Household Study of Refugees in Germany. European Sociological Review. https://doi.org/10.1093/esr/jcaf032. A preprint of the paper is available here: https://doi.org/10.17605/OSF.IO/CQ2KZ.

Subsamples

The first IAB-SOEP Migration Sample has the label IAB-SOEP-M1. It was drawn from administrative records in the IAB’s Integrated Employment Biographies (IEB) database, and the households in the sample were first surveyed in 2013. The households in the second sample IAB-SOEP-M2 were first surveyed in 2015. The target population consisted of immigrants to Germany who arrived between 2010 and 2013—mainly migrants from the new EU Member States in Eastern Europe. The households in the sample IAB-SOEP-M7 were surveyed for the first time in 2020. The target population of this IAB-SOEP Migration Sample was based on immigrants to Germany who arrived between 2016 and 2018 from the countries of Poland, Romania, and Bulgaria. To counteract panel mortality, IAB-SOEP-M10 was sampled in 2024. This refreshment sample included individuals of EU nationality living in Germany who are of adult age. It was drawn based on data from the residents’ registration office (Einwohnermeldeamt).

A more detailed study description can be found at the SOEPcompanion.

Record Linkage

The record linkage data product SOEP-CMI-ADIAB consists of the survey data of respondents of the SOEP and administrative data of the IAB – in case the respondents consented to their records being linked. The survey data of SOEP-CMI-ADIAB comprise data of SOEP-Core and the IAB-SOEP Migration Sample, the IAB-BAMF-SOEP Survey of Refugees as well as data from the SOEP Innovation Sample. SOEP-CMI-ADIAB can be used to investigate research questions regarding the rich socio-demographic information of the SOEP as well as precise income information from the administrative data sources which include earnings biographies starting from 1975.

Since the linked dataset contains weakly anonymized social data, the datasets are only accessible on site at the Research Data Center of the German Federal Employment Agency at the IAB (FDZ IAB). Researchers can use FDZ IAB data on a guest visit to the IAB or through remote data processing, which can also be arranged with the IAB.

Documentation

Information on questions and variables can be found on paneldata.org.

Adapted versions of the SOEP-Core instruments were used for the IAB-SOEP Migration Sample in previous Waves (see table). Since 2019, households and individuals in the IAB-SOEP-M1/M2 samples have received the same instruments as the SOEP-Core samples. With the survey year 2022, the instruments of the IAB-SOEP-M7 sample were integrated into SOEP-Core. In the IAB-SOEP-M10 sample launched in 2024, the same instruments were used directly as in SOEP-Core to ensure optimum comparability. An overview of sample-specific instruments can also be found in the SOEPcompanion.