SOEP-LEE2: Linking surveys on employees to employers in Germany

Matiaske, Wenzel et al. Article SOEP-LEE2: Linking surveys on employees to employers in Germany Journal of Economics and Statistics Provided in Cooperation with: De Gruyter Brill Suggested Citation: Matiaske, Wenzel et al. (2024) : SOEP-LEE2: Linking surveys on employees to employers in Germany, Journal of Economics and Statistics, ISSN 2366-049X, De Gruyter Oldenbourg, Berlin, Vol. 244, Iss. 5/6, pp. 671-684, https://doi.org/10.1515/jbnst-2023-0031 This Version is available at: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/333301 Standard-Nutzungsbedingungen: Die Dokumente auf EconStor dürfen zu eigenen wissenschaftlichen Zwecken und zum Privatgebrauch gespeichert und kopiert werden. Sie dürfen die Dokumente nicht für öffentliche oder kommerzielle Zwecke vervielfältigen, öffentlich ausstellen, öffentlich zugänglich machen, vertreiben oder anderweitig nutzen. Sofern die Verfasser die Dokumente unter Open-Content-Lizenzen (insbesondere CC-Lizenzen) zur Verfügung gestellt haben sollten, gelten abweichend von diesen Nutzungsbedingungen die in der dort genannten Lizenz gewährten Nutzungsrechte. Terms of use: Documents in EconStor may be saved and copied for your personal and scholarly purposes. You are not to copy documents for public or commercial purposes, to exhibit the documents publicly, to make them publicly available on the internet, or to distribute or otherwise use the documents in public. If the documents have been made available under an Open Content Licence (especially Creative Commons Licences), you may exercise further usage rights as specified in the indicated licence. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ Data Observer Wenzel Matiaske, Torben Dall Schmidt*, Christoph Halbmeier, Martina Maas, Doris Holtmann, Carsten Schröder, Tamara Böhm, Stefan Liebig and Alexander S. Kritikos SOEP-LEE2: Linking Surveys on Employees to Employers in Germany https://doi.org/10.1515/jbnst-2023-0031 Received May 21, 2023; accepted June 2, 2023 Abstract: This article presents the new linked employee-employer study of the Socio-Economic Panel (SOEP-LEE2), which offers new research opportunities for various academic fields. In particular, the study contains two waves of an employer survey for persons in dependent work that is also linkable to the SOEP, a large representative German annual household panel (SOEP-LEE2-Core). Moreover, SOEP-LEE2 includes two waves of self-employed surveys based on self-employed in the SOEP-Core (SOEP-LEE2-Self-employed) and three additional representative employer surveys, independent of the SOEP in terms of sampling employers (SOEP-LEE2-Compare). Survey topics include digitalisation and cybersecurity, human capital formation, COVID-19, and human resource management. Here, we describe the content, survey design, and comparability of the different datasets in the SOEP-LEE2 to potential users in different disciplines of research. Keywords: employment relations; human resource management; linked employeeemployer data; SOEP; SOEP-LEE2; survey design *Corresponding author: Torben Dall Schmidt, Institute for Employment Relations and Labour, Helmut Schmidt University, Hamburg, Germany, E-mail: [email protected]. https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7662-1669 Wenzel Matiaske, Martina Maas and Doris Holtmann, Institute for Employment Relations and Labour, Helmut Schmidt University, Hamburg, Germany, E-mail: [email protected] (W. Matiaske), [email protected] (M. Maas), [email protected] (D. Holtmann) Christoph Halbmeier, Institute for Employment Relations and Labour, Helmut Schmidt University, Hamburg, Germany; and German Institute for Economic Research (DIW), Berlin, Germany, E-mail: [email protected] Carsten Schröder and Tamara Böhm, German Institute for Economic Research (DIW), Berlin, Germany; and Freie Universität, Berlin, Germany, E-mail: [email protected] (C. Schröder), [email protected] (T. Böhm) Stefan Liebig, Freie Universität, Berlin, Germany, E-mail: [email protected] Alexander S. Kritikos, German Institute for Economic Research (DIW), Berlin, Germany; and University of Potsdam, Potsdam, Germany, E-mail: [email protected] Journal of Economics and Statistics 2024; 244(5–6): 671–684 Open Access. © 2023 the author(s), published by De Gruyter. This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. JEL Classification: C81; C83; D21; J01; M12; M50 1 Introduction Research on relationships between employers and employees remains a field of central importance to society in general and research communities specifically. An example is the extent to which behavior at the job, job satisfaction, and wages of employees depends on establishment strategies, human resource management instruments, and investment decisions. The insights from such research are of particular interest in times of large reforms and transformations during crisis. In the German context, an example is the Hartz reforms constituting marked change in labor markets during the 2010s (e.g. Fahr und Sunde 2009; Bauer and King 2018). More recently, several major events shocked economies and employee–employer relationships in a polycrisis: the COVID-19 pandemic commencing toward the end of 2019 and the war in the Ukraine starting first quarter of 2022, which also led to a great wave of immigrants from Ukraine, as well as an energy crisis and rising inflation in Europe. A related and important source of transformations in employee-employer relationships is digitalisation, made eminent from e.g. lockdowns during the pandemic: Not only does digitalisation change business and production, but it also changes the work environment, tasks, and worker productivity. The SOEP-LEE2 speaks to these different processes evolving over time from the perspective of establishments, the self-employed and linked employee–employer relations. It includes comprehensive individual and household characteristics from the SOEP (Goebel et al. 2019) alongside detailed employer information such as establishment characteristics, human resource management, training practices, continuing education, and digitalisation. It does so by linking survey information from employees in SOEP-Core to survey information of employers in an employee first approach resulting in the SOEP-LEE2-Core survey. The SOEP-LEE2 adds new linked employee–employer data for Germany and related data is found in a number of other countries (e.g. Greenan and Seghir 2016). The SOEP-LEE2-Core of the SOEP-LEE2 data structure is an extension of the SOEP-LEE1 project of 2012 based on the employee first survey design (Weinhardt et al. 2016, 2017), while containing a new research focus on shocks to employee–employer relations from pandemics, conflicts, digitalisation, and cybersecurity issues. In addition, the SOEP-LEE2 data structure comprises a self-employed survey (SOEP-LEE2-Selfemployed) with a sample derived fromSOEP-Core and a supplementary representative establishment survey (SOEP-LEE2-Compare) based on asample from the establishment register of the German Federal Employment Agency. The SOEP-LEE2 data structure covers the period from 2022 to 2024, which may be extended through 2026. The infas 672 W. Matiaske et al. Institute for Applied Social Science is responsible for implementing the surveys of the SOEP-LEE2 data structure. The questionnaires are largely identical inthethree surveys in the SOEP-LEE2 data structure –SOEP-LEE2-Core, SOEP-LEE2-Self-employed, and SOEP-LEE2-Compare – except for thematic rotating modules over the different waves and adaptations over time. The largely harmonized structure and content of the surveys allows in-depth analyses of theGermanlabormarket in times of consecutive crisisand transformation. In this sense, the SOEP-LEE2 complements existing studies in which individual/ household data are linked to establishment data. The combined SOEP-LEE2-Core and SOEP-LEE2-Compare contains information for over 2000 employers in the first wave, while the SOEP-LEE2-Self-employed contains information for over 600 self-employed in the first wave. SOEP-LEE2-Compare is planned to contain three waves, while SOEP-LEE2-Core and SOEP-LEE2-Self-employed is planned to comprise two waves. For all, a possible extension of the project would add at least one wave. Section 2 offers a presentation of the conceptual framework and interdependencies of the different parts of the SOEP-LEE2 data structure, while Section 3 give details on the topics covered in the questionnaire and on relations to previous established SOEP-LEE data and other employer surveys. Section 4 offers a discussion, while Section 5 finally contains references on howto obtain documentation of and data access to the SOEP-LEE2 data structure. 2 Conceptual Framework of the SOEP-LEE2 Data The SOEP-LEE2 data structure consists of three related surveys, as shown in Figure 1. The SOEP-LEE2-Core survey, which builds on an employee first approach, uses contact data on employers for persons in dependent work obtained initially during the SOEP-Core survey procedure. Employed persons in dependent work within the SOEP-Core are asked about contact information to their employer (left-most red ellipse in Figure 1). For these employers, the relevant module of the questionnaire is that of the “General Employer Module”and they are offered to respond to the questionnaire given the number of employees is at least five. The sample of self-employed persons for the SOEP-LEE2-Self-employed arrives from those persons in the SOEP-Core survey responding that they are self-employed. Those included in the SOEP-LEE2-Self-employed may be solo or non-solo selfemployed. The relevant questionnaire is the baseline questionnaire of the “General Employer Module”–the yellow square in Figure 1 –modified to complement selfemployed and so becomes the questionnaire of the “Self-employed Module”, i.e. the orange square to the left of Figure 1. Topics specifically relevant for this sample in the “Self-employed Module”are the company start-up period, investments, innovation, SOEP-LEE2 Data 673 tasks of self-employed persons, retirement security, and challenges of selfemployment. Questions concerning organizational characteristics, staffstructure, consequences of COVID 19, and use of home office are the same in all three surveys. While this is the general structure of the SOEP-LEE2 data including relations between the different surveys and samples therein, details on survey design and included themes for the first wave are provided in Section 3. A challenge in using the SOEP-LEE2-Core is that of an employee first survey design. Representativeness is maintained for employees by design, but this is not the case with respect to employers. To ensure a basis of comparison of the results from the SOEP-LEE2-Core survey, the SOEP-LEE2-Compare survey builds on a representative sample of employers from the establishment register of the German Federal Employment Agency. The sample of the SOEP-LEE2-Compare is stratified by five strata of establishment sizes, eight strata of business sectors, and two strata of geography. These employers are then asked to fill-in the same questionnaire as those in the SOEP-LEE2-Core, i.e. the “General Employer Module”in Figure 1. In this way, it is possible to assess, item-by-item, if the employee first sampling procedure of the SOEP-LEE2-Core implies selection and renders particular patterns of firm characteristics, when compared to the representative sample of the SOEP-LEE2-Compare survey. SOEP-Core Survey SOEP-LEE2-Selfemployed Self-employed Module SOEP-LEE2-Core General Employer Module SOEP-LEE2Compare General Employer Module Establishmentregister - Federal Employment Agency (FEA) Employer Contact Info from Employee 2 Slf I e Quesonaire – Selfemployed Module Quesonaire – General Employer Module S Employer Contact Info from Register SOEP-LEE2-Core & SOEP-LEE2Self-employed Data SOEP2-LEECompare Data Access through FDZ Quesonaire – General Employer Module Figure 1: Conceptual framework for the SOEP-LEE2 data structure. Source: Figure by authors. 674 W. Matiaske et al. SOEP-LEE2-Compare allows for multifaceted analyses of establishment reactions to the polycrisis without linking employers to employees. Being a representative survey of establishments in Germany, it allows assessments about how establishments handled COVID-19, the energy crisis, or adjoin to this pursue digitalisation. Figure 2 shows the different waves of SOEP-LEE2-Core/SOEP-LEE2-Self-employed and SOEP-LEE2-Compare. Notice that the two last waves in the shaded blue areas of Figure 2 are conditional on a possible extension of the data collection. Two waves of SOEP-LEE2-Core and SOEP-LEE2-Self-employed and three waves of SOEP-LEE2-Compare are certain to be included in the data structure. The planned survey periods for the SOEP-LEE2-Core are the first and second quarters of a year based on a sample from SOEP-Core of the previous year, while SOEP-LEE2-Self-employed is planned to be collected in the third and fourth 2022 2023 SOEP-LEE2-Compare Wave 1 SOEP-LEE2-Compare Wave 2 SOEP-LEE2-Compare Wave 3 SOEP-LEE2-Compare Wave 4 SOEP-LEE2-Core & SOEP-LEE2-Selfemployed Wave 1 SOEP-LEE2-Core & SOEP-LEE2-Selfemployed Wave 2 SAMPLE: Representave sample from German Federal Employment Agency establishment register SAMPLE: Employee first samples based on SOEP-CORE survey 2024 SO E P - LE E 2 - Compa r e W a v e 4 SOEP-LEE2-Core & SOEP-LEE2-Selfemployed Wave 3 Possible future waves 2025 2026 Figure 2: The waves of the SOEP-LEE2 data structure. Source: Figure by authors. Notes: Planned survey periods for SOEP-LEE2-Core are generally in first and second quarters in the year based on SOEP-Core of the previous year, e.g. the first wave of SOEP-LEE2-Core is collected in the first and second quarter 2022 based on a sample from the SOEP-Core in 2021. Survey periods planned for SOEP-LEE2-Self-employed is the third and fourth quarter in a year based on a sample from SOEP-Core of the same year. Survey periods planned for SOEP-LEE2-Compare is for the first two waves of surveying the last quarter in a year and first quarter of following year, e.g. the first wave of SOEP-LEE2-Compare is collected in the last quarter of 2022 and the first quarter of 2023. The two last waves of the SOEP-LEE2-Compare is collected in the last two quarters of a year, e.g. the third wave of the SOEP-LEE2-Compare is collected in third and fourth quarter of 2024. SOEP-LEE2 Data 675 quarters of a year based on a sample from the SOEP-Core of the same year. For the SOEP-LEE2-Compare, the planned periods of collecting data is the last quarter of a year and first quarter of the following, though deviating in case of a possible extension with more waves. For more detail, see the notes to Figure 2. The main objective of the SOEP-LEE2-Compare is to establish a representative sample, which contains information for over 1500 employers in the first wave, who are provided with largely the same questionnaire as the employers in the SOEP-LEE2-Core. The first wave of the SOEP-LEE2-Core on the other hand has obtained employer contact data from employees for 5647 employers, which renders information on 743 employers for a subsample of employees in SOEP-Core after considering partial response and non-response. The sample of the first wave of the SOEP-LEE2-Self-employed contains over 1000 selfemployed persons from SOEP-Core and a (partial) response from 632 self-employed. The SOEP-LEE2 data structure generally facilitates cross-sectional studies using the complete SOEP-LEE2-Core survey, SOEP-LEE2-Self-employed survey, or the SOEP-LEE2-Compare survey. However, SOEP-LEE2-Core may have features of a panel for the subset of observations where employees stay employed with the same employer over several waves and the employer keeps participating in the survey. The SOEP-LEE2-Self-employed have panel properties in the sense of having observations for the same self-employed person in the two waves given a self-employed participates in both waves of the SOEP-Core and responds to the questionnaire of the SOEP-LEE2-Self-employed in both waves. The SOEP-LEE2-Core and the SOEP-LEE2-Self-Employed have two waves planned in 2022 and 2024, respectively, while the SOEP-LEE2-Compare has three waves planned. All have an additional wave in 2025 and 2026 shown as the shaded area of Figure 2 conditional on an extension. The first wave of SOEP-LEE2-Core, SOEP-LEE2-Selfemployed, and SOEP-LEE2-Compare has been implemented and will be published simultaneously with SOEP-Core in 2023. In particular, the multiple waves of the different parts of the SOEP-LEE2 data structure allows for detailed dynamic assessments of the changing establishment practices that are observed in the representative sample of the SOEP-LEE2-Compare as compared to the employer first data of the SOEP-LEE2-Core. As such, the SOEP-LEE2-Compare accommodates needs for a precise assessment of changing patterns and practices among employers in-between the two waves of the SOEP-LEE2-Core. The self-employed survey also makes it possible to compare the practices (such as continuing education and home office use) and reactions to COVID-19 and the energy crisis of self-employed persons with those of establishments in the SOEP2-LEE-Core or SOEP-LEE2-Compare. Having presented the conceptual framework of the SOEP-LEE2 data structure, we now focus on the survey design of the SOEP-LEE2-Core/SOEP-LEE2-Self-employed and SOEP-LEE2-Compare. This includes aspects of the survey design in terms of e.g. questionnaires, comparisons with the earlier collected SOEP-LEE1 data, and other business surveys. 676 W. Matiaske et al. 3 Question Design and Comparability from SOEP-LEE2-Core/SOEP-LEE2-Self-employed and SOEP-LEE2-Compare The SOEP-LEE2 data structure builds one largely unified questionnaire, which is used for both the SOEP-LEE2-Core and the SOEP-LEE2-Compare. The questionnaire of the SOEP-LEE2-Self-employed has themes specifically relevant for self-employed but also large overlaps with the questionnaires of the two other surveys. Specific topics from the self-employed survey are foundation phase, investments, innovation, tasks of self-employed persons, retirement security, and challenges of self-employment. This, on the other hand, leads to a reduction of other themes, while still maintaining a set of common questions across the questionnaires. The questionnaire used in the first wave of the SOEP-LEE2-Core and SOEP-LEE2-Compare (“General Employer Module”in Figure 1) consists of 64 questions to employers providing information about the organization, management, personnel structure, wage structure, digitalisation, as well as adjustments and decisions of establishments in times of crisis. Similarly, the adapted questionnaire used in the first wave of the SOEP-LEE2-Self-employed (“Self-employed Module”in Figure 1) consists of 64 questions, with sizeable overlaps to the questionnaire of the two other surveys (Table 1). Table :SOEP-LEEquestions in wave by theme. Topic Question number(s) Question number(s) SOEP-LEE-Core and SOEP-LEE-Compare SOEP-LEE-Selfemployed Organizational characteristics Type Q– Ownership Q–QQ–Q Business formation –Q–Q Sector Q – Legal form Q Q Financial performance Q Q–Q Turnover Q Q–Q Staffcosts Q–Q Q–Q Other costs –Q Compliance and guidelines Q– Personnel structure SOEP-LEE2 Data 677 Table :(continued) Topic Question number(s) Question number(s) SOEP-LEE-Core and SOEP-LEE-Compare SOEP-LEE-Selfemployed Employment structure Q–Q Q–Q Challenges for HRM Q,Q – Human resource management/HRM Human resource department Q–Q – Tasks of HRM Q–Q Q,Q,Q–Q Decision processes –Q,Q Working time Q – Investment and innovation Expenses –Q–Q Innovation –Q–Q Industrial relations Collective agreements Q–Q – Worker participation Q–Q – Remuneration Wages Q Q Performance criteria Q Q Other benefits Q–Q Q,Q Digitalization Forms of digitalisation Q-Q Q–Q Assessment of digitalisation and cybersecurity Q Q Corona pandemic Effects of COVID- Q Q,Q Personnel development Q – HRM adaptation from COVID- Q–Q,Q,Q Q Remote work Q–Q Q–Q Others Challenges –Q Interview information Q–Q – 678 W. Matiaske et al.