TY - GEN A1 - Albrecht, Sophia A1 - Class, Fabian A1 - Goebel, Jan A1 - Kohler, Ulrich A1 - Krawietz, Marian T1 - Leben in der ehemaligen DDR BT - Dokumentation der Daten des Zusatzfragebogens im Rahmen der Befragung “Leben in Deutschland 2018” / Living in the GDR T2 - SOEP Survey Papers Y1 - 2019 PB - German Institute for Economic Research (DIW Berlin) CY - Berlin ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Kohler, Ulrich T1 - Survey Research Methods during the COVID-19 Crisis JF - Survey research methods KW - COVID-19 KW - Survey Research Methods Y1 - 2020 U6 - https://doi.org/10.18148/srm/2020.v14i2.7769 SN - 1864-3361 VL - 14 IS - 2 SP - 93 EP - 94 PB - European Survey Research Association CY - Konstanz ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Brady, David A1 - Finnigan, Ryan A1 - Kohler, Ulrich A1 - Legewie, Joscha T1 - The inheritance of race revisited BT - childhood wealth and income and black–white disadvantages in adult life chances JF - Sociological Science N2 - Vast racial inequalities continue to prevail across the United States and are closely linked to economic resources. One particularly prominent argument contends that childhood wealth accounts for black–white (BW) disadvantages in life chances. This article analyzes how much childhood wealth and childhood income mediate BW disadvantages in adult life chances with Panel Study of Income Dynamics and Cross-National Equivalent File data on children from the 1980s and 1990s who were 30+ years old in 2015. Compared with previous research, we exploit longer panel data, more comprehensively assess adult life chances with 18 outcomes, and measure income and wealth more rigorously. We find large BW disadvantages in most outcomes. Childhood wealth and income mediate a substantial share of most BW disadvantages, although there are several significant BW disadvantages even after adjusting for childhood wealth and income. The evidence mostly contradicts the prominent claim that childhood wealth is more important than childhood income. Indeed, the analyses mostly show that childhood income explains more of BW disadvantages and has larger standardized coefficients than childhood wealth. We also show how limitations in prior wealth research explain why our conclusions differ. Replication with the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth and a variety of robustness checks support these conclusions. Y1 - 2020 U6 - https://doi.org/10.15195/v7.a25 SN - 2330-6696 VL - 7 IS - 25 SP - 599 EP - 627 PB - Society for Sociological Science ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Post, Julia C. A1 - Class, Fabian A1 - Kohler, Ulrich T1 - Unit nonresponse biases in estimates of SARS-CoV-2 prevalence JF - Survey research methods N2 - Since COVID-19 became a pandemic, many studies are being conducted to get a better understanding of the disease itself and its spread. One crucial indicator is the prevalence of SARS-CoV-2 infections. Since this measure is an important foundation for political decisions, its estimate must be reliable and unbiased. This paper presents reasons for biases in prevalence estimates due to unit nonresponse in typical studies. Since it is difficult to avoid bias in situations with mostly unknown nonresponse mechanisms, we propose the maximum amount of bias as one measure to assess the uncertainty due to nonresponse. An interactive web application is presented that calculates the limits of such a conservative unit nonresponse confidence interval (CUNCI). KW - COVID-19 KW - prevalence KW - probability samples KW - unit nonresponse KW - conservative confidence limits KW - nonresponse bias Y1 - 2020 U6 - https://doi.org/10.18148/srm/2020.v14i2.7755 SN - 1864-3361 VL - 14 IS - 2 SP - 115 EP - 121 PB - European Survey Research Association CY - Duisburg ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Gerhards, Jürgen A1 - Kohler, Ulrich A1 - Sawert, Tim T1 - Educational expansion, social class, and choosing latin as a strategy of distinction T1 - Bildungsexpansion, soziale Klasse und die Wahl von Latein als Strategie der Distinktion JF - Zeitschrift für Soziologie N2 - In times of educational expansion, privileged families are looking for new strategies of distinction. Referring to Pierre Bourdieu’s theory of distinction, we argue that choosing Latin at school – a language that is no longer spoken and therefore has no direct value – is one of the strategies of privileged families to set themselves apart from less privileged families. Based on two surveys we conducted at German schools, the paper analyzes the relationship between parents’ educational background and the probability that their child will learn Latin. Results indicate that historically academic families have the strongest tendency towards learning Latin, followed by new academic families, and leaving behind the non-academic families. We distinguish between four causal mechanisms that might help to explain these associations: cultural distinction, selecting a socially exclusive learning environment, beliefs in a secondary instrumental function of learning Latin, and spatial proximity between the location of humanist Gymnasiums and the residential areas of privileged families. The hypotheses are formalized by means of Directed Acyclic Graphs (DAG). Findings show that the decision to learn Latin is predominately an unintended consequence of the selection of a socially exclusive learning environment. In addition, there is evidence that especially children from historically academic families learn Latin as a strategy of cultural distinction. N2 - In Zeiten der Bildungsexpansion sind sozial privilegierte Familien auf der Suche nach neuen Strategien der Distinktion, um ihre Kinder von denen bildungsferneren Elternhäusern abzugrenzen. Unter Bezugnahme auf Pierre Bourdieus Theorie der Distinktion argumentieren wir, dass die Wahl von Latein in der Schule – einer Sprache, die nicht mehr gesprochen wird und daher keinen direkten Nutzen hat – eine der Strategien privilegierter Familien ist, sich von weniger privilegierten Familien abzugrenzen. Auf der Grundlage von zwei an deutschen Schulen durchgeführten Umfragen analysieren wir den Zusammenhang zwischen dem Bildungshintergrund der Eltern und der Wahrscheinlichkeit, dass ihr Kind Latein lernt. Die Ergebnisse zeigen, dass Kinder aus historisch akademischen Elternhäusern am häufigsten Latein lernen, gefolgt von sogenannten neuen akademischen Familien und – mit großem Abstand – von den nicht-akademischen Familien. Wir unterscheiden vier kausale Mechanismen, die zur Erklärung der gefundenen Zusammenhänge beitragen könnten: Kulturelle Distinktion im engeren Sinne, die Wahl eines sozial exklusiven Lernumfelds, der Glaube an eine sekundäre instrumentelle Funktion des Lateinlernens und die räumliche Nähe zwischen dem Standort humanistischer Gymnasien und dem Wohnort der Familie. Die Hypothesen werden mit Hilfe von gerichteten azyklischen Graphen (DAG) formalisiert. Die Ergebnisse zeigen, dass die Wahl von Latein in erster Linie eine unbeabsichtigte Folge der Wahl eines sozial exklusiven Lernumfelds ist. Darüber hinaus zeigen die Analysen, dass insbesondere historisch akademische Familien die Wahl von Latein als Strategie der kulturellen Distinktion einsetzen. KW - Bourdieu KW - Distinction KW - Social Class KW - Educational Expansion KW - Latin KW - Foreign Language KW - Directed Acyclic Graph (DAG) KW - Distinktion KW - soziale Klasse KW - Bildungsexpansion KW - Latein KW - Fremdsprache Y1 - 2021 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1515/zfsoz-2021-0021 SN - 2366-0325 SN - 0340-1804 VL - 50 IS - 5 SP - 306 EP - 321 PB - de Gruyter CY - Berlin ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Brady, David A1 - Guerra, Christian A1 - Kohler, Ulrich A1 - Link, Bruce T1 - The long arm of prospective childhood income for mature adult health in the U.S. JF - Journal of health and social behavior N2 - Pioneering scholarship links retrospective childhood conditions to mature adult health. We distinctively provide critical evidence with prospective state-of-the-art measures of parent income observed multiple times during childhood in the 1970s to 1990s. Using the Panel Study of Income Dynamics, we analyze six health outcomes (self-rated health, heart attack, stroke, life-threatening chronic conditions, non-life-threatening chronic conditions, and psychological distress) among 40- to 65-year-olds. Parent relative income rank has statistically and substantively significant relationships with five of six outcomes. The relationships with heart attack, stroke, and life-threatening chronic conditions are particularly strong. Parent income rank performs slightly better than alternative prospective and retrospective measures. At the same time, we provide novel validation on which retrospective measures (i.e., father’s education) perform almost as well as prospective measures. Furthermore, we inform several perennial debates about how relative versus absolute income and other measures of socioeconomic status and social class influence health. KW - health disparities KW - income KW - life course KW - social class Y1 - 2022 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1177/00221465221081094 SN - 0022-1465 SN - 2150-6000 VL - 63 IS - 4 SP - 543 EP - 559 PB - Sage CY - Los Angeles ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Khalil, Samir A1 - Kohler, Ulrich A1 - Tjaden, Jasper T1 - Is there a rural penalty in language acquisition? BT - evidence from Germany's refugee allocation policy JF - Frontiers in sociology N2 - Emerging evidence has highlighted the important role of local contexts for integration trajectories of asylum seekers and refugees. Germany's policy of randomly allocating asylum seekers across Germany may advantage some and disadvantage others in terms of opportunities for equal participation in society. This study explores the question whether asylum seekers that have been allocated to rural areas experience disadvantages in terms of language acquisition compared to those allocated to urban areas. We derive testable assumptions using a Directed Acyclic Graph (DAG) which are then tested using large-N survey data (IAB-BAMF-SOEP refugee survey). We find that living in a rural area has no negative total effect on language skills. Further the findings suggest that the "null effect" is the result of two processes which offset each other: while asylum seekers in rural areas have slightly lower access for formal, federally organized language courses, they have more regular exposure to German speakers. KW - refugees KW - allocation policies KW - rural KW - language acquisition KW - intergroup KW - contacts KW - language courses KW - integration Y1 - 2022 U6 - https://doi.org/10.3389/fsoc.2022.841775 SN - 2297-7775 VL - 7 PB - Frontiers Media CY - Lausanne ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Khalil, Samir A1 - Kohler, Ulrich A1 - Tjaden, Jasper Dag T1 - Is There a Rural Penalty in Language Acquisition? Evidence From Germany's Refugee Allocation Policy JF - Frontiers in Sociology N2 - Emerging evidence has highlighted the important role of local contexts for integration trajectories of asylum seekers and refugees. Germany's policy of randomly allocating asylum seekers across Germany may advantage some and disadvantage others in terms of opportunities for equal participation in society. This study explores the question whether asylum seekers that have been allocated to rural areas experience disadvantages in terms of language acquisition compared to those allocated to urban areas. We derive testable assumptions using a Directed Acyclic Graph (DAG) which are then tested using large-N survey data (IAB-BAMF-SOEP refugee survey). We find that living in a rural area has no negative total effect on language skills. Further the findings suggest that the “null effect” is the result of two processes which offset each other: while asylum seekers in rural areas have slightly lower access for formal, federally organized language courses, they have more regular exposure to German speakers. KW - refugees KW - allocation policies KW - rural KW - language acquisition KW - intergroup contacts KW - language courses KW - integration Y1 - 2022 U6 - https://doi.org/10.3389/fsoc.2022.841775 SN - 2297-7775 VL - 7 SP - 1 EP - 11 PB - Frontiers CY - Lausanne, Schweiz ER - TY - GEN A1 - Khalil, Samir A1 - Kohler, Ulrich A1 - Tjaden, Jasper Dag T1 - Is There a Rural Penalty in Language Acquisition? Evidence From Germany's Refugee Allocation Policy T2 - Zweitveröffentlichungen der Universität Potsdam : Wirtschafts- und Sozialwissenschaftliche Reihe N2 - Emerging evidence has highlighted the important role of local contexts for integration trajectories of asylum seekers and refugees. Germany's policy of randomly allocating asylum seekers across Germany may advantage some and disadvantage others in terms of opportunities for equal participation in society. This study explores the question whether asylum seekers that have been allocated to rural areas experience disadvantages in terms of language acquisition compared to those allocated to urban areas. We derive testable assumptions using a Directed Acyclic Graph (DAG) which are then tested using large-N survey data (IAB-BAMF-SOEP refugee survey). We find that living in a rural area has no negative total effect on language skills. Further the findings suggest that the “null effect” is the result of two processes which offset each other: while asylum seekers in rural areas have slightly lower access for formal, federally organized language courses, they have more regular exposure to German speakers. T3 - Zweitveröffentlichungen der Universität Potsdam : Wirtschafts- und Sozialwissenschaftliche Reihe - 151 KW - refugees KW - allocation policies KW - rural KW - language acquisition KW - intergroup contacts KW - language courses KW - integration Y1 - 2022 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:kobv:517-opus4-566264 SN - 1867-5808 SP - 1 EP - 11 PB - Universitätsverlag Potsdam CY - Potsdam ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Kohler, Ulrich A1 - Class, Fabian A1 - Sawert, Tim T1 - Control variable selection in applied quantitative sociology BT - a critical review JF - European sociological review N2 - A review of all research papers published in the European Sociological Review in 2016 and 2017 (N = 118) shows that only a minority of papers clearly define the parameter of interest and provide sufficient reasoning for the selected control variables of the statistical analysis. Thus, the vast majority of papers does not reach minimal standards for the selection of control variables. Consequently, a majority of papers interpret biased coefficients, or statistics without proper sociological meaning. We postulate that authors and reviewers should be more careful about control variable selection. We propose graphical causal models in the form of directed acyclic graphs as an example for a parsimonious and powerful means to that end. Y1 - 2023 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1093/esr/jcac078 SN - 0266-7215 SN - 1468-2672 IS - 20 PB - Oxford Univ. Press CY - Oxford ER - TY - GEN A1 - Brady, David A1 - Kohler, Ulrich A1 - Zheng, Hui T1 - Novel estimates of mortality associated with poverty in the U.S. T2 - The journal of the American Medical Association : JAMA N2 - The US perennially has a far higher poverty rate than peer-rich democracies.1 This high poverty rate in the US presents an enormous challenge to population health given that considerable research demonstrates that being in poverty is bad for one’s health.2 Despite valuable contributions of prior research on income and mortality, the quantity of mortality associated with poverty in the US remains uknown. In this cohort study, we estimated the association between poverty and mortality and quantified the proportion and number of deaths associated with poverty. Y1 - 2023 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1001/jamainternmed.2023.0276 SN - 0254-9077 SN - 1538-3598 PB - American Medical Association CY - Chicago, Ill. ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Kohler, Ulrich A1 - Brady, David A1 - Guerra, Christian A1 - Link, Bruce T1 - The long term relationship between childhood Medicaid expansions and severe chronic conditions in adulthood JF - Social Policy and Administration Y1 - 2023 SN - 1467-9515 VL - 58 IS - 1 SP - 39 EP - 60 ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Kohler, Ulrich A1 - Post, Julia C. T1 - Welcher Zweck heiligt die Mittel? T1 - Which Ends Justify the Means? BT - Bemerkungen zur Repräsentativitätsdebatte in der Umfrageforschung BT - Comments on the Usability of Non-Probability Samples for Opinion Polls JF - Zeitschrift für Soziologie N2 - Im Vergleich zu Umfragen an Wahrscheinlichkeitsstichproben bieten Umfragen an Access-Panels, die auf Nicht-Wahrscheinlichkeitsstichproben basieren, unbestreitbare wirtschaftliche Vorteile. Diese Vorteile gehen jedoch mit unvermeidbaren Qualitätseinbußen einher, die auch dann bestehen bleiben, wenn Erstere sehr niedrige Responseraten haben. Daher müssen die wirtschaftlichen Vorteile und die methodischen Einschränkungen gegeneinander abgewogen werden. Es wird argumentiert, dass diese Abwägung anhand normativer Festlegungen erfolgen muss. Unter Anwendung der hier vorgeschlagenen Maßstäbe kommt der Beitrag zu dem Schluss, dass die Qualitätsansprüche an über Massenmedien verbreitete Meinungsumfragen höher sein sollten als für rein (sozial)wissenschaftliche Zwecke. N2 - Compared with surveying respondents of a probability sample, surveying members of a self-selective custom online panel offers indisputable economic advantages. However, these advantages come with an unavoidable drop in quality. This disadvantage holds true even in comparison to probability sampling surveys with very low response rates. Therefore, it is necessary to balance the economic advantages against the methodological limitations. We argue that this consideration needs to be done according to normative determinations. Using the criteria proposed in this article, we conclude that public opinion research distributed through mass media should have higher quality standards than research with solely scientific purposes. KW - Umfragen KW - Meinungsumfragen KW - Repräsentativität KW - Wahrscheinlichkeitsstichproben KW - Nicht-Wahrscheinlichkeitsstichproben KW - Unit-Nonresponse KW - Selbstselektion KW - Responseraten KW - Online-Access-Panel KW - Surveys KW - Public Opinion Research KW - Polls KW - Representativeness KW - Survey Inference KW - Probability Sampling KW - Non-probability Sampling KW - Unit Nonresponse KW - Self-selection KW - Response Rates KW - Custom Online Panel Y1 - 2023 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1515/zfsoz-2023-2001 SN - 2366-0325 SN - 0340-1804 VL - 52 IS - 1 SP - 67 EP - 88 PB - de Gruyter CY - Oldenburg ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Kohler, Ulrich A1 - Post, Julia C. T1 - Pulp Science? BT - zur Berichterstattung über Meinungsforschung in den Massenmedien JF - Gesellschaft, Wirtschaft, Politik : GWP : Sozialwissenschaften für politische Bildung Y1 - 2023 U6 - https://doi.org/10.3224/gwp.v72i4.09 SN - 2196-1654 SN - 1619-6910 VL - 72 IS - 4 SP - 475 EP - 483 PB - Budrich CY - Leverkusen ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Kohler, Ulrich A1 - Brady, David A1 - Guerra, Christian A1 - Link, Bruce T1 - The long term relationship between Medicaid expansion and adult life-threatening chronic conditions JF - Social policy and administration N2 - We test whether the expansions of children's Medicaid eligibility in the 1980s–1990s resulted in long-term health benefits in terms of severe chronic conditions. Still relatively rare in the field, we use prospective individual-level panel data from the Panel Study of Income Dynamics (PSID) along with the higher quality income measures from the Cross-National Equivalent File (adjusting for taxes, transfers and household size). We observe severe chronic conditions (high blood pressure/heart disease, cancer, diabetes, or lung disease) at ages 30–56 (average age 43.1) for 4670 respondents who were also prospectively observed during childhood (i.e., at ages 0–17). Our analysis exploits within-region temporal variation in childhood Medicaid eligibility and adjusts for state- and individual-level controls. We uniquely concentrate attention on adjusting for childhood income. A standard deviation greater childhood Medicaid eligibility significantly reduces the probability of severe chronic conditions in adulthood by 0.05 to 0.12 (16%–37.5% reduction from mean 0.32). Across the range of observed childhood Medicaid eligibility, the probability is approximately cut in half. Greater childhood Medicaid eligibility also substantially reduces childhood income disparities in severe chronic conditions. At higher levels of childhood Medicaid eligibility, we find no significant childhood income disparities in adult severe chronic conditions. Y1 - 2023 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1111/spol.12942 SN - 0144-5596 SN - 1467-9515 VL - 58 IS - 1 SP - 39 EP - 60 PB - Wiley-Blackwell CY - Oxford ER - TY - CHAP A1 - Kohler, Ulrich ED - Michalos, Alex C. T1 - European Quality of Life Survey T2 - Encyclopedia of Quality of Life and Well-Being Research Y1 - 2014 SN - 978-94-007-0752-8 SN - 978-94-007-0753-5 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-0753-5_939 SP - 2014 EP - 2017 PB - Springer CY - Dordrecht ER - TY - CHAP A1 - Kohler, Ulrich ED - Diaz-Bone, Rainer ED - Weischer, Christoph T1 - Heteroskedastizität T2 - Methoden-Lexikon für die Sozialwissenschaften Y1 - 2015 SN - 978-3-531-16629-2 SN - 978-3-531-18889-8 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-531-18889-8_8 SP - 177 EP - 177 PB - Springer Fachmedien CY - Wiesbaden ER -