Merging individual data with their parental income

FDZ SOEP
, , , ,
1

Hi everyone!
I am currently working on my master’s thesis and have the following question:

For my research design, I need panel data on individuals, along with information about their parental income. For example, I would need to have the individual questionnaire of Person XY, know who their parents are, look them up, find their income, and merge this data.

Does anyone know if something like this is feasible?

I’d really appreciate any insights or suggestions!

2

Hi leasfunk,
Currently I’m trying to get the answer / find a colleague who can answer this and will let you know soon.

3

Hi Philipp,

thanks so much for your help!

4

Hi leasfunk,

The answer might take until next week, as the colleague I asked currently has a few days off and will be back on the coming Monday. I hope the waiting time is okay for you.

Best regards
Philipp

5

Hi Philipp,

yes, that’s totally fine, thank you so much!

Best,
Lea

6

Hi Lea,

I am not the expert that Philipp mentioned, but maybe a good way to start would be to look at the dataset bioparen.dta.

In there you’ll find the PID of mothers and fathers which you can use to merge data of the parents if they are part of the SOEP. Also, you can find some biography information about the parents.

A bit outdated, but general information about the dataset can be found here: https://www.diw.de/documents/publikationen/73/diw_01.c.806799.de/diw_ssp0886.pdf.

Best wishes,
Mattis

1 Like
7

Hi Mattis,

thank you very much for your reply!

I looked into the bioparen dataset and yes, it should be indeed possible to merge the data!

My supervisor and I now ordered the SOEP data - hoping that after the merging the sample size is still big enough to run an RDD. So fingers crossed!

Best,
Lea