Demographic Change and the Distribution of Well-being - A Socio-economic Analysis for Germany

• Applicant: Privatdozent Dr. Jürgen Faik
• Subject Area: Empirical Social Research
• Term: from 2014 to 2015
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 270437989

Admidst the backdrop of demographic change, the book deals with the relationships between the variables socio-demography and well-being inequality (for Germany). In this context, the proxy variable age is most important - following the guiding question concerning generational justice. On this basis and on a societal level, for Germany, the relationship between the several age groups, i. e. between the age-differentiated generations in the sense of birth cohorts is illuminated with respect to well-being inequality - pointedly: between the "old" and the "young".Beyond the analysis of direct well-being effects caused by the demographic change, indirect demographic effects are considered in the context of the process of ageing in Germany, i. e. effects which are not only determined by ceteris-paribus changes but via the interaction with societal and economic variables. Since possible societal conflicts - caused by age-related distributional differences - are most important on a cross-sectional level, the analysis of cross-sectional well-being/income inequality is of considerable socio-political interest. Furthermore, in the book, the relationships between the (cross-sectional) distribution of a period's incomes and (longitudinal) life-income distribution are examined - especially in the intergenerational context. Thus, one of the book's aims is the elaboration of intergenerational well-being differences and their determinants as well as, on this basis, projections concerning socio-demographic distributional effects for Germany in a relatively comprehensive perspective.The book is linked to an international debate of scientists, which was opened by Paglin and Kuznets already in the mid-1970s. In this debate, it is discussed about the impacts of demographic variables on the measured income inequality of a certain period. According to this debate, household size and household income correlate positively with each other, and household incomes are structured inversely u-shaped, i. e. concavely, with respect to age (of the household head). Considering these two aspects together, the distribution of household incomes depends on the distribution of household size and on the age-related distribution (in the sense of household head's age).The book¿s main finding is dominance of the within-group inequality compared with between-group inequality. The indirect demographic effects appear more important than the direct demographic effects.

• DFG Programme: Publication Grants