Project Details
Projekt
Coordination Funds
Applicant
Professor Dr. Ralf Münnich
Subject Area
Empirical Social Research
Term
since 2018
Project identifier
Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 316511172
The researcher group is addressing a nationwide, multi-sectoral microsimulation model at the level of households and individuals. Its purpose is to simulate 82 million German citizens living in about 40 million households including their regional membership and to make this information available for the purpose of microsimulation. Modern approaches in microsimulation bear the potential to enable researchers to examine and model the impact of political and economic measures as well as to analyze social developments and their effects. For this purpose, base data are generated using the simulation population of the 2011 German Census. During the project this database will be regularly updated and extended during the project by further variables in collaboration with the Federal Statistical Office. In order to do so, huge datasets such as the microcensus, SOEP, SHARE, PASS, Pairfam, as well as additional datasets suitable for this purpose will be used. With the aid of this statistically enriched dataset, socio-demographic changes of the underlying population are simulated by estimating transition probabilities on the basis of empirical data and finally those effects are implemented in the simulated data. This approach leads to the development of forecasting models for empirically-based, long-term planning. The simulation model is designed to cover a wide range of substantial areas (sectors).In the first phase the main objectives of the researcher group consist in creating the base data, the simulation-infrastructure, the integration of further micro-databases into the base data at the level of individuals as well as to model the transition probabilities. Concerning the relevant applications, the focus will be on family, care and migration research as these areas are heavily affected by socio-political measures and get only little attention in current simulations. It is the goal of this research proposal to analyze the consequences of such socio-political measures using simulation models.Phase two will emphasize a focus on extensions to the topics of health, traffic and work. Towards the end of the project, the dataset, simulation environment, and estimation methods will be made available to other research groups. The long-term goal is to create a simulation infrastructure in which researchers from various fields can apply their own scenarios by using the data and models provided by the researcher group. This microsimulation infrastructure being internationally unique with regard to its magnitude and its granularity will provide an opportunity for the research community to analyze socio-politically relevant research questions at a scientifically sophisticated high level.
DFG Programme
Research Units
Major Instrumentation
Simulationsrechner
