Lifetime Earnings Inequality in Germany

Timm Bönke, Giacomo Corneo and Holger Lüthen

Journal of Labor Economics, 2015, vol. 33, issue 1, 171 - 208

Abstract: We employ German social security records to investigate intragenerational lifetime earnings inequality and mobility of yearly earnings for 35 cohorts, starting with the birth year 1935. Our main result is a striking secular rise of intragenerational inequality in lifetime earnings: West German men born in the early 1960s are likely to experience about 85% more lifetime inequality than their fathers. In contrast, both short-term and long-term intragenerational mobility are stable. Longer unemployment spells of workers at the bottom of the distribution of younger cohorts contribute to explaining 20%-40% of the overall increase in lifetime earnings inequality.

Date: 2015
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Related works:
Working Paper: Lifetime earnings inequality in Germany (2012)
Working Paper: Lifetime Earnings Inequality in Germany (2012)
Working Paper: Lifetime Earnings Inequality in Germany (2011)
Working Paper: Lifetime Earnings Inequality in Germany (2011)
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