Dependent Variable

The dependent variable is an event variable indicating either the birth of the first child or the dis- solution of the partnership within the next year.114 _{As the birth biography of many men is incom-}

plete in the SOEP, the first childbirth of the female partner is considered to be the first child for the current partnership.115 _{In order to avoid reverse causality, the time of birth was backdated by nine}

months to approximate the time of the decision for the child. A couple is considered as separated either if one partner moves out of the joint household or at least one partner reports a separation and/or reports being single, even though the former partners might still live in a joint household.

5.3.2.2 Key Independent Variables

The key independent variables are different objective and subjective measures of employment in- security, representing two different dimensions, namely economic insecurity and temporal insecu- rity (see Section 5.2.1).

Objective Measures of Employment Insecurity

Figure 5.1 shows the operationalisation of the objective indicators of employment insecurity, namely different forms of non-standard employment and unemployment. The reference category is the standard employment relationship, defined as full-time work (designating economic security), and a permanent contract (designating temporal security). 116 _{The usual definition of standard em-}

ployment, as from the Federal Statistical Office (StBA 2015d), also requires a direct relationship between employer and employee, i.e. excludes temporary agency work. As the question about temporary agency employment was only asked in the SOEP from 2001 onwards, this information is not available for the whole period of observation considered in this chapter and therefore had to be left out. In addition, minijobs could not be analysed as a separate category as the question on

114 _{Adoptions are not considered as they usually constitute lengthy processes in which the time of the decision for the} adoption of the child cannot be reconstructed.

115 _{If there are no children in the household and no information on fatherhood is known from the biography, it is assumed} that also the male partner is childless. For 2% of the observations, however, there are children in the household that can only be attributed to the male partner. Therefore, earlier fatherhood is controlled for in the multivariate analyses. 116 _{In the case that a worker has several jobs, the classification of the form of employment refers to the main job.}

122 marginal work/minijobs was also introduced only in 2001. They are combined with the other part- time workers for the analysis in this chapter.117

Figure 5.1: Operationalisation of non-standard employment and unemployment

Note: Characteristics departing from the standard employment relationship are in bold letters.

Fixed-term positions and part-time work differ from the standard employment relationship partic- ularly in their higher degree of temporal or economic insecurity (see Section 5.2.1). In order to investigate whether an accumulation of temporal and economic insecurity has an additional effect, the characteristic of the permanency of the contract and the working hours were combined to fixed-term full-time, fixed-term part-time and permanent part-time work. In this context, part-time work is defined as less than 35 weekly working hours. Fixed-term full-time workersare therefore employees with 35 or more usual working hours and with a fixed-term contract, while fixed-term part-time workers are those fixed-term workers with less than 35 usual working hours. Conse- quently, permanent-part-time workers are those with a permanent contract and working less than 35 hours per week.118 _{Furthermore, a separate category for self-employed persons (and unpaid}

family workers) was created.

Unemployment is another important indicator of employment insecurity in this study. In this chapter, the central criterion for identifying the unemployed is whether a respondent is registered as unemployed with the Federal Employment Office. Peoplein school, at university, in an appren- ticeship or in a traineeship are assigned to the category “in education”. In contrast, respondents

117 _{However, the effects of temporary agency work and minijobs on first childbirth are analysed in Chapter 6 of the thesis,} which is only based on the more recent SOEP waves from 2001 onwards. Offical statistics furthermore suggest that the prevalence of agency work was much lower before that period: In 1998, there were approximately 220,000 agency work- ers (Wingerter 2009), compared to 563,000 in 2006 and 666,000 in 2015 (StBA 2016a).

118 _{There were a number of dependent employees with insufficient information to assign them to one of the employment} categories. Therefore, a category “employee but missing details” was added.

Standard employment • Full-time (usual working hours>=35)

• Permanent contract

Fixed-term full-time • Full-time (usual working hours>=35) • Fixed-term contract

Fixed-term part-time • Part-time (usual working hours<35) • Fixed-term contract

Permanent part-time • Part-time (usual working hours<35) • permanent contract

Unemployment • Registered unemployed • Can have side job

123 are classified as inactive if they are not employed, not in education and not registered as unem- ployed. They might, for example, be in early retirement or homemakers. Due to the low number of inactive respondents in East Germany, the categories “unemployed” and “inactive” have to be com- bined for the separate analysis of East Germany.

Besides individual forms of employment, the effect of different employment constellations between the partners is analysed. Due to the large number of possible combinations between the forms of employment and the limited case numbers, several employment situations have to be combined according to certain characteristics. In order to reflect the two forms of employment insecurity, i.e. temporal and economic insecurity, the employment situations are categorised

a) according to working hours, reflecting economic insecurity in the form of part-time work b) according to the permanency of the contract, reflecting temporal insecurity in the form of

fixed-term contracts.

a) Working hours constellations

To create the working hours constellations, four possible employment situations of the female part- ner are combined with the same employment situations of the male partner: “full-time employ- ment”, “part-time employment”, “educational participation” and “unemployment/inactivity”. Self- employed respondents are assigned to the full-time or part-time category, depending on their usual working hours. Unemployment and inactivity are combined to secure a sufficient cell size. Moreo- ver, constellations in which neither partner is employed, i.e. both partners are unemployed/inac- tive or one partner is unemployed/inactive and the other is in education, are combined to “other constellations” due to the rareness of these constellations. Yet there is a sufficient number of cou- ples in which both partners are in education to conduct separate analyses for this category. The constellation in which both partners are employed full-time is the reference category in the analy- sis.

b) Permanency constellations

For the construction of the permanency constellations, again four different categories for each partner are combined: “Permanent employment”, “fixed-term employment”, “otherwise active” and “unemployed/inactive”. The category “otherwise active” comprises the self-employed and per- sons in education. Combining these two situations might not result in a particularly meaningful category; however, due to the limited sample size the number of possible constellations must be kept low, and these employment situations are not the focus of the current study. Couples in which neither partner is in dependent employment, i.e. both are otherwise active or unemployed/inactive

124 are assigned to the category “other constellations”. The constellation in which both partners are employed on permanent contracts is the reference category in the analysis.

Subjective Indicators of Employment Insecurity

The two different forms of employment insecurity are also represented by two subjective measures: Concern about job security represents temporal insecurity, while concern about the eco- nomic situation symbolises economic insecurity. The structure and answer scales of the two ques- tions are identical:

How concerned are you about the following issues? - Your own economic situation

- Your job security

Answers: (1) Very concerned, (2) Somewhat concerned, (3) Not at all concerned Source: DIW Berlin/SOEP (2013).

The models each include dummy variables for “very concerned” and “somewhat concerned”, with “not at all concerned” as the reference category.119 _{While concern about job security is obviously}

employment-related, it might be questioned to what extent concern about one’s economic situa- tion actually measures employment-related insecurity. An individual’s economic situation is also determined by other factors than labour income, such as assets, state benefits or the labour income of others in the household (particularly the partner). Nevertheless, for most people labour income is a strong determinant of one’s economic circumstances, which is reflected in the high poverty rate of unemployed persons (see Chapter 2). Moreover, this question is the closest available to a meas- ure of employment-induced economic insecurity in the SOEP.120