Go west : internal migration in Germany after reunification

Who stays, who goes, who returns? East--West migration within Germany since reunification

We study the determinants of East–West migration within Germany during the period 1990–2006, using administrative data, the German Microcensus and the German Socio-Economic Panel. We find that in addition to income prospects and employment status, two well-known determinants of migration, psychological and social factors play an important role in determining the migration decision. Men and wome...

Timing of First Births in East Germany after Reunification

Timing of First Births in East Germany after Reunification

When German reunification was accompanied by a rapid decline in aggregate fertility rates, researchers particularly assigned high unemployment rates a dominant role for changes in fertility behavior. The aim of this paper is twofold. First, we investigate changes in the timing of first birth in East Germany after reunification. Using data from the GSOEP, we show that even after reunification Ea...

Old-Age Mortality in Germany prior to and after Reunification

Recent trends in German life expectancy show a considerable increase. Most of this increase has resulted from decreasing mortality at older ages. Patterns of oldest old mortality (ages 80+) differed significantly between men and women as well as between East and West Germany. While West German oldest old mortality decreased since the mid 1970s, comparable decreases in East Germany did not becom...

Weight gain in two adult cohorts in East and West Germany reunification.

BACKGROUND Several epidemiological studies have shown consistently higher prevalence rates of obesity and overweight in East German adults compared to West German adults before German reunification in 1990. If different lifestyle factors after German division contribute to these differences, one might speculate that trends of obesity and overweight in the East and West after German reunificatio...