Theses

You can write your master's or bachelor's thesis in the following topics. The thesis can be written in German or English.

Labor supply decisions and gender differences in the labor market
Labor supply decisions are shaped not only by wages and financial incentives but also, e.g., by beliefs, job characteristics, and social norms. Parents, in particular, often face trade-offs between paid work and childcare responsibilities, which can contribute to persistent differences in labor market outcomes between men and women.

The thesis will be an empirical study based on household panel data such as the LISS or SOEP. Experience with Python or R is highly recommended.

Possible topics could be about:

• How gender role attitudes and social norms relate to fertility decisions.
• The role of ambiguity attitudes in labor supply decisions.
• The relation of fathers' parental leave and their later career outcomes.

Please contact Dr Pugnaghi Zimpelmann with a concrete idea within this topic area. For particularly motivated students, it may also be possible to work on a topic closely related to one of his current research projects. If you are interested in this option, please contact Dr Pugnaghi Zimpelmann.

Contact person: Dr Christian Pugnaghi Zimpelmann

Altruism in the Workplace
For individuals with altruistic preferences, helping others and caring about their well-being is essential. We aim to understand the professions in which altruistic people typically work and which companies would benefit from hiring them. The following suggested topics will help us explore the role of altruism in the workplace.

What types of jobs do altruistic individuals tend to pursue? Here, you can analyse which industries and positions have a notably high or low presence of altruistic individuals.

Do employers gain advantages from hiring employees with altruistic preferences? You can look into the differences across various industries and positions within companies.

Contact person: Jan Berendsen

Long-term care
As people age, policy makers and researchers are becoming more concerned with the issues of long-term care services for the elderly. Possible thesis topics in this field use the German Socio-Economic Panel:

Possible topics are:

• The effect of ambulatory care on labor market participation of caregivers.

Contact person: Andrew Judy

• The effect of socio-demographic characteristics on satisfaction with the availability of care.

Contact person: Isadora Mathevet

Non-monetary incentives and the future of work
Not only the salary plays a role for the employee on the labor market, but also other, non-monetary incentives, such as flexibility at the workplace or the meaningfulness of the work. In the following topic you can examine the role of non-monetary incentives in the labor or marriage market.

Possible topics are:

• Occupational Sorting in Marriage Market. Who marries whom? Empirical Analysis of spouses by occupational groups. (Recommended course: Empirical Evaluation of Market Outcomes)
• Job loss and non-monetary working conditions: Do employees accept poorer working conditions following plant closures?

Contact person: Andrew Judy

Health and the family
At the frontier between health economics and family economics, we seek to understand the mechanisms within the household that influence the health of its members. Indeed, highlighting the link between the family and health-related behaviours, decisions and investments is essential to generate evidence to guide public policies aimed at improving health and reducing health inequalities.

Possible topics are:

• Health investments in a family context and the influence of spouses on each other's health.
• The link between marriage markets and health decisions: do individuals choose healthier spouses and what are the implications for their subsequent health investments?

Contact person: Isadora Mathevet

Technology adoption and the role of labor in long-term care
Long-term care relies heavily on labor, with nurses and care workers playing a central role in the provision and quality of care. At the same time, technological innovations are increasingly discussed as potential responses to major challenges in long-term care, including workforce shortages, rising care needs, and increasing pressure on care providers.

 This topic focuses on the interaction between labor and technology in the supply of long-term care. Relevant questions include the role of nurses and care workers in LTC supply, how staffing inputs shape the quantity and quality of care, and whether new technologies complement or substitute labor in long-term care facilities. Understanding the determinants and consequences of technology adoption is important for evaluating how LTC providers respond to demographic change, labor shortages, and policy incentives.

Contact person: Marzia Pantellini

Household decisions and the role of professional flexibility
The latest research suggests that women face large and persistent income losses after having children, lower labor force participation, reduced labor supply and a higher tendency to have flexible jobs. These empirical findings are, among other things, the result of decision-making processes at the household level. It is therefore becoming increasingly important for political decision-makers to understand the role of the budget in order to be able to change existing structures.

With the help of the data from the German Socio-Economic Panel (SOEP), students have two options:

Topic 1: Cross-sectional analysis

• What do household members use their time for, does this depend on work flexibility, and what is the impact of children on time use?

Topic 2: Panel Analysis

• How does the change in the flexibility of one spouse affect the other spouse's time allocation and ability to participate?
• How does work flexibility, labor market participation and time management within the household change around the birth of the first child?

Contact person: Alexander Wintzéus