Hilke Brockmann

• Doctor of Philosophy
• Professor (Associate) at Constructor University

First-generation immigrants are surprisingly satisfied with their life compared to the local population in Germany. Is this because newcomers are particularly resourceful? We test if personality selectivity, purposive adaptation, and social resilience separately or in tandem explain why subjective well-being remains high even in times of objective...

While depression rates are at a historic high worldwide (WHO 2017), the World Happiness Report 2019 determines rising negative affect levels and stagnant or even declining life satisfaction in most world regions since 2014 (Helliwell et al. 2019). Thus, research on depression and ▶happiness remains in great demand. Both topics are obviously related...

The emergence of a new tech elite in Silicon Valley and beyond raises questions about the economic reach, political influence, and social importance of this group. How do these inordinately influential people think about the world and about our common future? In this paper, we test a) whether members of the tech elite share a common, meritocratic v...

Young adults in the transition from education to employment are vulnerable to employment insecurity. We explore trajectories of employment insecurity over six years after leaving education, and investigate their associations with sociodemographic predictors, self-reported health and life satisfaction. Based on a sample of 2752 education leavers fro...

Women with managerial careers are significantly less satisfied with their life than their male counterparts. Why? In a representative German panel dataset (GSOEP) we find biological constraints and substitutive mechanisms determining the subjective well-being of female managers. Women’s terminated fertility has a negative impact on women’s life sat...

In line with the theory of supplier-induced demand, an increased physician density often goes along with a higher utilization of medical services, including dental services. This study aimed to assess whether dentist density and self-employment are related to dental care use, and whether these relationships are moderated by patients' educational at...

Can governments increase tax compliance by rewarding honest taxpayers? We conducted a controlled laboratory experiment comparing tax compliance under a “deterrence” baseline with tax compliance under two “reward” treatments: a “donation” treatment giving taxpayers a say in the spending purposes of their payments and a “lucky” treatment giving taxpa...

Families produce health, but changes in familial structures are made responsible for many negative health trends in the population. How does the health of younger children today in Germany develop when comparing whether the parents live together or separately? Using data from the German Socio-Economic Panel Study (SOEP), we are able to show that ch...

Families produce health, but changes in familial structures are made responsible for many negative health trends in the population. How does the health of younger children today in Germany develop when comparing whether the parents live together or separately? Using data from the German Socio-Economic Panel Study (SOEP), we are able to show that ch...

Does consumption make people happy? The standard answer from economics is: Yes! By assumption, consumers consume because that increases their utility. However, empirical studies of US consumer behavior reveal striking trends in conspicuous and harmful consumption. New findings in happiness research explain when consumption makes people unhappy and...

If you ask a chef, a physician, or a teacher the question: “Is more always better,” they will probably answer: “No”. Of course, it depends on the dish you are cooking, the illness you are curing, and the subject you are teaching. But these professionals know when additional ingredients spoil the dish, additional treatment harms the patient, and add...

This book tests the critical potential of happiness research to evaluate contemporary high-performance societies. These societies, defined as affluent capitalist societies, emphasize competition and success both institutionally and culturally. Growing affluence improves life in many ways, for a large number of people. We lead longer, safer, and mor...

Families produce health, but changing family structures are also held responsible for negative health outcomes in today’s societies. In this paper we analyse how the health of young children in Germany may change when parents separate. Data from the GSOEP show that children living in cohabiting families are not generally more healthy than children...

Introduction: Happiness research is mushrooming. National rankings of the happiest populations and insights into which factors boost happiness are in demand as much from a growing international scientific community as from policy makers and the general public. This is probably no accident in post-modern times. The concept is down-to-earth, innocent...

Does happiness vary with age? The evidence is inconclusive. Some studies show happiness to increase with age (Diener et al. 1999; Argyle 2001). Others hold that the association is U-shaped with either highest depression rates (Mroczek and Christian 1998; Blanchflower and Oswald 2008) or highest happiness levels occurring during middle age (Easterli...

Over the 1990–2000 decade happiness in China plummeted despite massive improvement in material living standards. This finding contradicts the notion that income growth at low living standards leads to gains, not losses, in happiness. We explain this puzzle by drawing on a specific version of relative deprivation theory, the concept of “frustrated a...

In a long-term prospective cohort study we try to assess selective and protective impacts of early retirement on life expectancy. The results are based on the members of a compulsory German health insurance fund (Gmünder Ersatzkasse). We analyzed 88,399 men and 41,276 women who retired between the ages of 50 and 65 from January 1990 to December 200...

Does happiness vary with age? The evidence is inconclusive. Some studies show happiness to increase with age (Diener et al. 1999; Argyle 2001). Others hold that the association is U-shaped with either highest depression rates (Mroczek and Christian 1998; Blanchflower and Oswald 2008) or highest happiness levels occurring during middle age (Easterli...

A.B. Atkinson: The Changing Distribution of Earnings in OECD Countries. Oxford and New York, 2008: Oxford University Press, 432 pp.

The present prospective longitudinal study describes and explores the impact of demographic change and political reforms on the growing risk of suffering from mental disorders and subsequent hospitalization. The statistical analysis is based on all insured individuals who were 50 years and older during the years 1993 to 2003 (n = 453 609) from a st...

Die vorliegende prospektive Längsschnittstudie beschreibt und erkundet den Einfluss der demografischen Entwicklung und politischer Reformen auf das zunehmende Risiko, mit einer psychischen Störung in ein Krankenhaus eingewiesen zu werden. Die statistische Analyse basiert auf individuellen Leistungsdaten aller 50-jährigen und älteren Versicherten de...

Forecasts are always wrong. Still, they paint potential future scenarios and provide a platform for policy decisions today. This is what gives forecast such a high salience in political debates about the effects of population aging. The paper aims at gauging the effect of population aging on hospital expenses in Germany. We use a probabilistic fore...

In this article, we analyze how the marital biography is affecting mortality in Germany today (N = 12,484). We find support for temporal selection into marriage for both genders, but the effect is stronger for men. In addition, protection through marriage results from long-term accumulation of survival advantages and from the attenuation of higher...

Schon 1830 entdeckte Benoisten de Chateauneuf, dass verheiratete Menschen signifikant länger leben als nicht verheiratete. Seit dem ist der Befund in zahlreichen Studien und Ländern immer wieder bestätigt worden (Cheung 2000; Hemström 1996; Lillard & Waite 1995; Klein 1993; Hu & Goldman 1990). Zwei Prozesse werden für diesen robusten Befund verantw...

Since more than 200 years, it has been well known that a marriage prolongs one's life. Current research distinguishes between protective and selective processes. However, it has been missed that today's marital biographies are not characterized by one marital status but through a sequence of different events and transitions. It is the aim of the pr...

Since more than 200 years, it has been well known that a marriage prolongs one’s life. Current research distinguishes between protective and selective processes. However, it has been missed that today’s marital biographies are not characterized by one marital status but through a sequence of different events and transitions. It is the aim of the pr...

The consequences of population ageing for the public health care system and health care costs may be less severe than is commonly assumed. Hospital discharge data from Germany's largest health insurer (AOK) show that the cost of caring for patients during their last year of life makes up a large part of total health expenditures. And this last year...

Most studies dealing with the impact of marriage on mortality treat being married as a once-and-for-all status. However, multiple life changes in marital status characterize the modern life course. The purpose of this paper is to analyze how the timing of these changes affect mortality in Germany. Longitudinal data show that the positive effects of...

Parental preferences for the sex of children are a prominent subject of study in some Asian and African countries, where sex‐selective behaviour has led to skewed sex‐ratios, In Europe and North‐America, by contrast, cross‐sectional data does not reveal any clear pattern of sex preferences. However, this does not mean th...

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, com...

The consequences of population ageing for the health care system and health care costs may be less severe than is commonly assumed. Hospital discharge data from Germany’s largest health insurer (AOK) show that the care of patients during their last year of life is less costly if they die at an advanced age. As a multivariate analysis reveals, oldes...

Parental preferences for the sex of children are a prominent subject of study in some Asian and African countries where sex-selective behavior has led to skewed sex-ratios. In Europe or North-America, by contrast, cross-sectional data does not reveal any clear pattern of sex-preferences. However, this does not mean that people are indifferent to th...

Anhand der aktuellen Forschungsresultate läßt sich die Frage nach der Lebensorganisation älterer Menschen nicht einfach beantworten. Alle Autoren thematisieren das Altern oder soziale Ungleichheit in komplexen Mehrebenenmodellen, prüfen ihren Gegenstand aber nur auf einer Ebene. Quantitative Analysen beziehen sich auf makrosoziale Phänomene. Ihre M...

"Das Rationierungsthema im Gesundheitswesen ist ebenso alt wie die Erkenntnis, dass fortgeschrittene Gesellschaften wie Deutschland mit starkem Tempo altern. An Aktualität und politischer Brisanz gewinnen die Themen, wenn Sie miteinander verquickt werden. Als im vergangenen Sommer zwei prominente Wissenschaftler im deutschen Fernsehen eine Rationie...

Nach der modernen Privatisierung und soziologischen Entzauberung des familiären Zusammenlebens entdecken Wissenschaftler und Politiker nun wieder die Familie als den besten Ort, um Kinder zu zeugen und großzuziehen sowie als die beste Form der Gesundheits- und Altenpflege. Auch der deutsche Wohlfahrtsstaat, der aus Kostengründen sein sozialpolitisc...