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The Surge in Living Alone among Young and Middle-Aged Adults
	A Decomposition Analysis of the Rise in One-Person Households 
	in Germany, 1991 to 2021


April 2025
	

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* DATA	
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The results presented in this paper are based on analyses using data from the German
Microcensus, more precisely of the GESIS Microcensus-Trendfile. The GESIS Microcensus-
Trendfile is a harmonized and cumulated data set of German Microcensus from 1962 to 
2016. GESIS does not provide direct access to the Microcensus-Trendfile but instead
provides routines (in SPSS) to enable researchers to create their own Microcensus-
Trendfile tailored to their own needs. For the present paper, I used the provided SPSS 
routines to harmonize and cumulate the German Microcensus SUFs from 1991 to 2016. 
The years 1992 and 1994 are not considered in the SPSS routines and are therefore not 
part of our analysis.

As the harmonisation of the Microcensus Trendfile currently ends in 2016, we additionally 
harmonised data from 2017 to 2021. All variables used for the entire harmonization are
listed below. The code used for harmonizing the GESIS Microcensus-Trendfile prepared 
in advance and the Microcensus SUF data from 2017 to 2021 is presented in the shared
Stata Do.File DataPreparation_GermanMicrocensus_OPH_91_21.do.

Researchers interested in replicating the present analysis can find more information on 
creating a Microcensus-Trendfile here: 
https://www.gesis.org/en/gml/microcensus/microcensus-trendfile

Please note that you must first apply for access to the German Microcensus data 
at the Research Data Centre of the Statistical Offices of the Federal States:
https://www.forschungsdatenzentrum.de/en

Aggregated information on one-person households, that was used for the algebraic 
decomposition is provided in the shared CSV file OPH_Germany_1991_2021.csv.


* Variables
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The following variables of the German Microcensus are used for the present
analysis. For a detailed descriptions of the variables, please visit: 
https://www.gesis.org/missy/metadata/MZ/

- Date of birth, year
	
	- Microcensus 2017, 2018, 2019: EF47
	- Microcensus 2020, 2021: AB0302P
	- Microcensus Trendfile 1991-2016: gebj

- Household type
	
	- Microcensus 2017, 2018, 2019: EF721
	- Microcensus 2020, 2021: TH0202H
	- Microcensus Trendfile 1991-2016: hhtyp

- Residence type

	- Microcensus 2017, 2018, 2019: EF30
	- Microcensus 2020, 2021: TPBevlkrg
	- Microcensus Trendfile 1991-2016: bhws

- Sex
	
	- Microcensus 2017, 2018, 2019: EF46
	- Microcensus 2020, 2021: TPGeschlecht
	- Microcensus Trendfile 1991-2016: gesch

- East
	
	- Microcensus 2017, 2018, 2019: EF1
	- Microcensus 2020, 2021: LAND
	- Microcensus Trendfile 1991-2016: wost


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