TABLE 1—

Descriptive Statistics at Baseline Stratified by Current Labor Force Status and Study Country: German Socio-Economic Panel and US Panel Study of Income Dynamics, 1984–2005

	Germany (n = 10 754)			United States (n = 9523)
Characteristic	Working (72.1%)	Unemployed (5.3%)	Not Working (22.5%)	Working (70.3%)	Unemployed (8.5%)	Not Working (21.4%)
Mean age, y	37.3	38.1	44.2	34.1	29.9	40.0
Male	0.56	0.43	0.20	0.52	0.46	0.19
East German	0.30	0.41	0.19
Immigrant	0.06	0.18	0.09
Race/ethnicity
White				0.61	0.32	0.53
Black				0.34	0.64	0.41
Other				0.05	0.04	0.06
Marital status
Married	0.70	0.64	0.77	0.59	0.32	0.64
Single	0.22	0.22	0.12	0.28	0.48	0.18
Divorced or separated	0.07	0.13	0.05	0.02	0.02	0.06
Widowed	0.01	0.02	0.06	0.08	0.10	0.07
Household size, mean no.	2.87	2.75	2.91	2.73	2.66	3.18
Children, mean no.	0.73	0.71	0.75	0.83	0.98	1.12
Skill level
Minimum	0.10	0.19	0.28	0.16	0.36	0.39
Medium	0.67	0.67	0.59	0.60	0.57	0.51
High	0.22	0.13	0.12	0.24	0.07	0.10
Occupationa
None	0.05	1.00	1.00	0.02	1.00	1.00
Professional and technical	0.16			0.19
Business or sales	0.30			0.34
Services	0.15			0.14
Agriculture, forestry, or mining	0.03			0.04
Manufacturing	0.30			0.26
Health
Excellent	0.31	0.28	0.27	0.29	0.25	0.19
Good	0.38	0.28	0.30	0.35	0.28	0.23
Satisfactory	0.21	0.26	0.25	0.27	0.29	0.27
Fair	0.07	0.10	0.09	0.08	0.14	0.21
Poor	0.03	0.08	0.09	0.01	0.04	0.11
Disabled	0.04	0.03	0.12	0.08	0.15	0.33
Mean household income,b $	31 614.0	21 682.9	24 851.8	40 652.9	20 280.7	31 650.9

Note. Numbers in table are proportions unless otherwise distinguished.

^aOccupation at baseline is only valid for those currently working.

^bGermany, 2005 euros; United States, 2005 US dollars.