Table 2.

List of variables used in the empirical model

Variable	Germany	Britain
Controls
Age and age squared	Based on year and month of birth	Based on year of birth
Household type (life course stages)	Couple youngest child <5 years; couple youngest child between 6 and 15, single with children, single parent, youngest child <5, single parent, youngest child between 6 and 16, other type	Similar
Number of children	In-living child between 0 and 16 years of age	Similar
Number of other employed in the household	All other members in the household with self-reported employment status	Similar
East-Germany and Immigrant	Living in East-Germany; not born in Germany	No region indicator used; not born in Britain
Interaction unemployment rate and period correcting for the business cycle	Overall annual unemployment rate is derived from the Eurostat database. Period is split into the 1980s, the 1990s and the 2000s	Similar to Germany though period split in two (1990s and 2000s)
Stocks
Health limitations	People reporting being handicapped or not and their degree of disability. If more than 50% people are considered disabled for work	Health problems limit amount and type of work
Human capital	Education level using ISCED codes and recoded into low, intermediate and high	Similar ISCED classification used
Social capital	Bonding: Frequency of contacts relatives/friends, Trust other people (4 categories from totally agree to totally disagree) Bridging: Membership trade union/association, clubs	Frequency contacts friends. Trust based on question whether people can be trusted, that runs from 1 ‘most people can be trusted’ to 3 ‘depends’
Cultural capital	Religion: Catholic, Protestant, Other Christian, Other religion, No denomination Life goals: importance of being able to afford something, altruism, success in job, family, friends, partner, owned house Willingness to take risks (11 points scale)	Similar Life goals: importance of family, friends, success in work, health, house, travel No information on willingness to take risks
Functionings/events
Career choices through investing in training, apprenticeship	Training participation for the employed and unemployed separately and apprenticeship	Participation in general and specific training and apprenticeship for the employed, and in government training for the unemployed/inactive
Work-leisure choices indicated by job match for unemployed and employed separately	Difference between preferred and actual total working hours in all jobs smaller or equal to 3 h. More than 3 h difference indicates being overworked or underworked. Unemployed and inactive people are considered underworked when they actively search for a job	Asked to people whether they want to work more or fewer hours or that they want to continue with the same number of hours. Unemployed and inactive people are considered underworked when they actively look for a job
Lifestyle choices through investment in healthy lifestyle (time use)	Healthy life: active sports, exercising	Similar
Social choices through investment in social networks (time use)	Time spent with friends, attending community and social events, volunteer work. Time weekdays on: housework, shopping, work, visiting friends	Frequency of attending social and community events; frequency of volunteer work and of spending time with relatives/friends
Cultural choices through investment in culture	Time spent on cultural events Visiting church or religious events	Similar
Events such as divorce/separation, marriage/cohabitation, early retirement, involuntary job change	Constructed from the monthly calendar and from annual information at t − 1 and at interview date	Constructed from monthly information on activities and from annual information at t − 1 and t

Source: GSOEP, 2001–2008, BHPS, 2001–2008