Biographical Data of Social Insurance Agencies in Germany: Improving the Content of Administrative Data

Daniela E. Hochfellner, Institute for Employment Research (IAB)
Dana Müller, Institute for Employment Research (IAB)
Anja Wurdack, Institute for Employment Research (IAB)

The Research Data Centre of the Federal Employment Agency in the Institute for Employment Research and the Research Data Centre of the German Pension Insurance offer longitudinal individual-level datasets. These datasets contain on the one hand information of the social security notifications and on the other hand characteristics of the administrative procedures of both institutions. In each institution only information for accomplishment of their own current tasks is kept. The ambition of our project was to compile a common dataset which contains data of both agencies. The richness of information on individuals is increased through filling up gaps in the single data sources by using the information of the other data source, which provides new potentials for scientific research and improves the quality of administrative records. The data are provided to the scientific community as a Scientific Use File as well as a weak anonymous dataset accessible by on-site use.