Life satisfaction in Germany after reunification: Additional insights on the pattern of convergence

The authors update previous findings and add new insights on the East-West gap in overall life satisfaction and its trend by using data from the German Socio-Economic Panel (1992-2013). The results indicate that (1) part of the raw East-West gap is due to differences in household income and unemployment status, (2) the conditional East-West gap decreased in the first years after the German reunification and remained quite stable and sizeable since the mid-nineties, (3) gender differences are small, and (4) the East-West gap is smaller and shows a trend towards convergence for the younger birth cohorts.