University of Bamberg
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Faculty of Social Sciences, Economics, and Business Administration

Chair of Sociology, especially Methods of Empirical Social Research

  1.  University of bamberg
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  3. Social Sciences, Economics and Business Administration
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  5. Institute for Sociology
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  7. Chair of Sociology, especially Methods of Empirical Social Research
  8. Research
  9. COILS project

COILS project

COILS: Contextual Income Inequality and Life Satisfaction: Mechanisms and Moderators

Duration: January 2024–December 2026
Funding: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG), Project no. 533150713
Funding Volume: 376.366 Euro

Researchers at University of Bamberg

Dr. Peter Valet (Principal Investigator)

Zoe Glinkemann (Student Assistant)

Jonas Lübker (Student Assistant)

Michelle Ndoping (Student Assistant)
 
Abstract:

In public and academic debates, many experts and scholars argue that the current level of earnings inequality is too high and that reducing earnings inequality would improve overall well-being. The numerous studies on the impact of earnings inequality on individual life satisfaction, however, do not provide consistent results. The literature shows positive, negative, and no effects of income inequality on individual well-being. In addition to the findings, the theoretical foundation, the methodological approach, and the interpretation of the research results obtained are often quite heterogeneous. Most studies investigate aggregate earnings inequality cross-comparatively. What often remains unclear is if people have any knowledge about the level on macro earnings inequality or what the mechanisms are that explain effects from the macro level to the micro level. Here, the COILS project aims to contribute:

(1) Drawing on sociological approaches on relational inequalities, this project challenges the common practice of looking at earnings inequality exclusively at the macro level. Apart from earnings inequality at the national level, people also experience inequalities within and across economic sectors, occupations, and workplaces. To analyze the effects of contextual inequalities, we need data on income inequalities for different contexts. This project uses different sources of registry data to generate representative measures of contextual earnings inequality and links them to data from existing social science surveys.

(2) The COILS project dedicates itself to the problem of causality by focusing on methods to identify causal effects. Following the approach of modern causal analysis, the aim of data analysis in this project is explicitly not to take into account as many influencing factors of individual well-being as possible, but to determine individual (causal) effects of contextual income inequalities on individual well-being as precisely as possible.

Open Sciene:

OSF-Project w/ replication packages to all COILS publications

Data-Repositorium w/ measures of contextual income inequality generated in COILS

Publications:

Valet, Peter (2026). Diagnosen kontextueller Einkommensungleichheit in Deutschland: Der Einfluss von Datenquelle und Einkommenskonzept.COILS Working Paper Series, No. 04. Link(473.6 KB, 34 pages)

Valet, Peter, Zoe Glinkemann, Jonas Lübker & Michelle Ndoping (2026): Methodenbericht Maßzahlen kontextueller Einkommensungleichheit auf Basis der Verdiensterhebung 2022–2024. COILS Working Paper Series, No. 03. Link(636.0 KB)

Valet, Peter, Patricia Böger & Jonas Lübker (2025): Tracing Income Inequality Trends in Germany from 2010 to 2022: Dynamics across Industries, Occupations, and Firms. Socius 11, doi: 10.1177/237802312513314

Valet, Peter (2025):  Aims and Scope of the Contextual Income Inequalities and Life Satisfaction (COILS) Project. COILS Working Paper Series, No. 01. Link(437.8 KB)

Valet, Peter (2024): Income Inequality, Income Position and Life Satisfaction. SocArXiv, snh24, doi: 10.31235/osf.io/snh24

Valet, Peter (2024). COILSproject—Contextual Income Inequality and Life-Satisfaction. OSF, py8ac. doi: 10.17605/osf.io/py8ac

Presentations: 

August 2026: Annual Meeting of the American Sociological Association (ASA), New York City, USA

May 2026: Spring Meeting of the ISA Research Committee 28 (RC28), Seville, Spain

March 2026: Frühjarstagung der DGS Sektion Sozialstruktur und soziale Ungleichheit, Potsdam

November 2025: Projektworkshop, Universität Bielefeld

May 2024: Research Class Sozialstrukturanalyse Sozialer Ungleichheiten, Universität Bielefeld