The German Twin Family Panel (TwinLife)

Abstract

The German Twin Family Panel (TwinLife) is a German longitudinal study of monozygotic and dizygotic same-sex twin pairs and their families that was designed to investigate the development of social inequalities over the life course. The study covers an observation period from approximately 2014 to 2023. The target population of the sample are reared-together twins of four different age cohorts that were born in 2009/ 4). In the first wave, the study included data on 4097 twin families. Families were recruited in all parts of Germany so that the sample comprises the whole range of the educational, occupational and income structure. As of 2019, two face-to-face, at-home interviews and two telephone interviews have been conducted. Data from the first home and telephone interviews are already available free of charge as a scientific use-file from the GESIS data archive. This report aims to provide an overview of the study sample and design as well as constructs that are unique in TwinLife in comparison with previous twin studiessuch as an assessment of cognitive abilities or information based on the children's medical records and report cards. In addition, major findings based on the data already released are displayed, and future directions of the study are presented and discussed.

Medizinische Zwillingsforschung in Deutschland

“…Jahrhunderts kam es zum Aufbau von Zwillingskohorten, welche über viele Jahre und Generationen weitergeführt werden können, sodass Zwillinge in ihrer Lebensentwicklung, der Entstehung von Krankheiten, deren Behandlung und der Bewältigung von Krisen beobachtet werden können. Dies waren ab etwa 1996 zunächst die medizinische HealthTwiSt -Kohorte an der Berliner Charité (Dr. Busjahn; [ 6 ]) und einige Jahre später das Projekt TwinLife [ 7 ] der Universitäten Bielefeld (Profs. Riemann und Diewald) und Saarbrücken (Prof. Spinath).…”

“…TwinLife ist ein soziologisch-psychologisches, von der Deutschen Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) seit 2013 gefördertes Projekt zur Untersuchung des Einflusses von Genetik und Umwelt (einschließlich Familie) auf soziale Ungleichheit. Es hat bundesweit insgesamt über 4000 Zwillingsfamilien rekrutiert und mittels Interviews und standardisierten Fragebögen soziale und psychologische Daten erfasst [ 7 ]. In einer aktuellen zweiten Phase (seit 2020) werden allerdings auch genetische Analysen eingeschlossen, die eine einmalige Entnahme von Blut- oder Speichelproben erfordern.…”

Reexamining the Relationship Between Shift Work and Health Behavior: Do Fluid Intelligence, Socio-economic Status, and Self-control Moderate the Relation?

“…The present work used data from the second wave of the German twin family study TwinLife (Mönkediek et al, 2019) -an on-going project that aims to investigate social inequalities over the life course. Household (face to face) and telephone interviews are conducted every year at regular rotation (for a detailed overview of this project, see Hahn et al, 2016or Mönkediek et al, 2019. The initial sample for the present work consisted of 5,691 employees from different fields of employment.…”

An Introduction to the German Twin Family Panel (TwinLife)

“…Previous studies that collected twin data in Germany have either focused on particular regions or have not used probabilitybased sampling designs (Busjahn 2013;Hahn et al 2013;Kandler et al 2013). By contrast, TwinLife is the first twin (family) study in Germany realizing a population register-based sampling design (Mönkediek et al 2019;Hahn et al 2016).…”

“…At the time of the first survey (2014/2015), these twins were aged 5 (cohort 1), 11 (cohort 2), 17 (cohort 3), and 23 to 24 (cohort 4). Over the course of the panel, these cohorts go through the major developmental transition phases of childhood, adolescence, and young adulthood (Mönkediek et al 2019;Hahn et al 2016). The youngest twins (cohort 1) were shortly before school-entry when they were interviewed for the first time.…”