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How important were manufacturing and heavy industries to the economic integration of twentieth-century immigrants in Western societies? This article examines how macro-social change in Germany since the height of manufacturing has affected the socio-economic integration of male immigrants. We develop an analytical framework to assess how educational expansion among natives, deindustrialization, and the increasing importance of formal qualifications shape male immigrant-native gaps in labor-market outcomes over time. Empirically, we focus on first-generation male Turkish immigrants in Germany and use micro-census data spanning almost 40 years. Through a novel empirical quantification of key theoretical arguments concerning immigrant economic integration, we find growing inter-group differences between the late 1970s and mid-2000s (employment) and mid-2010s (incomes), respectively. The growth of differences between the immigrant and native income distributions was most pronounced in their respective bottom halves. Our analysis shows that these trends are linked to the increased importance of formal educational qualifications for individual labor-market success, to educational expansion in Germany, and to deindustrialization. Employment in Germany shifted away from middling positions in manufacturing, but while natives tended to move into better-paying positions, Turkish immigrants mainly shifted into disadvantaged service jobs. These results provide novel evidence for claims that the economic assimilation of less-skilled immigrants may become structurally harder in increasingly post-industrial societies. We conclude that structural change in host countries is an important, yet often overlooked, driver of immigrant socio-economic integration trajectories.

Social science research demonstrates that dispersal policies and restrictions on the freedom of residence have inhibited refugees’ socio-economic integration. The dominant explanation is that such policies prevent refugees from moving to places where they can employ their skills most fruitfully. However, previous studies of refugees’ actual residential choices in Europe provide little evidence that refugees move to places with good employment prospects. The combination of negative effects of residence restrictions and emerging evidence of disadvantaging secondary migration forms what we call the ‘refugee mobility puzzle’. In this study, we address this puzzle and ask: What attracts refugees to deprived areas, and can their seemingly unfortunate residential choices be understood as moves to labor market opportunity after all? Empirically, we draw on the IAB-BAMF-SOEP Survey of Refugees, track the location of more than 2,500 refugee respondents, and estimate discrete choice models across all German counties and postcodes. Our results confirm the existence of the refugee-mobility puzzle and complicate recent critiques of dispersal policies and restrictions by suggesting that refugees’ need for affordable housing and their desire to be close to (co-ethnic) friends and family may turn into an unintended lock-in factor in the mid- and long-run.

Urban research assigns immigrant enclaves an ambiguous role. While such areas are seen as rich in beneficial ethno-religious infrastructures and networks, they also tend to be located in deprived and stigmatised inner-city neighbourhoods. Research on neighbourhood attainment provides evidence for both, a desire to attain mainstream middle-class neighbourhoods, which grows the more immigrants and their descendants establish themselves in society, but also a continuing attraction of residing close to co-ethnics. To tease apart this ambiguity, we study how the life satisfaction of immigrants and their descendants depends on the characteristics of the neighbourhood they live in, and pay special attention to heterogeneity along generation, country of origin orientation and income. We use classic measures of neighbourhood quality vis-à-vis newly collected data on the spatial density of ethno-religious minority associations, places of worship and grocers. We link these data to the geocoded German Socio-Economic Panel to predict life satisfaction among immigrants and their descendants. To strengthen a causal interpretation of our results, we employ specifications that address self-selection into neighbourhoods and unobserved confounding. Contra the assumptions of standard assimilation models, we document that ethno-religious infrastructures contribute to increased life satisfaction primarily among the second generation, and there especially among sending-country oriented individuals. This suggests a continuing importance of origin-culture infrastructures for some groups. Furthermore, we find little evidence that overall neighbourhood quality, or the mere share of co-ethnics in a neighbourhood, increases life satisfaction either among immigrants or their descendants.

How important were manufacturing and heavy industries to the economic integration of twentieth-century immigrants in Western societies? This article examines how macro-social change in Germany since the height of manufacturing has affected the socio-economic integration of male immigrants. We develop an analytical framework to assess how educational expansion among natives, deindustrialization, and the increasing importance of formal qualifications shape male immigrant-native gaps in labor-market outcomes over time. Empirically, we focus on first-generation male Turkish immigrants in Germany and use micro-census data spanning almost 40 years. Through a novel empirical quantification of key theoretical arguments concerning immigrant economic integration, we find growing inter-group differences between the late 1970s and mid-2000s (employment) and mid-2010s (incomes), respectively. The growth of differences between the immigrant and native income distributions was most pronounced in their respective bottom halves. Our analysis shows that these trends are linked to the increased importance of formal educational qualifications for individual labor-market success, to educational expansion in Germany, and to deindustrialization. Employment in Germany shifted away from middling positions in manufacturing, but while natives tended to move into better-paying positions, Turkish immigrants mainly shifted into disadvantaged service jobs. These results provide novel evidence for claims that the economic assimilation of less-skilled immigrants may become structurally harder in increasingly post-industrial societies. We conclude that structural change in host countries is an important, yet often overlooked, driver of immigrant socio-economic integration trajectories., Peer Reviewed

A significant share of employees in Europe has less formal training than is required by their job; they are undereducated. We use harmonized panel data from the United Kingdom and Germany to investigate the skills and resources allowing the undereducated to develop careers in occupations supposedly beyond their reach. Our theoretical approach complements individual-centered labor market theory with an intergenerational mobility perspective which regards undereducation as a form of family status maintenance. Our empirical results show that persons whose (non-)cognitive skills exceed their formal education are more likely to be undereducated in the cross-section, and to enter undereducated employment or be promoted into it throughout the life course. Yet beyond individual merit, parental socio-economic status is a similarly-important predictor of these outcomes; our analyses even trace a significant share of the importance of (non-)cognitive skills to it. To complete our intergenerational argument, we finally demonstrate that undereducation acts as a pathway to the intergenerational reproduction of earnings inequality – more so, in fact, than the avoidance of overeducation. These results are remarkably similar across the UK and Germany, although some country differences suggest higher skill-induced career mobility in Britain and stronger origin effects in Germany. We discuss promising avenues for further comparative research in the conclusion.

"The EDCA-Survey is a large scale CATI telephone survey conducted in three countries: Germany, France and the Netherlands. The survey was designed to test theoretical arguments on the effects of ethnic diversity on social capital and civic engagement. This aim demands for a sophisticated design. The survey is not representative for the entire populations of Germany, France or the Netherlands. Instead, the basic population is the population over the age of 18 in 74 selected regions in Germany, France and the Netherlands that have sufficient language skills to conduct an interview in the language of their country of residence, or in the case of the oversample of people with Turkish migration background to conduct the interview in Turkish. The aim of the survey is to enable the comparison of these 74 regions, which vary on contextual characteristics of interest. In addition, the EDCA-Survey includes one oversample of migrants in general (24%) and an additional second oversample of Turkish migrants in particular (14%). The oversampling is the same within each of the 74 regions, each of which has about 100 observations and seven specially chosen cities even 500. This survey design is an important characteristic of the EDCA-Survey and distinguishes it from other available data. This is important since one aim of the EDCA-Survey is to enable the aggregation of contextual characteristics from the survey itself. Overall, 10.200 completed interviews were conducted - 7500 in Germany, 1400 in France and 1300 in the Netherlands." (author's abstract), "Der EDCA-Survey ist eine CATI gestützte Telefonumfrage, die in Deutschland, Frankreich und den Niederlanden durchgeführt wurde. Die Umfrage wurde mit dem Ziel erhoben, Effekte ethnischer Diversität auf Sozialkapital und Zivilengagement zu untersuchen. Dieses Vorhaben setzt ein komplexes Surveydesign voraus. So ist die Umfrage nicht repräsentativ für die Bevölkerungen von Deutschland, Frankreich und den Niederlanden. Stattdessen bildet die Grundgesamtheit die Bevölkerung von 74 ausgewählten Regionen der drei Länder, die über die Sprachfertigkeit verfügen, ein Interview in der Landessprache oder gegebenenfalls auf Türkisch zu führen. Ziel ist der Vergleich dieser 74 Regionen, die sich hinsichtlich verschiedener Charakteristika unterscheiden. Darüber hinaus weist der EDCA-Survey eine überproportionale Stichprobe von Personen mit Migrationshintergrund (24%) und eine zweite überproportionale Stichprobe von Personen mit türkischem Migrationshintergrund (14%) auf. Diese überproportionale Stichprobe wurde in jeder der 74 Regionen gezogen, in denen jeweils ca. 100 Interviews durchgeführt wurden. In sieben speziell ausgesuchten Regionen wurden 500 Interviews geführt. Dieses Surveydesign ist ein zentrales Charakteristikum des EDCA-Surveys und ermöglicht die Aggregation von Kontextmerkmalen aus dem Survey. Insgesamt wurden 10.200 vollständige Interviews erhoben – 7500 in Deutschland, 1400 in Frankreich und 1300 in den Niederlanden." (Autorenreferat)