Value differences amongst refugees and the native German population: Insights from a representative panel study.

The current political debate over the incorporation of refugees who have arrived in Germany since 2013 frequently revolves around cultural differences, in particular differences pertaining to values. These differences are suspected to hamper social integration on both, an individual and societal level. Sociological accounts of values in principle warrant the assumption that different value orientations might promote conflict over sensitive issues of social coexistence, both in terms of the structure of values and their assumed consequences for social action. However, only little is known about the actual values of refugees who have recently arrived in Germany. Comparative values research suggests that immigrants from culturally distant countries increase value heterogeneity. In contrast, acculturation and assimilation theories argue that values are not static constructs, but subject to change and transformation, possibly already at the early stages of the migratory process. Moreover, refugees might differ considerably from the population in their countries of origin due to self-selection processes. Using data from the IAB-BAMF-SOEP survey, a representative panel of refugees who have arrived in Germany between 2013 and 2016, and from the World Values Survey, the present study investigates differences in liberal democratic and gender equality values between refugees from Middle Eastern and North African countries and German citizens. Results indicate that refugees from almost all countries we investigated show higher levels of agreement to these values than German citizens. The only exception are values of secularism, for which we find lower levels of agreement amongst refugees. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]