Claudia Diehl

Reactive Ethnicity or "Assimilation"? : Statements, Arguments, and First Empirical Evidence for Labor Migrants in Germany

In this article, we scrutinize the often stated assumption that labor migrants in Germany turn away from integration and reaffirm their ethnicity by examining their identificational, cognitive, and social assimilation processes. Using data from the German Socio-economic Panel, we present trend analyses of different hostland- and homeland-related indicators for the past fifteen years. Results are presented separately for first- and second-generation migrants from Turkey, the EU, and the former Yugoslavia. While not all assimilation-related indicators change a great deal over time, they show at least a substantial difference between the first and the second generation. With regard to the homeland-related indicators, the results by no means suggest that Turkish migrants try to compensate for their comparatively disadvantaged social status by revitalizing ethnic cultural habits or homeland-oriented identifications.

Religiosity and gender equality : comparing natives and Muslim migrants in Germany

Abstract In European public debates, Islam is often described as an impediment to gender equality. By using data from surveys conducted in Germany, we analyse the role of high levels of individual religiosity in explaining Turks’ and Germans’ approval of gender equality and the way Turkish and German couples share household tasks. Results suggest that, for both groups, individuals with strong religious commitments are less likely than secular individuals to hold egalitarian gender role attitudes. At the behavioural level, this correlation between religiosity and gender egalitarianism only holds true for Turkish respondents. Furthermore, strong religious commitments contribute to generational stability in attitudinal and behavioural gender-traditionalism among Turks. However, when explaining Germans’ more egalitarian gender-related attitudes and behaviours, religiosity turns out to be just one factor among others – and not a particularly important one. Further research is needed to disentangle the different cultural and religious aspects of Muslim migrants’ attitudes and behaviours.

Jugendliche ausländischer Herkunft beim Übergang in die Berufsausbildung: Vom Wollen, Können und Dürfen

Zusammenfassung Anhand gepoolter Datensätze dreier Schulabgängerbefragungen des Bundesinstituts für Berufsbildung (BIBB) wird der Frage nach dem Grad und den Ursachen der Benachteiligung Jugendlicher ausländischer Herkunft beim Zugang zu Ausbildungsplätzen nachgegangen. Es wird untersucht, welche Rolle folgende Unterschiede zwischen Ausbildungsplatzsuchenden deutscher und ausländischer Herkunft spielen: ihre Präferenzen für eine bestimmte berufliche Ausbildung, ihre Ausstattung mit arbeitsmarktrelevanten Ressourcen sowie ihnen offen stehende Opportunitäten auf dem Ausbildungsstellenmarkt. Dabei zeigt sich erstens, dass vor allem männliche Jugendliche ausländischer Herkunft deutlich geringere Chancen haben, einen Ausbildungsplatz zu finden, als Jugendliche deutscher Herkunft. Dies gilt weitgehend unabhängig davon, welchen Wunschberuf sie verfolgen, welchen Schulabschluss sie besitzen und welche Erstsprache sie gelernt haben. Auch Unterschiede in ihren Suchstrategien nach einem Ausbildungsplatz scheinen wenig zur Erklärung dieses Phänomens beizutragen, zumal diese bei den Gruppen kaum differieren. Die Analysen belegen zweitens, dass selbst diejenigen Jugendlichen ausländischer Herkunft, die einen Ausbildungsplatz gefunden haben, nur halb so oft in ihrem „Wunschberuf“ ausgebildet werden wie deutsche Jugendliche. Nicht zuletzt der starke Unterschied zwischen Mädchen und Jungen mit Migrationshintergrund spricht dafür, dass Diskriminierungsprozesse seitens der Arbeitgeber bei der Vergabe von Ausbildungsplätzen möglicherweise eine größere Rolle spielen als bei anderen Dimensionen der Arbeitsmarktintegration. Dies steht vermutlich im Zusammenhang mit Spezifika des Ausbildungsstellenmarktes, der durch eine vergleichsweise geringe Produktivität der Ausbildungsplatzsuchenden und eine Knappheit an Ausbildungsplätzen gekennzeichnet ist. Summary In this article, we examine the extent and the causes of ethnic inequalities in access to apprenticeship training positions within the German system of vocational training. Analyses are based on pooled data from three surveys of high school graduates conducted at the German Federal Institute for Vocational Education and Training (BIBB). The role of the following differences between German and applicants with an immigrant background for vocational training positions is analyzed: their preferences for certain occupational fields, their endowment with resources relevant to the integration of the individual in the labor market, and the opportunities available in the vocational training market. We can show, first, that the chances of finding a vocational training position are substantially lower for young - especially male - adults with an immigrant background even if their occupational preferences, their human capital endowment, and their first language are taken into account. Furthermore, there is no evidence that German and immigrant background youths differ substantially in terms of their job-search strategies. Our analyses show, secondly, that even those immigrant background youths who did manage to find a vocational training position are only half as likely as young Germans to be trained in their preferred occupational field. The large gender differences within the immigrant background group in particular suggest that ethnic discrimination processes on the part of potential employers may play a more important role in explaining ethnic inequalities in the access to vocational training positions than in other dimensions of labor market integration. This is probably related to specificities in those vocational training sectors that are characterized by a comparatively low productivity of applicants and by a shortage of vocational training positions.

Rights or Identity? Naturalization Processes among "Labor Migrants" in Germany

The determinants of the decision to naturalize for first and second generation “labor migrants” in Germany are examined. We assume that Turkish migrants’ comparatively high naturalization rate cannot be explained by the legal advantages they gain by naturalizing. We argue instead that naturalization offers an opportunity for individual upward mobility to Turkish migrants who have achieved a high level of individual assimilation. Using data from the GSOEP, we show that individual assimilation does in fact promote naturalization for Turkish migrants, but not for members of other ethnic groups, which generally have higher status within German society.

A Life-Course Perspective on Migration and Integration

“A Life-Course Perspective on Migration and Integration” is an edited volume that compiles a number of articles on immigrants’ integration. It is an ambitious book whose main goal is to demonstrate that the life course approach is a useful paradigm for this research field that has so far not received the attention it deserves. In order to show this, the editors start out with an introductory chapter on the basic assumptions of the life course perspective. In doing so, they delimit the approach by arguing that, on the one hand, it means more than micro-analytical research with longitudinal data and that, on the other hand, it is applicable to a much broader set of phenomena than those of interest to demographers alone. Based on this, Wingens and coauthors have compiled 11 chapters that tackle the issue of immigrant integration. This part of the book brings together a broad range of scholars working empirically on this issue. Most chapters focus on Germany but some compare the German situation with that of France (Tucci) or Israel (Kogan et al.), while others look at other European countries such as Austria (Latcheva and Herzog-Punzenberger) or the UK (Muttarak). Substantively, the structural integration of migrants in the educational system and the labor market and their family patterns rank most prominently in the volume, supplemented by chapters on identification, residential segregation, and transnational activities. Methodologically, quantitative and qualitative methods are used, though the former clearly dominate, using panel and longitudinal data as well as cross-sectional data from international, national or local research projects. The affinity to the life course paradigm varies between the chapters. Some of them, the contributions by Windzio, de Valk, Sohn, or Schunck, for example, follow the theoretical imperatives raised in the introduction more closely than others. Schunck shows in his SOEP-based analysis on transnational activities that the latter are partly dependent on migrants’ financial resources, but that this relationship varies with increasing duration of stay. Other chapters, such as the one by Kogan et al., start out from a more “classical” micro-analytic perspective, asking about the role of group-specific reception contexts and taking into account individual resources acquired before immigration. Again others, for example the study by Latechva and Herzog-Punzenberger, address life phases more explicitly and make heavy use of “life course terminology” but it remains unclear in what regard their results extend beyond existing findings of integration research. In the concluding chapter, the editors elaborate on the relationship between life course and integration research by specifying the theoretical implications of the former: most importantly, the study of integration as a process rather than a state, the consideration of agency as well as structural conditions, and the investigation of generational change and changes over time. Based on this, they review the preceding articles and discuss how these take the basic principle of the life course perspective into account. Unlike many edited books, this volume has a clear theoretical message and a visible red thread. The basic argument is that, almost by nature, integration research calls for a life course perspective given this field’s genuine interest in the consequences of migration as a fundamental “transition” and its long-lasting impact over time and across generations. One might add that this argument is sometimes even taken too far, for example when the editors claim that “by dynamically relating decision-making at the micro-level to social structures and institutions at the meso- or macro- level this approach avoids individualistic as well as ecological reductionism” (p. 294). In fact, the above-mentioned theoretical imperatives are indispensable for any sort of explanatory empirical integration research. Fundamental research questions of this substantive area of interest cannot be answered otherwise: Why do some groups integrate faster than others? Why do ethnic ties and identifications foster structural integration for some groups but hamper it for others? What role do social distances and discriminations play in accounting for group-specific adaptation patterns? In this regard, one wants to subscribe to all statements on what effective integration research should do—including the argument that the life course approach is a “set of theoretical guidelines rather than a unified theory” (p. 288). The fact that these guidelines are often ignored or not sufficiently taken into account might, however, have less to do with the absence of an explicit life course perspective than with the tremendous data requirements of such an approach: up-to-date, comparative, longitudinal data on minority and majority members, ideally supplemented by qualitative studies, are still hard to find. In sum, the volume does a good job in showing that the life course approach is something between a helpful reminder of the theoretical principles that should guide empirical integration research and a magic bullet for those interested in the topic.

Religiosität türkischer Migranten im Generationenverlauf : Ein Befund und einige Erklärungsversuche

Zusammenfassung Die Religiosität türkischer Einwanderer zeichnet sich durch eine erstaunlich hohe intergenerationale Stabilität aus. Dieser Beitrag diskutiert existierende theoretische Erklärungsansätze für Religiosität im Generationenverlauf und überprüft sie anhand empirischer Daten der in Deutschland durchgeführten Generations- and Gender Surveys (GGS). Dabei wird gezeigt, dass die klassische Assimilationstheorie und Konzepte der symbolischen oder kompensatorischen Religiosität ebenso wenig eine befriedigende Erklärung dieses Phänomens bieten wie der Hinweis auf die allgemein hohe Wertestabilität in Migrantenfamilien. Weder nimmt die Religiosität zwischen erster und zweiter Generation ab, noch erfährt sie einen Bedeutungswandel hin zu einer primär symbolischen Dimension der Lebensführung. Auch finden sich nur schwache empirische Evidenzen für die Thesen, dass intensive Religiosität eine Domäne der gesellschaftlichen „Verlierer“ ist oder lediglich einen Spezialfall einer generell hohen intergenerationalen Wertestabilität im Migrationskontext darstellt. Abschließend werden daher makrosoziologische Erklärungsansätze entfaltet, die muslimische Religiosität auf die Diversifizierung des islamisch-religiösen Feldes und auf die Salienz von Religion als symbolischer Grenze gegenüber Einwanderern beziehen. Summary Intergenerational stability of the religiosity of Turkish migrants is surprisingly high. In this article, several theoretical explanations for the maintenance of religiosity from generation to generation are presented and tested empirically against data from the German Generations- and Gender Surveys. We can show that classical versions of assimilation theories, concepts of symbolic religiosity, of religiosity as a compensation for a lack of social status, or of a high intergenerational stability of values in general cannot fully explain this phenomenon. Religiosity does not decline between the first and the second generation, nor does it become more symbolic in character. Furthermore, empirical evidence yields only limited support for the hypothesis that high levels of individual religiosity can only be found among structurally and socially less assimilated segments of the immigrant population. The same holds true for the argument that they just reflect generally high intergenerational value stability among immigrants. Concequently, in the final section we discuss the role of contextual factors in explaining intergenerational stability in migrants’ religiosity such as an increasing diversity of the religious Islamic field or the salience religion as a symbolic boundary marker between natives and migrants.

Ethnische Diskriminierung im deutschen Bildungssystem

Wenn es um die Erklarung des vergleichsweise geringen Bildungserfolgs zumindest einiger Migrantengruppen und ihrer Nachkommen geht, wird haufig auf mogliche Prozesse ethnischer Diskriminierung verwiesen. Zwei Positionen haben sich diesbezuglich herauskristallisiert: Vertreter eines eng gefassten Verstandnisses von individueller Diskriminierung fokussieren in erster Linie diskriminierendes Handeln individueller Akteure, vor allem der Lehrerinnen und Lehrer, schreiben diesem aber eine allenfalls geringe Erklarungskraft bei der Entstehung und Stabilisierung ethnischer Bildungsungleichheiten zu. Anhanger eines weiter gefassten Verstandnisses gehen von institutioneller Diskriminierung aus und problematisieren vor allem die Struktur des Bildungssystems und viele dort etablierte Praktiken. Beide Positionen stehen weitgehend unverbunden nebeneinander und beschreiben unterschiedliche theoretisch mogliche Mechanismen ethnischer Diskriminierung, die hier zunachst systematisch dargestellt werden. Im Anschluss folgt ein Uberblick uber die vorhandenen empirischen Befunde. Die Bedeutung moglicher diskriminierender Mechanismen auf den Bildungserfolg wird an unterschiedlichen Stufen des Bildungsprozesses (Kompetenzen, Noten, Ubergange) abgehandelt. Darauf aufb auend werden die Vor- und Nachteile eines eng beziehungsweise weiter gefassten Diskriminierungsbegriffs diskutiert und auf Lucken in der entsprechenden empirischen Forschung hingewiesen.

Wenn Migranten Migranten befragen / When Migrants Interview Migrants

Zusammenfassung Anhand einer quantitativen Befragung türkischer Einwanderer in Mannheim (N= 759) wird die Interviewteilnahme von Migranten als mehrstufiger Prozess untersucht. Ziel des Aufsatzes ist es, die typischen „Problemgruppen“ bei Befragungen dieser Population zu identifizieren. Hierzu wird erstens anhand von Erfahrungsberichten aus anderen Studien gezeigt, dass bei weiblichen, älteren und weniger gut „assimilierten“ Migranten besonders hohe Ausfälle zu erwarten sind. Zweitens werden verschiedene mögliche Maßnahmen bei der Feldarbeit dargestellt, die geeignet erscheinen, um diese Ausfälle zu verhindern (zweisprachige Interviewer und Erhebungsinstrumente, geschlechterhomogene Zuordnung von Interviewern und Zielpersonen, lange Feldzeit etc.). Drittens wird untersucht, wie sich diese Maßnahmen auf das Teilnahmeverhalten unterschiedlicher sozio-demographischer Subgruppen auswirken. Dabei wird zum einen das Teilnahmeverhalten der befragten türkischen Migranten mit dem von Deutschen verglichen. Zum anderen wird die Nettostichprobe der Befragung in Mannheim auf subgruppenspezifische Ausfälle hin untersucht, indem sie mit den Nettostichproben anderer Befragungen von Nichtdeutschen verglichen wird. Es zeigt sich, dass bei der Verwendung zweisprachiger Erhebungsinstrumente systematische Ausfälle nur bei älteren Migranten zu erwarten sind. Summary This article investigates the survey participation of migrants using data from a quantitative survey of 759 Turkish respondents in Mannheim. Each phase of the survey (e.g. contact, cooperation) is analyzed separately in order to identify the problematic subgroups in this population. The available findings about the process of migrants’ survey participation show that female, elderly, and poorly assimilated migrants can be expected to display rather low participation rates. Based on these findings several aspects of the fieldwork were varied in an attempt to increase survey participation (e.g. the use of bilingual interviewers and questionnaires, gender homogeneous allocation of interviewers and respondents). The effect of these measures is analyzed for several socio-demographic subgroups of the sample.We compare the survey participation of migrants to that of Germans as well as to that of other immigrant surveys. These analyses show that by using bilingual questionnaires the only remaining underrepresented group is older migrants who have high non-contact with Germans rates.

Turning back to Turkey - Or Turning the Back on Germany? : Remigration Intentions and Behavior of Turkish Immigrants in Germany between 1984 and 2011

By applying event-history analysis to all available waves of the German Socio-Economic Panel, we analyze how remigration intentions and actual remigration of Turkish migrants to Germany have evolved over time. The study draws from a broad set of theoretical approaches to remigration and it takes a different focus than previous studies by concentrating on long-term change in these rates. Our findings reveal an increase in remigration intentions and rates for first generation migrants after the turn of the millennium. Those who plan to return have a stronger emotional attachment to Turkey than those who plan to stay. Nevertheless, the two groups differ neither with respect to their educational levels nor in terms of their identification with Germany and perceptions of discrimination. Similarly, the small though slightly increasing group of immigrants that actually returns does not have a clear profile in terms of educational level, national identification, and perceptions of being disadvantaged in Germany. We thus argue that for first-generation migrants from Turkey after 2001, rising remigration intentions and actual remigration are unrelated to their integration into German society. Rather, the increase seems to be triggered by macro-structural changes in the country of origin.

Turning back to Turkey – Or Turning the Back on Germany?

Summary This contribution analyzes whether remigration intentions and actual remigration to their homeland on the part of Turkish migrants to Germany have evolved over time, and if so, why. To do so, event-history analysis is applied to data from the German Socio-Economic Panel (GSOEP). Findings reveal an increase in remigration intentions as well as rates of return for first generation migrants after the turn of the millennium. Before that, both such intentions and rates of actual return had declined, mostly as a consequence of integration in Germany. Those migrants who plan to return have a stronger emotional attachment to Turkey than those who plan to stay. However, the two groups differ neither with respect to their educational levels nor in terms of their perceptions of discrimination. There are similar findings with respect to the small though slightly increasing group of immigrants who actually returned to Turkey. It is thus argued that rising remigration intentions and actual remigration among first-generation migrants are unrelated to their integration into German society and are probably triggered by social change in their country of origin. Zusammenfassung Der Beitrag der Frage nach, wie sich die Remigrationsabsichten und das Remigrationsverhalten türkischstämmiger Einwanderer in Deutschland im Zeitverlauf verändert haben, und wertet dazu alle Erhebungswellen des sozio-ökonomischen Panels (SOEP) ereignisdatenanalytisch aus. Die Befunde zeigen, dass Remigrationsabsichten und -raten türkischstämmiger Einwanderer seit der Jahrtausendwende angestiegen sind, nachdem sie zuvor vor allem in Folge zunehmender Integration abgenommen hatten. Diejenigen Einwanderer, die ihre Remigration planen, haben eine stärkere emotionale Bindung an die Türkei als diejenigen, die dauerhaft in Deutschland bleiben wollen. Beide Gruppen unterscheiden sich weder im Hinblick auf ihr Bildungsniveau noch im Ausmaß ihrer Wahrnehmungen von Diskriminierung in Deutschland. Ähnliches gilt für die kleine, aber leicht wachsende Gruppe tatsächlicher Remigranten. Daraus wird geschlossen, dass die Remigrationsabsichten und -raten der Einwanderer der ersten Generation unabhängig von Integrationsprozessen angestiegen und vermutlich eher dem sozialenWandel in der Türkei geschuldet sind.