Heiko Peters

What determines the duration of stay of immigrants in Germany

Purpose – Because of the increasing importance of immigration for Germany due to the ageing population and the lack of highly skilled in some industries, the purpose of this paper is to analyse the return‐migration of German immigrants.Design/methodology/approach – The paper uses the German Socio‐economic Panel to conduct an event‐history analysis of return‐migration.Findings – The analysis reveals that return migration is heavily influenced by country of origin. Individuals from countries with free labour movement agreements with Germany show a considerably higher likelihood of leaving Germany relative to the other countries. The main finding is, with respect to the self‐selection process, that highly skilled are more likely to remigrate than those who are less skilled. In addition, the results give substantial information considering the design of German immigration policy.Originality/value – This paper conducts the first remigration analysis using the Cox proportional hazard model with years of residen...

What Determines the Duration of Stay of Immigrants in Germany?: Evidence from a Longitudinal Duration Analysis

Purpose - Because of the increasing importance of immigration for Germany due to the ageing population and the lack of highly skilled in some industries, the purpose of this paper is to analyse the return-migration of German immigrants. Design/methodology/approach - The paper uses the German Socio-economic Panel to conduct an event-history analysis of return-migration. Findings - The analysis reveals that return migration is heavily influenced by country of origin. Individuals from countries with free labour movement agreements with Germany show a considerably higher likelihood of leaving Germany relative to the other countries. The main finding is, with respect to the self-selection process, that highly skilled are more likely to remigrate than those who are less skilled. In addition, the results give substantial information considering the design of German immigration policy. Originality/value - This paper conducts the first remigration analysis using the Cox proportional hazard model with years of residence as waiting time. Using the latest data, with respect to qualification, a positive self-selection of remigrants was found.

Assimilation and Cohort Effects for German Immigrants

Demographic change and the rising demand for highly qualified labor in Germany attracts notice to the analysis of immigration. In addition, the pattern of immigration changed markedly during the past decades. Therefore we use the latest data of the German Socioeconomic Panel up to the year 2006 in order to investigate the economic performance of immigrants. We perform regressions of three pooled cross sections (1986, 1996, 2006) to estimate assimilation and quality of immigrants as reflected by their earnings. Further we take the heterogeneity of immigrants into account by separating them by country of origin. The rising wage inequality in Germany since the mid nineties will also be considered. We find a negative wage gap and a yearly assimilation rate of 2.3 percent. Due to a changing immigration pattern the cohort quality is declining.

Development of Wage Inequality for Natives and Immigrants in Germany - Evidence from Quantile Regression and Decomposition

To study the development of wage inequality is important for the economic performance as well as for the development of employment. First, I estimate the remuneration to personal characteristics for Germans and immigrants across the wage distribution using quantile regression. My database is the German socio-economic panel for the period 1984-2006. I find a higher inequality between skill groups for Germans relative to immigrants. The returns to skill for the highest educational attainment are higher for Germans across the wage distribution compared to immigrants. But within-group inequality for the group with the highest educational attainment is higher for immigrants. Both groups have concave experience-earnings profiles. One more year of work experience increases the wage more for Germans. Secondly I use the decomposition method of Melly (2006). Decomposition methods are suitable to get further insights into the question as to whether or not the observable differences in the distribution are caused by the difference in the composition or differences in the estimated coefficients. Immigrants have a negative wage gap relative to Germans. The wage gap rises across the distribution and is due to a rising discrimination of immigrants across the wage distribution for the years 1992 and 2006. For the year 1984 the characteristic effect is responsible for the wage gap. Inequality rises for both groups between the year 1992 and 2006. The increase is much stronger for Immigrants. The coefficient effect is mainly responsible for the wage increase across time for both groups.

Wie gut sind Immigranten in den deutschen Arbeitsmarkt integriert

Deutschland ist durch eine erhebliche Zunahme von Immigranten in der zweiten Hälfte des 20. Jahrhunderts zu einem Einwanderungsland geworden, das teils mit größeren Zuwächsen als typische Einwanderungsländer fertig werden musste. Wie ist die Integration der einzelnen Einwanderungsgruppen gelungen? Wie entwickeln sich die Löhne von Immigranten und Deutschen im Vergleich? Welche Rolle spielt das Herkunftsland? Welcher Zeitrahmen ist für die Integration, wenn sie überhaupt stattfindet, jeweils zu veranschlagen?