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By analysing the childcaring experiences of female skilled workers from South Korea (hereafter, Korea) in Germany, this paper maintains that the challenges in labour market participation for highly skilled women, and especially those with children, should be understood in the context of their encounters with similar and different care and employment regimes between their home and host countries. On the theoretical level, this research confirms the argument that the migration of highly skilled workers should be contextualized not from a neoclassical perspective in which the maximization of economic profits takes priority, but from an institutional point of view in which social and cultural norms, practices, and policies in both the home and host societies are taken into consideration. Specifically, through a series of in-depth interviews conducted with skilled female migrants from Korea, this paper highlights the significance of taking the function of similar and different caring and employment regimes into account in explaining the challenges faced by highly skilled migrant women in labour market participation. On the empirical level, this paper sheds light on the migration experiences of skilled women from Asia as well as the (dis)integration processes of newcomers from third-national countries in Germany, with a focus on female migrants from Korea. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Twelve qualitative case studies in German and Canadian hospitals and IT companies were used in this mixed-methods study analysing the labour market outcomes of immigrants. The reported case studies investigate the immigrants' recognition, integration process and the usability of foreign qualifications, skills and work experiences in the labour market. Furthermore, the strategies and rationales of employers and employees within the recruiting process are analysed. Here, the focus lies on the transferability and obstacles of cultural and social capital across country borders as well as the relevant framework conditions. This paper refers to Bourdieu's approach towards different types of capital as well as the rational choice theory. The results demonstrate that immigrants in both countries face more obstacles accessing the labour market within the health sector than within the IT sector. The context of the recruiting situation strongly affects the strategies and behaviour of the employers or the recruiters. Within these sector- and country-specific confines, individual factors determine the immigrants' labour market success. Furthermore, the sector and the country affect the relevance of each individual factor in the recruiting process. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In contrast to the other papers in this special issue, this paper reflects a specific case of co-agency between states and individual migrants, particularly students and alumni networks. Based on a qualitative case study with 29 Georgian students and 14 institutions and organizations, this paper explores the impact of Georgian alumni on polity building in Georgia. Here we can observe two phases: Firstly, the states of Georgia and of Germany act as co-agents by facilitating migration to young Georgian students by financing their studies in Germany (student scholarships) with the objective that the students return and transfer their knowledge to the country of origin. Subsequently, the Georgian alumni who studied law in Germany act as co-agents between different institutions in both countries. In doing so, they transform state institutions by themselves and contribute to the development of the legal and political system in Georgia. They do that particularly in such important legal fields like constitutional law, civic law, and criminal law, but also in the creation of parliamentarism based on a bicameral system or the promotion of separation of church and state in Georgia. That takes place after return migration as well as from Germany through transnational networks and mobility. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper explores a major conflict area, namely, national and the EU's immigration policy and investigates how the influx of migrants (mostly from the Middle East and North Africa - MENA region) into the EU has been used as a policy conflict ground. The article assesses the policy responses to (im)migration in Germany and Italy between 2015- 2019 as the changes made redirected the policy for future migration crisis. The aim of the article is to underline that the migration crisis of the EU spiraled into Members States' migration and populism crisis and into the challenges of the implementation of common EU migration policies and national policies. This is achieved by the analyses of administrative measures adopted in the most argued areas like asylum procedure, return policy and integration The paper argues that these crisis management measures were mostly restrictive, and not only aimed to handle the crisis but exposed a phenomenon: they not only intended to thwart the continuous growth of migration and populism but were in parts even favored by populists in the sense that they had the intention to curb immigration, too. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As the third-largest exporting country in the world, Germany is a clear beneficiary and proponent of free trade. Few, therefore, expected the magnitude of contention that emerged within Germany during the negotiations between the EU and the United States for a transatlantic trade deal (TTIP). This paper explores the politicisation process of TTIP within the context of the broader transformations of German politics including not only the entry of new issues and new players in the electoral and protest arenas but also the increased hybridisation of forms of protest. Theoretically, we draw on the 'Players and Arenas' framework to put forward a sequential, strategic interactionist approach to the unfolding process of politicisation, in which various types of players face dilemmas when interacting with each other over time. Applying this analytical framework to the politicisation of TTIP in Germany, we reveal previously overlooked players, interactions and dilemmas, while opening up multiple opportunities for empirical analysis of cases beyond this area. We show how the politicisation of TTIP brought about an important intensification of relations between Germany's protest and electoral arenas, and confronted all players involved with choices with long-lasting consequences for both mobilisation and coalition building dynamics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

At times when migration and diversity are politically salient and controversially discussed, the rhetoric of staying 'as we are' is widespread. But how do 'we' actually change and how would 'we' know when it happens? Based on the premise that political communities are the products of narratives of peoplehood, this paper explores how such narratives evolve over time. It conceptualizes different modes of balancing narrative continuity and change. These modes – repetition, adaptation, and institutionalization – are illustrated with reference to evolving German narratives of peoplehood centring around (not) being a country of immigration. The paper argues that all modes lead to some degree of change in narratives of peoplehood. Against the backdrop of different understandings of the core of a narrative, it further discusses when such changes fundamentally affect who 'we' are. Overall, the paper invites scholars, policymakers, and citizens to think critically about the essential aspects of their political communities' narratives and to be aware of the stories that 'we' are told and that 'we' tell ourselves. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the administrative category 'ungeklärte Staatsangehörigkeit' ('unclear nationality') and its implications for citizenship rights in Germany. An unclear nationality represents a de facto statelessness but does not concede the rights established for de jure stateless people. It impedes naturalization in Germany and complicates access to a travel document and settlement permit. The paper analyses the (re-)production of unclear nationality and traces its effects on the life of a woman born in Germany with an unclear nationality since birth. Her experiences disclose the difficulty of navigating the German bureaucratic system and its discretionary power. Her experiences also reveal how a state of limbo is perpetuated over generations, confining individuals in a territory whose bureaucratic apparatus views them as foreign. Unclear nationality thus functions as a technology of exclusion: by placing the person in a yet-to-be determined nationality, it interpellates them not as subjects of rights but objects of clarification. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The increase in international migration and the global number of students learning mathematics through a language other than their home language makes migrants' educational pathways a particularly urgent issue. The current paper focuses on the German context as Germany is currently one of the major immigration countries in the Western context. Because German is widely perceived as the language of opportunity for migrants in the German school system, it is overwhelmingly the selected language of learning and teaching in the broader school system and within migrant classes. The article is based on qualitative interviews with mathematics teachers teaching migrant classes; and the data analysis followed the Grounded theory tradition. The central phenomenon that seemed to preoccupy all teachers was how to adapt mathematics teaching to the language- and mathematics-related diversity of their students while simultaneously helping them to transfer smoothly to the mainstream classes or pass the final examinations successfully. Due to the lack of institutional support for teaching in migrant classes and problems in dealing with multilingualism and mathematics-related diversity in mathematics lessons, they were generally frustrated with the situation despite being strongly motivated at first. Using three examples from the data, we illustrate teachers' strategies in relation to multilingualism and mathematics-related diversity. Overall, the study points to the necessity of supporting teachers in their mathematical practices in migrant classes to contribute to more inclusive mathematics education. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Social network theories are used extensively to analyze the international migration of Chinese to overseas regions in the era of Market Economy Reform since 1978. Attention is paid especially on the role of social networks among overseas Chinese on disaster relief in China. Focusing on the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, this paper investigates how social networks work as a crucial mechanism through which Chinese immigrants in Germany initiated and delivered monetary and material donations to China in early 2020 and then organized self-help in their everyday lives in Germany in late 2020. Different from previous studies, this paper scrutinizes social networks for disaster relief on the macro, meso, and micro levels. Multi-site ethnographic fieldwork in China and Germany combined with online and offline data collected from focus group sessions, interviews with individuals, participant observations, surveys, analysis of news reports on the pandemic, and analysis on relevant policies are utilized comprehensively to collect data on the three levels. This research discovers that internet tools – represented by WeChat – have integrated tightly into the traditional social networks of Chinese immigrants and consolidated the cultural cohesion from overseas Chinese to their connections in China. This paper aims at contributing to present studies on Chinese new immigrants, social network, and disaster management theories with an updated ethnographic case on the COVID-19 pandemic from Germany. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Explanations of attitudes towards immigration include those that take a utilitarian perspective, focusing on immigration’s real-world impacts, and others that look at immigration attitudes from the point of view of ideological affiliation. Focusing on the German “migration crisis” as a case study, this paper seeks to disentangle the roles of these types of explanation, placing an emphasis on possible connections between them. Specifically, the paper studies whether and to what extent perceptions of immigration impacts are related to people’s ideological position through identity-protective cognition, implying an indirect channel through which ideology may shape attitudes toward immigration policies. Using data for 2014–2018, the paper finds that attitudes toward immigration were more strongly related to immigration’s perceived economic and cultural impacts than to ideological position, even accounting for dependence of perceptions on ideology. Ideology-dependence of impact perceptions existed with respect to both economic and cultural impacts but was stronger with respect to the latter than the former. After the migration crisis, perceptions of economic impacts became less important in shaping immigration attitudes relative to perceptions of cultural impacts, and the latter became more ideology-dependent. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Revealing the factors causing international labor migration, bringing it into the legal framework, and evaluating the socio-economic consequences are the areas of interest for many researchers around the world. Attempts to create theories of labor migration to explain the causes and consequences of migration often end up with contradictory conclusions, which are explained by the complex nature of migration processes and the influence of political processes on it. The paper analyzes the socio-economic consequences of the legalization of migration processes between Georgia and Germany and the prospects for further relations development between the countries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper studies the movement of creative writers in the light of changes in German economic and political structures from the early 18th to the early 20th century. For this, we have constructed from various sources a yearly data set on all the writers in German listed in the Encyclopedia Britannica and born in the 18th and 19th centuries. The key findings are that, first, there was extensive long-term movment, initially to small university towns and later to large cities, especially Berlin and Munich. As such the notion of creative clusters is not recent but dates back centuries. Second, migration and yearly publication output are both strongly linked to age. The study is broken into three subperiods, 1700–1785, 1786–1839 and 1840–1899, and what is striking perhaps is that these age relationships followed very similar patterns in all these subperiods. Third, some of the causal factors for this are posited, for futher research, such as changes in publishing and transport facilities, employment opportunities and the attractions of being in a lively creative milieu. Useful lessons for present-day policy regarding the extent of and motivation for clustering, and their linkage to age, can be applied. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Between 1953 and 1973, emigration depleted the Modern Greek state by roughly one fifth of its total population. A significant number of those migrants relocated to Germany, which since 1960, has been home to a sizeable community of former Gastarbeiter (guest-workers) and their descendants. Following three decades of European Integration and relative prosperity, the 2009 Greek sovereign debt crisis initiated a new wave of Greek emigration, analogous, yet different to that of the postwar era. Germany remains an attractive destination for Greek expatriates, but in contrast to guest-workers from the 1960s, "neo-migrants" are typically skilled or highlyskilled persons who relocate individually. This paper examines the qualitative attributes of Greek expatriates and "neo-migrants" in Germany and compares them to those of former guest-workers; furthermore, this paper compares the narratives of Gastarbeiter to those of European expatriates. Finally, the perceptions of Greek expatriates for the established Greek community in Germany are looked into, as well as the individual and collective efforts of the Greek community and institutions to help and ease their socioeconomic integration. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The reunification of the socialist German Democratic Republic and the capitalist Federal Republic of Germany presents a unique setting for studying the impact of socio-economic and political change on migration. This paper provides a comprehensive review of the interdisciplinary literature on migration between East and West Germany since reunification, conducted in disciplines such as economics, demography, sociology, and human geography. We synthesise the literature with regard to data-related challenges as well as individual and contextual determinants of migration. We clarify some misinterpretations and discrepancies in previous studies, identify research gaps, and suggest directions for future research. Our review demonstrates that East-West migration mainly occurred in line with what could have been expected based on migration theory with regard to migrants' sex, age, education, labour market position, and social networks. West-East migration, in contrast, was strongly affected by return migrants who often stated non-occupational motives for moving. On the contextual level, differences in wages are better able to explain East-West migration over time than differences in unemployment rates. West-East migration, however, cannot be explained well with such macroeconomic models. This paper contributes a point of reference for future research on this topic, as well as on internal migration and socio-economic disparities in general. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

For the past ten years, the growth debate has been urban-centric, at least in Germany, while rural areas have been largely associated with depopulation. Despite their importance, small towns fall into a systematic perception gap in scientific and planning discourses. Against this background, this paper applies a threefold conceptualization of scalar relations paying analytical attention to (1) population trajectories, (2) the relation of spatial proximity and development, and (3) the influence of international migration on population development. Covering the period 1961–2018, this paper shows that despite a current demographic respite due to increased international migration, many small towns will continue to face the long-term consequences of population decline. This is accompanied by an increasing spatial differentiation of population growth rates. The relation between proximity to large centres and population growth is weakening, giving rise to other factors, e.g. residential amenities and competition between small and medium-sized towns. Based on this quantitative assessment, we conclude that small towns are the most dynamic settlement type in Germany and, at the same time, extremely heterogeneous in terms of trajectories and underlying driving factors. We also discuss conceptual aspects regarding process-understanding, terms, categories, and tools to analytically grasp the complexity of small towns. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores proculturative semiotic dynamics underlying self-construction in emigration that reveals various forms of the self's positioning through the processes of relating to the native and foreign socio-cultural environments. The self is conceptualised as the heterogeneous entirety of voices and self-related positions which are hierarchically organised. Hierarchical organisation implies the dominance of certain voices and I-positions at the expense of silencing others. Moreover, external societal voices promote hegemonic social representations which are represented as promoter I-positions/signs in the self-structures and have the power to regulate individuals' mental activity. Therefore, it is argued that selves' relations to the environment are not always symmetrically dialogical. The compelling power of hierarchically ordered external meaning systems that are conceptualised as "objective culture" is illustrated in the best manner when a person occurs in emigration where the native organisation of voices and I-positions is being semiotically ruptured due to the meeting with a foreign configuration of a hierarchy of external I-positions and gets "attacked" by alien promoter signs. External promoter voices and I-positions have the power to take the dominant position and establish asymmetric relations with other self-related elements. They can significantly influence intra-psychological negotiations by vocalising hegemonic social representations which exist in any community. The case study of a Georgian emigrant's living in Germany vividly reveals the wave of self-transformations which she undergoes after the liberation from the pressure of native promoter signs and engagement with the German ones. Specific microgenetic experiences leading to the transformations at the ontogenetic level are highlighted. Symmetric and asymmetric forms of communication are conceived as particular instances of relating. This paper vividly reveals the significance of the exploration of the forms of dynamic relations between various components of the self and socio-cultural environment and entailing intra-psychic and external negotiations for better understanding of the nature of humans' epigenetic development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Tertiary-level students from Bangladesh usually migrate to Germany for the purpose of higher studies. These international student migrants use communication media to maintain connections with family members and friends in Bangladesh and social networks with friends, classmates, and Bangladeshi community members in Germany. Drawing on the experiences of Bangladeshi student migrants in Germany and using polymedia theory, this paper investigates how the migrant students use the polymedia environment to maintain the transnational social networks and connections. This paper is based on qualitative data derived from 18 in-depth interviews with Bangladeshi migrant students in Germany. Findings suggest that using the polymedia environment, Bachelor migrant students receive emotional support from their family members back home, while Masters and PhD students are responsible for providing emotional and practical support to their left-behind families, relatives, and friends. Migrant students’ media usage with families and friends living in Bangladesh is influenced by their marital status and gender as well as their familial and social structure in Bangladesh. Their use of communication media with the members of the Bangladeshi community and foreign classmates living in Germany is comparatively less frequent and more education-oriented. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Germany has undergone a significant migration policy shift since the early 2000s. This paper examines the total employment effect of immigration during the liberalization of migration policies from 2005 to 2018 using a regional approach. A set of methods, along with static and dynamic macro-econometric models, were applied on a balanced panel formed by a unique and first-hand-collected data for 156 statistical regions based on the definition of the German Federal Employment Agency. We find suggestive evidence that there has been a significant adverse impact of new immigrants on the overall employment rate, and this negative effect is substantially larger than those reported in previous studies on the employment effect of immigration in the German labor market. In a further step, we divide our sample into two subsamples to capture the employment effect of the massive humanitarian inflows that began in 2015. Our results indicate that, in addition to the new immigrants' lower rate of integration into the local labor markets, a sudden influx of asylum seekers may possibly lead to a substantial fall in the employment rates, because asylum seekers are not immediately allowed to work in the country. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the relationship between subjectivity and the other during the course of integration among 50 young Muslims of dual national heritage in Germany. The largest group of migrants within Germany are people of Turkish and Kurdish origin. During the summer and autumn of 2018, we interviewed 50 individuals of both genders aged between 18 and 25. The interviews were carried out and evaluated in North Germany. We saw that the 'feeling of being held', 'being‐able‐to‐process‐(negative)‐experiences' and 'to take responsibility for oneself and other' are characteristics of well‐educated young Muslims. Those who feel at home in their Turkish family or in the Islamic religion are able to process positive and negative experiences and present more (mature) super‐ego structures. This allows them to be able to deal with the challenges of migration and integration. Based on the data, we developed the 'Triadic Model of Integration' within the Lacanian L‐Scheme of Subjectivity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to analyse the effect of an increase in the relative supply of immigrants on natives' task reallocation, with a focus on Germany. Specifically, it investigates whether natives, as a response to increased immigration, re-specialise in communication-intensive occupations, where they arguably have a comparative advantage due to language proficiency. Design/methodology/approach: The analysis uses regional data from the German Labour Force Survey between 2002 and 2014. To derive data on job tasks requirements, it employs the US Department of Labor's O*NET database, the results of which are tested through a sensitivity analysis using the European Working Condition Survey and the Programme for the International Assessment of Adult Competencies data sets. Findings: The paper finds that indeed German workers respond to increasing immigration by shifting their task supply and providing more communication relative to manual tasks. Importantly, the decrease in the supply of communication tasks is stronger and more robust than the increase in the supply of manual tasks, pointing to a potential displacement effect taking place between natives and immigrants, alongside task reallocation. This would suggest that countries with relatively more rigid labour markets are less responsive to immigration shocks. Moreover, it suggests that labour market rigidity can minimise the gains from immigration and exacerbate employment effects. Originality/value: The paper not only investigates task reallocation as a result of immigration in a different institutional context and labour market functioning, but the results feed into broader policy and scholarly discussions on the effects of immigration, including questions about how the institutional context affects labour market adjustment to immigration, worker occupational mobility in a more rigid labour markets and the fine balance needed between flexibility and rigidity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper investigates the main determinants of the representation of foreign employees across German regions. Since migration determinants are not necessarily the same for workers of different nationalities, spatial patterns are explained not only for total foreign employment but also for the 35 most important migration countries to Germany. Based on a total census for all 402 German districts, the paper starts by showing the spatial distributions of workers with different nationalities and explains the emerging patterns by spatial error models. Although large heterogeneity in determinants across nationalities are found, similarities between country groups prevail. Economic conditions matter for most nationalities, whereas the importance of amenities and openness differ. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper we investigate how co-ethnic networks affect the economic success of immigrants. Using longitudinal data of immigrants in Germany and including a large set of fixed effects and pre-migration controls to address the possible endogeneity of initial location, we find that immigrants in districts with larger co-ethnic networks are more likely to be employed soon after arrival. This advantage fades after four years, as migrants located in places with smaller co-ethnic networks catch up due to greater human capital investments. These effects appear stronger for lower-skilled immigrants, as well as for refugees and ethnic Germans. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we assess the impact of international migration and the induced homecare service labor supply shock on fertility decisions and the labor supply of native females in Germany. Specifically, we consider the individual data of native women from the German Socio-Economic Panel and merge them with data on the share of female immigrants and other regional labor market characteristics. We provide evidence that areas with a high share of female immigrants are more likely to provide a larger amount of services related to household care and lower prices for such services. By controlling for unobserved individual characteristics, we find that an increase at the local level in the share of female immigrants positively affects the probability of having a child, induces women to work longer hours (intensive margin of labor supply) and reduces the number of hours they spend performing family duties (intensive margin of home production). The negative change in household working hours supports the validity of our results. These effects become stronger for (medium-) skilled women. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper brings memory and migration studies together. It focuses on the way the past was used in the context of the 'refugee crisis' in Germany in 2015/2016. The analysis concentrates on how politicians and journalists used the memory of Germans' own migrations to legitimise rhetorically the political decision to open the borders and let more than a million people into the country, as well as to call for a welcoming attitude (Willkommenskultur) towards the refugees. It shows how, by doing so, they have contributed to the reframing of one of the founding identity narratives of the FRG, namely the one about 'flight and expulsion', and thus helped to redraw Germany's identity boundaries in a more inclusive way. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Politicians and media frequently invoke immigration threats to shape public opinion. But how do outgroup threat frames affect norms of citizenship, including behavior, liberal value commitments, and national belonging? This paper presents evidence from an embedded vignette survey experiment in three immigrant-receiving societies: United States, United Kingdom, and Germany. I find immigration threats are filtered through partisanship in polarized settings, and asymmetrically affect norms of "good citizenship" among individuals on the partisan left. However, we see variation within this group: Democrats (US) de-value norms of behavior, like voting and being informed, while Labor supports (UK) repudiate liberal norms like tolerance and rally around national belonging. By contrast, in Germany, we observe more consensus in citizenship norm responses. The strong effect of immigration threat framing on the partisan left brings our attention to the strategic use of immigration discourse to move traditionally sympathetic citizens away from democratic civic ideals. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper analyzes the policies for migrant economies as part of broader social and labor market in Germany. It points out that the current fragmented and contradictory policy action can be identified as an outcome of former ambiguities and the delegation of responsibilities within a complex governance grid. Accordingly, its focus is on the inter-related dynamics of policy interventions, knowledge production and the impact of migrant agency within cities. The paper gives a condensed overview on theory and background of migrant economies, pointing to de facto barriers that persist until today. It then concentrates on the way labor market policies in respect of migration were framed in public discourse. Its empirical focus is on the web of policies and instruments that have been directed towards migrant entrepreneurship. Here, in-built ambiguities of all actions are identified as a general feature of German labor market policies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The emergent crisis of affordable urban housing coupled with a sustained decline in internal migration rates in many Western countries warrants a thorough exploration of the relation between housing costs and internal migration. Although it is well established that housing is an important contextual determinant of migration flows, little attention has thus far been paid to the ways in which rising housing costs shape internal migration. In this paper, we use a time‐series of annual intercounty migration in Germany for the period 2004–2017 to examine the association between increasing housing prices and changes in internal migration flows. For this, we apply fixed effects Poisson panel regression models to migration flow tables. Our results show that regions with rising housing costs experience declining inflows. In larger cities, rising housing costs are also associated with increasing outflows. Our study provides new insights into the relationship between house price dynamics and internal migration. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the determinants of return migration as foreign-born men approach old age in Germany. Return migration in later life engages a different set of conditions from return migration earlier on, including the framing of return as a possible retirement strategy. Using 23 years of longitudinal data from the German Socioeconomic Panel, this paper investigates how social and economic resources of immigrant men influence decisions to return 'home.' Results suggest that immigrants from former guest worker recruitment countries within the European Union are more likely to return than non- EU immigrants. In addition, return migrants are 'negatively selected' so that those with the least education and weakest attachments to the labor force are more likely to emigrate. However, findings vary greatly depending on the immigrant's age and country of origin. Results from this paper highlight the heterogeneity of older immigrants and the factors that motivate their return 'home'. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents an investigation of the migration pattern of internationally mobile couples using data from the first wave of the German Emigration and Remigration Panel Study (GERPS). GERPS provides information on more than 5,000 couples from which at least one spouse has recently emigrated from Germany or has recently remigrated to Germany. The analyses are theoretically framed by the so‐called trailing wife hypothesis that suggests a clear, gender‐related migration pattern following traditional gender roles. Because most research deals with internal migration, we extend understanding of these topics by investigating international migration. The results of multinomial logistic regressions provide clear evidence for the trailing wife hypothesis but only with regard to couples' timing of emigration. In contrast, women have a higher propensity to become the leading spouse when it comes to remigration. These results contribute to the ongoing debate about tied movers and family‐related inequalities in migration. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Does local exposure to refugees increase right-wing support? This paper studies a case uniquely suited to address this question: the allocation of refugees to the rural hinterlands of eastern Germany during the European refugee crisis. Similar to non-urban regions elsewhere, the area has had minimal previous exposure to foreigners, but distinctively leans towards the political right. Our data comprise electoral outcomes, and individual-level survey and behavioral measures. A policy allocating refugees following strict administrative rules and a matching procedure allow for causal identification. Our measurements confirm the presence of widespread anti-immigrant sentiments. However, these are unaffected by the presence of refugees in respondents' hometowns: on average, we record null effects for all outcomes, which we interpret as supporting a sociotropic perspective on immigration attitudes. Masked by these overall null findings, we observe convergence: local exposure to refugees appears to have pulled both right- and left-leaning individuals more towards the center. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores trade union strategies to protect wages in the face of EU migration after the enlargement of the European Union. We argue that unions have three instruments at their disposal to deal with the risks linked to downward wage pressure: closure through immigration control, equalisation through collective bargaining and minimum wages, and the organisation of migrant workers. Using comparative case studies of Sweden, Germany and the UK, we show how different types of power resources shape union strategies: unions with substantial organisational resources (in Sweden) relied on a large membership to pursue an equalisation strategy and expected to be able to 'afford' openness. German unions with low membership but access to the political system pushed for a mix of closure and equality drawing on political intervention (e.g. minimum wages). British unions, unable to pursue either, focused their efforts on organisation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper deals with identification and analyses possible factors obstructing successful integration of several generations of Turkish migrants in Germany, based on the analysis of MIPEX model, as a unique specific index for the evaluation of migration integration policy based on its score. There are already 3 generations of Turks living in Germany and their full integration of Turks is not possible due to the existence of several problematic areas, including in particular: higher unemployment rate of immigrants in comparison to locals, xenophobic attitude of majority society and immigrants' lack of education. Therefore, Germany should put more emphasis on the improvement of integration measures, which ensure the most effective immigrants' integration into majority society. German government should focus more attention on the problems in education system for the young generation of Turks and other legal immigrants in the country. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper reviews seasonal migration from Poland to Germany from the perspective of gender. The main lenses used are the participation in this migration by individuals as members of families, the informal recruitment mechanisms that bring new migrants on board, and the legal environment. The paper argues that the selection of a migrant by the family depends importantly on the costs of migration for the family, and shows how this consideration bears on the choice of women as seasonal migrants. In addition, the paper argues that the patterns of recruitment are gender-specific, explains why women recruit new migrants in a manner which differs from that of men, and assesses the impact of the underlying legal environment on the differential participation of women and men. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Purpose -- This paper seeks to shed further light on the native-migrant differences in economic outcomes. The aim is to investigate labor market reintegration, patterns of job search, and reservation wages across unemployed migrants and natives in Germany. Design/methodology/approach -- The paper is based on the IZA Evaluation Dataset, a recently collected rich survey of a representative sample of entrants into unemployment in Germany. The data include a large number of migration variables, allowing us to adapt a recently developed concept of ethnic identity: the ethnosizer. The authors analyze these data using the OLS technique as well as probabilistic regression models. Findings -- The results indicate that separated migrants have a relatively slow reintegration into the labor market. It can be argued that this group exerts a relatively low search effort and that it has reservation wages which are moderate, yet still above the level which would imply similar employment probabilities as other groups of migrants. Research limitations/implications -- The findings indicate that special attention heeds to be paid by policy makers to various forms of social and cultural integration, as it has significant repercussions on matching in the labor market. Originality/value -- The paper identifies a previously unmapped relationship between ethnic identity and labor market outcomes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper contributes to the ongoing debate regarding the appropriate approach to use in identifying the impact of immigration on native workers' labor market outcomes. The initial regression analysis makes use of German administrative data and is based on the variation of foreign workers' shares within education-experience cells over time. It confirms previous findings suggesting that immigration in Germany had no adverse impact on native wages. However, the paper highlights that in Germany immigrants and natives with similar education and experience are likely to work in different occupations. The subsequent analysis based on occupational clustering uses the same data and finds significant adverse wage effects for natives, particularly for those in basic service occupations. The paper argues, therefore, that an identification strategy based on formal education characteristics might lead to biased estimates if a country's labor market is characterized by occupational segmentation of immigrants. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Nations with a predominantly ethno-cultural self-perception and citizenship based on jus sanguinis are under pressure today to adopt more civic-territorial ideas of nationhood, including elements of jus soli. Two nations experiencing these trends in Europe but have rarely been juxtaposed are Greece and Germany. Characteristic of both nations is a long reserved privileged access to citizenship and settlement assistance for co-ethnic immigrants from Eastern Europe and recently the Former Soviet Union. This article argues that changes to the way these privileged immigrant groups and their settlement are addressed should also reflect changes to the national idiom. The paper contrasts Greece to Germany and finds that, similarly to developments in its northern counterpart, Greek repatriates from the Former Soviet Union have been an important consequence of the ethnocultural idiom and reinforced it at times. In the new millennium these immigrants’ importance is diminishing in reality, if not on paper. The article concludes that in spite of this and the citizenship reform of 2010, the tendency to see the country as a culturally homogeneous nation is still fairly strong in Greece. The analysis draws on interviews with ‘repatriates’ in both countries and with national policy-makers inGreece, as well as on newspaper clippings, opinion polls and statistical data, complemented by leading scholarship in the field to date. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Public health researchers are increasingly encouraged to establish international collaborations and to undertake cross-national comparative studies. To-date relatively few such studies have addressed migration, ethnicity and health, but their number is growing. While it is clear that divergent approaches to such comparative research are emerging, public health researchers have not so far given considered attention to the opportunities and challenges presented by such work. This paper contributes to this debate by drawing on the experience of a recent study focused on maternal health in Canada, Germany and the UK. Discussion: The paper highlights various ways in which cross-national comparative research can potentially enhance the rigour and utility of research into migration, ethnicity and health, including by: forcing researchers to engage in both ideological and methodological critical reflexivity; raising awareness of the socially and historically embedded nature of concepts, methods and generated 'knowledge'; increasing appreciation of the need to situate analyses of health within the wider socio-political setting; helping researchers (and research users) to see familiar issues from new perspectives and find innovative solutions; encouraging researchers to move beyond fixed 'groups' and 'categories' to look at processes of identification, inclusion and exclusion; promoting a multi-level analysis of local, national and global influences on migrant/minority health; and enabling conceptual and methodological development through the exchange of ideas and experience between diverse research teams. At the same time, the paper alerts researchers to potential downsides, including: significant challenges to developing conceptual frameworks that are meaningful across contexts; a tendency to reify concepts and essentialise migrant/ minority 'groups' in an effort to harmonize across countries; a danger that analyses are superficial, being restricted to independent country descriptions rather than generating integrated insights; difficulties of balancing the need for meaningful findings at country level and more holistic products; and increased logistical complexity and costs. Summary: In view of these pros and cons, the paper encourages researchers to reflect more on the rationale for, feasibility and likely contribution of proposed cross-national comparative research that engages with migration, ethnicity and health and suggests some principles that could support such reflection. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose -- The purpose of this paper is to study the determinants of naturalization of non-EU immigrant household heads with a fresh look at the role of integration and ethnicity. Design/methodology/approach -- Employing data on immigrant household heads from the German Socioeconomic Panel differentiation is made among those who already have been naturalized, those who plan to take citizenship, and those who do not have citizenship and do not want it, using multinomial probit models. The subject scope includes literature on naturalization, ethnicity, and integration. Findings -- A robust finding is that German citizenship is very valuable to female immigrant household heads and the generally better educated, but not to those educated in Germany. The degree of integration into German society has a differential effect on citizenship acquisition. While a longer residence in Germany has a negative influence on actual or future naturalization, arriving at a younger age and having close German friends are strong indicators of a positive proclivity to citizenship acquisition. Likewise, ethnic origins and religion also influence these decisions. Muslim immigrants in Germany are more willing to become German citizens than non-Muslim immigrants, but there are also fewer German citizens among Muslims than among non-Muslims. Research limitations/implications -- Future research should also investigate the second-generation naturalization proclivities and those of illegals. Practical implications -- Allowing for dual citizenship helps generate more naturalizations among Muslims. Originality/value -- The paper provides a test of the relative importance of the integration approach in comparison with the ethnicity model; demonstrating that integration in German society has a stronger effect on naturalization than ethnic origin and religion. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

At the height of the migration crisis (between autumn 2015 and summer 2016), Germany's role in EU migration policy and EU-Turkey affairs went through a period of change. Searching for effective instruments, the German government attempted to lead European policies, managing the crisis first through an 'open door' approach and then through an agreement with Turkey. The notion of 'Merkel's migration deal' and a 'German Alleingang' became prominent in political, public and academic debate. With the aim of assessing whether or not these terms correctly describe Germany's role, this article unpacks the complex Ankara-Berlin-Brussels triangle. It examines how structural and institutional power influenced the German role. We argue that, under extreme time pressure, Germany took refuge in a constrained type of leadership. Positions of other EU member states and institutions, as well as domestic factors (social tension, public opinion and the rise of the far right) inhibited the leadership potential. Additionally, the paper elaborates on differences between the EU's internal and external crisis management. In external migration policy, German leadership took the form of a flexible 'institutional directoire', through which Germany successfully negotiated an EU-Turkey statement on migration, in consultation with EU institutions and selected national leaders. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, the 2015/16 budgetary effects of refugee immigration in Germany are analyzed. The Public sector spends billions of Euros to accommodate and supply refugees and to integrate those into the labor markets who have a perspective for a permanent or even medium-term residence permit. In case of a successful integration, we can expect flow backs in the form of income tax revenues and social security contributions. The costs and financial benefits of several types of refugees are modelled and – weighted with the number of cases – added to a public sector 'financial balance'. Financial 'profitability' depends on labor market integration, the volume of labor participation and the future income earned, which depends on qualification, education and training. The levels of government will experience diverging cost-benefit balances. They will only receive future flow backs in the form of their share in the income tax revenues if refugees find jobs within their territories. Administrative efforts should concentrate on a successful labor market integration of refugees and no longer continue the policy of preventing them from entering the labor market for many years and thereby making them heavily dependent on public transfer payments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper focuses on the entrepreneurial endeavours of immigrants' and natives in Germany, concentrating on Turks, Germany's largest immigrant group and one under-studied in the literature. Self-employed Turks in Germany represent about 70 per cent of all Turkish entrepreneurs in the European Union. We use data from the German Socio-economic Panel to study patterns of self-employment. First, we identify the characteristics of the self-employed individuals and understand their underlying drive into self-employment. Next we investigate how immigrant entrepreneurs fare in the labour market and compare their earnings to those of the natives. It is important for decision makers to understand entrepreneurial patterns so that they can shape policy that better fosters entrepreneurial activities. This paper presents several findings that can inform better policymaking. First, our investigation indicates that education is not decisive in determining whether one will choose self-employment over salaried work nor in explaining earnings. The estimated age-earnings profiles are the same for natives and immigrants, while the proclivity to become self-employed is concave with respect to age for both groups. Immigrants' start with a higher probability to work than natives but have a slower increase in the self-employment probabilities thereafter. The earnings of self-employed immigrants' are higher initially, but their earnings path crosses eventually that of the natives. Second, we find some suggestion of ethnic entrepreneurial spirit. Turks are 70 per cent more likely to be self-employed than any other immigrant group, although they do not necessarily earn more. These patterns should be further explored. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]