Immigrant Men’s Economic Adaptation in Changing Labor Markets: Why Gaps between Turkish and German Men Expanded, 1976–2015

Abstract

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.