Immigrants In Germany Research Articles

Intergenerational transmission of health disparities among Turkish-origin immigrants in Germany: study protocol of a multi-centric cohort study (BaBi-stress and BaBeK study)

BackgroundImmigrants in Germany exhibit higher levels of social disadvantage when compared to the non-immigrated population. Turkish-origin immigrants constitute an important immigrant group in Germany and show disparities in some health domains that are evident from birth onwards. Several studies have shown the mechanisms by which social disadvantage is biologically embedded to affect health over the lifespan. Relatively little, however, is still known about if and how the maternal social situation is transmitted to the next generation. This study therefore aims to analyse the effects of maternal socioeconomic status and migration status on stress-related maternal-placental-fetal (MPF) biological processes during pregnancy on infant birth and health outcomes.MethodsThis longitudinal cohort study of N = 144 child-mother dyads is located at two study sites in Germany and includes pregnant women of Turkish origin living in Germany as well as pregnant German women. During pregnancy, MPF stress biology markers from maternal blood and saliva samples, maternal socio-economic and migration-related information, medical risk variables and psychological well-being are assessed. After birth, infant anthropometric measures and developmental outcomes are assessed. The same measures will be assessed in and compared to Turkish pregnant women based on a collaboration with BABIP study in Istanbul.DiscussionThis is the first study on intergenerational transmission of health disparities in Germany with a focus on women of Turkish-origin. The study faces similar risks of bias as other birth cohorts do. The study has implemented various measures, e.g. culturally sensitive recruitment strategies, attempt to recruit and follow-up as many pregnant women as possible independent of their social or cultural background. Nevertheless, the response rate among lower-educated families is lower. The possibility to compare results with a cohort from Turkey is a strength of this study. However, starting at different times and with slightly different recruitment strategies and designs may result in cohort effects and may affect comparability of the sub-cohorts.Trial registrationN.A. (Observational study, no clinical trial, no interventions on human participants).

The German Version of the Multidimensional Acculturative Stress Inventory (MASI) for Turkish-Origin Immigrants

Abstract. The Multidimensional Acculturative Stress Inventory (MASI) is an established measure of acculturative stress for people of Mexican origin living in the USA that has been associated with mental health outcomes in this population. We translated the MASI into German and adapted it for use with Turkish-origin immigrants in Germany. The MASI includes filter questions asking if a potentially stressful event had actually occurred before reporting the stress appraisal of these situations. Measurement invariance testing has become a standard practice to evaluate questionnaire translations, however, measurement invariance of filter questions has been scarcely studied. In Study 1, we evaluated measurement invariance of the filter questions between a German-based Turkish sample ( N = 233) and the Mexican-origin sample from the original study ( N = 174) and could show partial strong factorial invariance for three of the four factors. In Study 2, a validation study, relations between the German MASI scores and measures of acculturation and stress indicated discriminant validity. This study contributes to research on measurement invariance of filter questions, thereby providing a measure of acculturative stress that can be used in future research to understand the etiology of health disparities in Turkish-origin immigrants in Germany.

The Role of Information Provision for Attitudes Towards Immigration: An Experimental Investigation

We conduct a survey experiment on the effect of information provision on attitudes towards immigration in Germany. The focus lies on two theory-based economic channels, labor market and welfare state concerns, and immigration policy preferences. Using probability-based representative survey data, we experimentally vary the quantity and the type of information provided to respondents. We find that a bundle of information on both the share and the unemployment rate of foreigners robustly decreases welfare state concerns about immigration. There are slightly less pronounced effects on the labor market and policy channels. Further data-driven analyses reveal heterogeneity in treatment effects. Our findings therefore suggest that careful composition and targeting of information interventions can increase their effectiveness in the public debate on immigration.

Postdramatic Theatre and Form ed. by Michael Shane, Matt Cornish, and Brandon Woolf

Reviewed by: Postdramatic Theatre and Form ed. by Michael Shane, Matt Cornish, and Brandon Woolf Peter A. Campbell Postdramatic Theatre and Form. Edited by Michael Shane Boyle, Matt Cornish, and Brandon Woolf. Bloomsbury Methuen Drama, 2019. Cloth $144.00, Paper $53.99, eBook $114.20. 266 pages. 10 illustrations. Since its publication in 1999, Hans-Thies Lehmann's Postdramatic Theatre has become a critical site for discussion of contemporary theatre and performance, and the "postdramatic" has become a catch-all for a certain kind of experimental performance work that subverts traditional expectations of dramatic form and theatrical space. This new edited collection, Postdramatic Theatre and Form, includes contributions from an impressive selection of scholars from the United States and Europe, and serves as a critical retrospective on Lehmann's now twenty-year-old monograph as it focuses on the ways that the postdramatic relates to form. [End Page 159] The introduction by editors Michael Shane Boyle, Matt Cornish, and Brandon Woolf begins with the proposition that the study of theatrical form is "the simultaneous entwinement of the overlapping social mediations that give shape to theatre, and which theatre shapes in turn" (1). The chapters that follow demonstrate the efficacy of this approach as the contributing authors embrace contextual readings of both Lehmann and the works discussed in the terms of the postdramatic. The most compelling critique of Lehmann comes in Ryan Anthony Hatch's chapter midway through the collection, "Galleries: Resituating the Postdramatic Real." Hatch argues that Lehmann's "text suffers from an impoverished conception of the real" (133). He takes Lehmann's phrase "the irruption of the real" to task for its acontextual usage, arguing that the Lacanian origins of the phrase suggest that in any aesthetic event there is nothing outside of semblance—the "real" could only be the result of an accident, not a planned part of a performance. Similarly, Nicholas Ridout, in his chapter "Media: Intermission," uses Fredric Jameson's analysis of late capitalism to highlight Lehmann's observations of the role of media in everyday life. Ridout argues that Lehmann's highlighting of "interrupting" drama or theatre is not necessarily an "irruption" because it is already built into the modern versions of the form. As with Jameson's postmodern, there is no way outside, whether as a viewer of theatre or of a piece of video art. These formal analyses nicely complement the skeptical approaches to using "postdramatic" as a descriptive term for certain types of theatre and performance. Most chapters use the term to problematize methodologies that would valorize "experimental" theatre, instead analyzing the inherent complexities of attempts to create performances that do not rely on the world-building that often characterizes the theatrical production of dramatic texts. In her chapter, "Space: Postdramatic Geography in Post-Collapse Seattle," Jasmine Mahmoud examines Implied Violence, an experimental theatre collective that staged site-specific work in Great Recession-era Seattle, to interrogate the ways that performances and their aesthetics can depend on geography and real estate. For Mahmoud, the "post" in postdramatic refers to theatre that finds alternate spaces in part because of economic opportunity, or the lack thereof. Likewise, in "Festival: Conventional Disruption, or, Why Ann Liv Young Ruined Rebecca Patek's Show," Andrew Freidman shares a lively analysis of events at the American Realness Festival in New York City in 2014 that focuses not only on the art and the artists but on the institutional and economic structures that legitimize so-called postdramatic work. Matt Cornish, in turn, provides a valuable object lesson in the inherent privilege of much postdramatic theatre, and the different valorizations of dramatic form in the migrant theatres of contemporary Berlin. In his chapter "Migration: Common and Uncommon Grounds," he shows how the postdramatic, when institutionalized, can prevent marginalized populations like Turkish immigrants in Germany from using their stories to achieve certain kinds of political identity and power. [End Page 160] The discussion of the postdramatic also moves into the process of making theatre and performance. Kate Bredeson analyzes contemporary French theatres that emphasize scenography and landscape over drama and dialogue. Edith Cassiers, Timmy De Laet, and Luk Van den Dries explore the directing notebooks of Romeo Castellucci and Guy Cassiers...

Wachsende migrationsbezogene Ungleichheit durch technologischen und sektoralen Wandel ?

Die Arbeitsmarktposition türkischer Migrant*innen in Westdeutschland zwischen 1976 und 2013 Bei aktuellen Debatten um strukturelle Veränderungen des deutschen Arbeitsmarkts im Zuge des technologischen Wandels wird selten auf die Situation von Migrant*innen eingegangen. Vor diesem Hintergrund beschäftigt sich der Beitrag mit den Auswirkungen des strukturellen Wandels der deutschen Wirtschaft auf die Arbeitsmarktintegration von türkischen Migrant*innen. Die Autoren werten dazu Daten der Mikrozensus von 1976 bis 2013 aus und vergleichen Arbeitsmarktindikatoren von Deutschen und türkischen Migrant*innen der ersten Generation. Die Ergebnisse zeigen, dass bestehende Differenzen in der Qualifikationsstruktur durch die Bildungsexpansion im Zeitverlauf zugenommen haben, während mit dem Übergang in einen dienstleistungsdominierten Arbeitsmarkt die Bedeutung formaler Abschlüsse wuchs. Damit verbunden sanken die Erwerbschancen, Berufspositionen und Einkommen besonders von männlichen türkischen Migranten im Vergleich zu deutschen Personen. Entgegen den Prognosen klassischer Theorien glichen sich die Arbeitsmarktchancen von Migrant*innen nicht mit der Aufenthaltsdauer an ; vielmehr hat der sektorale Wandel des Arbeitsmarkts Nachteile von türkischen Migrant*innen der ersten Generation verstärkt.

Wage Performance of Immigrants in Germany

AbstractThis paper updates and deepens our understanding of the wage performance of immigrants in Germany. Using the German Socio-Economic Panel, it documents that immigrant workers initially earn on average 20% less than native workers with otherwise identical characteristics. The gap is smaller for immigrants from advanced countries, with good German language skills, and with a German degree, and larger for others. The gap declines gradually over time but at a decreasing rate and much faster for more recent cohorts. Less success in obtaining jobs with higher occupational autonomy explains half of the wage gap.

Mental health among immigrants in Germany \u2013 the impact of self-attribution and attribution by others as an immigrant

BackgroundIn Germany, the term ‘migration background’ has been established to differentiate between immigrants and natives. In the present study post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), anxiety, and depression were analysed in immigrant populations in Germany by considering self-attribution as well as attribution by others on one’s own ‘migration background’.MethodsIn a population-based survey (N = 2317), socio-demographic characteristics, migration background (official statistics definition vs. self-attribution as well as the anticipated attribution by others), PTSD (PCL-5), and symptoms of anxiety and depression (PHQ-4) were assessed. Logistic regression models were applied to predict mental health outcomes by considering socio-demographic and immigration-related factors.ResultsA total of 10.7% of respondents (N = 248) had a ‘migration background’. Immigrants of the 2nd generation compared to 1st generation immigrants are less likely to see themselves as immigrants. Attribution as an immigrant (self and/or by others) was found as significant predictor for PTSD and depression, but not anxiety.ConclusionsIt seems useful to focus on immigration-related factors considering subjective perspectives and not only comparing immigrants and natives using a federal statistics definition. Our findings suggest that research on the association between immigration-related factors such as attribution as an immigrant and mental health outcomes might be a promising approach to better identify subgroups at higher risk of mental distress.

Concerns regarding immigration in Germany: how subjective fears, becoming unemployed and social mobility change anti-immigrant attitudes

ABSTRACT This article analyzes how anti-immigrant attitudes shift when individuals experience changes in their subjective and objective economic situations. To do this, we use data from the German Socio-Economic Panel Study (GSOEP, N ≈ 14,700) and apply fixed-effects multinomial logit panel regression models as a statistical framework. The social identity approach is applied as a theoretical perspective to explain how individual incidents can lead to group-based devaluations. Our findings show almost no effect of social mobility and shifts in the household income, while more disruptive events, such as becoming unemployed, significantly increase the probability of having stronger anti-immigrant attitudes. However, the largest shift in anti-immigrant attitudes is observed when fears of a worsening economic situation increase.

The Integration of Refugees in Germany: Intergovernmental Aspects of Public Sector Costs and Benefits

ABSTRACTIn 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.

Evidence for stereotype accommodation as an expression of immigrants’ socio-cognitive adaptation

Through intercultural contact, immigrants can change the stereotypes they had previously held about the majority ethnic group in their host cultures. Other undocumented processes of socio-cognitive adaptation following migration are also possible; immigrants’ preexisting stereotypes about social groups (e.g., politicians, older people), for example, may change because of host-cultural learning. This article examines the stereotype accommodation hypothesis, which states that differences in cultural stereotypes between immigrants’ host and origin cultures are a source of inconsistent stereotype-relevant information that immigrants may or may not incorporate into their preexisting beliefs. Support for this hypothesis is found in two studies of locals in Romania, Germany, and France (N = 532), and Romanian immigrants in Germany and in France (N = 225). Length of stay in the host culture and acculturation orientation predict the stereotype accommodation regarding politicians, the only social group for which stereotypes substantially differ between origin and host cultures. The results represent the first step in a research agenda for studying migrants’ socio-cognitive adaptation beyond the question of inter-ethnic stereotype change. The article thus discusses future avenues for the study of behavior and discrimination from the perspective of immigrants as agentic individuals.

First-generation circular migrants involved in the upbringing of their grandchildren: the case of Turkish immigrants in Germany

AbstractFollowing retirement, older immigrants increasingly tend to engage in circular migration. This back-and-forth movement introduces a variety of challenges affecting the nature of grandparenthood as well as grandparental involvement in the upbringing of grandchildren. For circular migrant grandparents, maintaining intergenerational relationships requires them to overcome not only geographic distances, but also linguistic and cultural differences. In families with circular migrant grandparents, intergenerational conflict often springs from disparate generational exposure to acculturation processes, producing divergent aspirations within the first and second generations regarding the upbringing of the third generation. This study explores how first-generation Turkish circular migrant grandparents attempt to raise grandchildren who reside in Germany by implementing ‘cultural and instrumental transfers’. This study undertakes a qualitative approach: semi-structured interviews with a purposive sample of first-generation Turkish circular migrant grandparents (N = 40). The analysis finds that child-care assistance is characterised by intergenerational conflict – rather than solidarity or altruistic support – between the first and second generations. Moreover, through transnational arranged marriages, as a cultural transfer, andinter vivosgifts, as an instrumental transfer, grandparents encourage their grandchildren to return to Turkey permanently.

Comparison of Social anxiety levels of Turks in Turkey and Turkish immigrants in Germany: A Social Media Study

Comparison of Social anxiety levels of Turks in Turkey and Turkish immigrants in Germany: A Social Media Study

Muslim doctors in Catholic hospitals: a challenge for the Christian profile?

Abstract This work won the IGGS Research Award 2018. It was published in 2018 as: "Christliches Profil und muslimisches Personal. Katholische und muslimische Ärzte in Caritas-Krankenhäusern" by Kohlhammer, Stuttgart. The increased immigration in Germany since 1949 has resulted in around four million Muslims settling there. Some of them are employed by churches, particularly as doctors in Catholic hospitals. At the same time, church leaders are demanding a clear, recognisable Christian profile for these institutions. What does this mean and what are the resulting challenges for the Christian profile with regard to a Muslim workforce? These highly topical and hitherto scientifically unanswered questions have been addressed in a qualitative study, in which the answers of six Catholic and six Muslim physicians with different medical specialisations in different Caritas hospitals are assigned to the categories of the three-level-model of the Christian profile. Among other things, the evaluations lead to the following result: Neither the coexistence of Catholic and Muslim physicians nor the headscarves of Muslim women prove to be a challenge in hospitals. It is rather framework conditions in the healthcare system that create problems and conflict with Christian requirements. One of the final recommendations is therefore that the people responsible for the framework provide conditions in which Catholic and Muslim physicians can credibly fulfil the requirements of the Christian mission. The results of the study also illustrate the necessity for a constant thematisation of the Christian foundation of faith as well as of church employment law. Therefore, physicians are able to understand, support and discuss Christian ideas on norms and morals as well as church framework requirements.

Making It Relevant: Qualitative Inquiry in the Public Sphere Focusing End-of-Life Care and Migration

Qualitative inquiry in the public sphere is discussed with a study concerning intercultural palliative care. For the case of Russian-speaking immigrants in Germany, language problems in care are analyzed as an issue of organizational ethics. Interviews with this target group originally addressing barriers of access to professional care are reanalyzed for the roles of language, limited language skills, and the lack of professional translation in care. The focus is on ethical implications for organizing services and the health care system planned for organizational justice for all groups in a diversifying society. Findings are discussed with Burawoy’s concept of a public sociology.

Natives' and Immigrants' Gender Preferences for Children in Germany.

Little research has been conducted yet investigating gender preferences among immigrant parents in Western host countries. We add further empirical evidence to this sparse literature by analyzing pooled micro-census data for the years 2005-2013 from Germany. Next to updating earlier findings on the native population, we assess parental gender preferences in two large and culturally distinct groups of immigrants in Germany, namely those with Turkish and Polish origins. Our analysis indicates both daughter and son preferences in contemporary Germany and supports the notion of potentially changing gender preferences within ethnic groups over time as well as continuous differences between ethnic groups of natives and immigrants in Western societies. Whereas the observed differences between natives and immigrants suggest incomplete cultural assimilation with regard to gender- and family-related attitudes and values, they barely contribute to explaining differential fertility behaviors, as effects sizes tend to be fairly similar across groups.

Migration and Participation in Adult Education: The Matthew Effect on Immigrants

The Matthew Effect has been one of the best known principles in adult education, implying that the ones who have more formal education at earlier phases of life participate more in education in adulthood. This qualitative research explores how the Matthew Effect works under migration, focusing on the experiences of the Turkish immigrants in Germany. The documentary analyses of the narrative interviews in the study reveal that the Matthew Effect among immigrants works depending on the formation of the immigrant habitus. The factors to mediate the making of the immigrant habitus are social and cultural capital, gender, the hysteresis effect, and affections such as expectations from the host society, biographical regrets, and the sense of belonging to the collective identity of the immigrants.

The Evolution of Immigrants’ Homeownership in Germany

AbstractRecently, the homeownership rate of immigrants in Germany has increased by more than 20 percentage points. To shed light on this sharp rise, this paper investigates the driving forces of the trend in the homeownership rate of immigrant households in Germany between 1996 to 2005 and 2001 to 2011 using a probit-based non-linear decomposition method. Empirical findings suggest that 50 % of the change in immigrants’ homeownership rate within the first time period can be explained by characteristics such as age and educational attainment. In the second time period, the explanatory power of characteristics is almost zero, indicating that it is rather the favorable economic and institutional environment as well as changes in immigrants’ tenure choice process that contributed to the substantial increase in immigrants’ homeownership rate in Germany. We additionally find that housing quality of immigrant homeowners has slightly improved as well, but that there is still a substantial nativity gap in housing quality among tenants as well as among owners.

Mental Health of Spanish Immigrants in Germany and the UK in Comparison to Non-Immigrants and Migration Protective Factors

The global economic crisis of the previous decade has accelerated internal mobility in the European Union. The main objective was to analyse perceived stress and mental health among Spanish immigrants and non-immigrants, as well as gender differences, and to examine the mediation role of perceived stress in the relationship between migration protective factors and mental health. A convenience sample (N = 941) was obtained by snowball sampling, contacting with social networks during 2014 and 2015. Spanish immigrants (n = 719) living in Germany or United Kingdom and non-immigrants (n = 222) living in Spain answered an online survey with a questionnaire about socio-demographic and migration variables (immigrants) as well as PSS-14 and GQH-28. The low level of perceived stress and mental health symptoms found were similar in Spanish immigrants and non-immigrants. Women immigrants presented slightly higher rates of prevalence of somatisation and anxiety/insomnia and higher perceived stress. A parsimonious structural equation model with two protective migration factors was obtained (R2 = .58), which had direct and indirect effects on mental health through perceived stress. The migration process was not related to poorer mental health in the European context, and gender differences were small. These findings could be explained by the privileged migration conditions of Spanish immigrants.

Aspirations and Job Success of Highly Qualified Second Generation Iranians in Germany

This study pioneers the quantitative research of second generation Iranian graduates in Germany. Second generation immigrants in Germany, immigrants raised in Germany with at least one parent born abroad, are relevant as they are a crucial part of German society. Second generation immigrants in general as well as Iranians in particular are assumed to have high extrinsic aspirations. But a dataset big enough to study the employment situation of second generation Iranian graduates in Germany did not exist. Therefore, the article uses the KOAB dataset from 2011 to 2015, which contains data from 53,429 full-time employed higher education graduates in Germany (among those are 161 second generation Iranians). Their extrinsic job aspirations and career success (income, job satisfaction) are analyzed. Multivariate analyses reveal the higher extrinsic job aspirations of second generation Iranian graduates compared to many other migrant groups and Germans but similar to second generation Turkish graduates. Nevertheless, the extrinsic job aspiration is relevant, though only one factor among others to predict career success.

Stigma of Mental Illness in Germans and Turkish Immigrants in Germany: The Effect of Causal Beliefs.

Background: Stigma poses an additional burden for people suffering from mental illness, one that often impairs their social participation and can prevent them from seeking adequate help. It is therefore crucial to understand how stigma develops in order to counteract it by setting up effective evidence-based anti-stigma interventions. The present study examines the effect of causal beliefs on stigmatizing behavioral intentions, namely people's desire to distance themselves from persons with mental illness. In addition, we draw cross-cultural comparisons between native Germans and Turkish immigrants to investigate the influence of culture on stigma and causal beliefs and to broaden knowledge on the biggest immigrant group in Germany and on immigrants in Western countries in general.Methods: n = 302 native Germans and n = 173 Turkish immigrants were presented either a depression or a schizophrenia vignette. Then, causal beliefs, emotional reaction and desire for social distance were assessed with questionnaires. Path analyses were carried out to investigate the influence of causal beliefs on the desire for social distance and their mediation by emotional reactions for Germans and Turkish immigrants, respectively.Results: We found an influence of causal beliefs on the desire for social distance. Emotional reactions partly mediated this relationship. Causal attribution patterns as well as the relationship between causal attributions and stigma varied across both subsamples and mental illnesses. In the German subsample, the ascription of unfavorable personal traits resulted in more stigma. In the Turkish immigrant subsample, supernatural causal beliefs increased stigma while attribution to current stress reduced stigma.Conclusion: Our study has implications for future anti-stigma interventions that intend to reduce stigmatization of mentally ill people. Targeting the ascription of unfavorable personal traits and supernatural causal attributions as well as promoting current stress as the cause for mental illness appears to be of particular importance. Also, the mediating influence of emotional responses to causal beliefs needs to be addressed. Furthermore, differential interventions across cultural groups and specific mental illnesses may be appropriate.