Comparing Labor Market Participation Rates of Ethnic Populations with Innovative Administrative Data for Migration Studies

Abstract

The integration of different ethnic groups into the labour market is a crucial issue, as high labor participation rates guarantee the accumulation of human capital and support the continuous integration in societies. In Germany, unfortunately, the availability of detailed data sources on migration is limited. Due to the fact that transnational attributes are classified as sensitive information with high disclosure risks, public use files usually do not contain the relevant information. Thus, researchers often have to apply for restricted data access in order to study migration topics. One of these data files was recently developed within the grant “Biographical Data of Selected Social Insurance Agencies in Germany (BASiD)”. Because it makes it possible to distinguish between Germans, foreigners, naturalized citizens, and ethnic German immigrants, the new dataset offers unique opportunities for analyses in the field of migration. Using this data source, our analysis of employment rates from 1965 to 2007 has shown, among other things, that ethnic Germans have about the same level of employment as Germans, while immigrants lag significantly behind. Our article demonstrates how BASiD enables analyses of difficulties, characteristics, and resources of immigrants in general and transmigrants in particular.