Comparison
Immigrants earn less over generations
A study compares the income of immigrants and locals in several countries. Especially access to better jobs makes the difference.
In Germany, immigrants receive significantly lower incomes than locals. This also applies to eight other countries, as an international study on behalf of the specialist journal “Nature” with the participation of researchers from the Nuremberg Institute for Labor Market and Vocational Research (IAB). These are Canada, Denmark, France, Netherlands, Norway, Spain, Sweden and the USA. Several of the other countries close the wage gap in the second generation of immigrants faster than Germany.
Immigrants earn an average of 19.6 percent less
In Germany, the first generation of income is 19.6 percent. The main reason for the deficit is not in unequal payment with the same activity, but in limited access to better paid industries, professions and companies. This is crucial for three quarters of the wage difference. A total of 13.5 million immigrants and local workers were analyzed in nine countries for the study.
Remove access barriers
“Integration is not just about the same wages for the same work. The main thing is to reduce structural access barriers to well -paid employment areas,” said the study author of the study, Malte Reichelt, from IAB. Language promotion, recognition of foreign degrees, expansion of professional networks and better information transfer are important in order to reduce structural barriers.
In Germany, there is also a wage gap in the second generation of immigrants – it is an average of 7.7 percent. Although this difference is less than with the generation of parents, the descendants of people from Africa and the Middle East are still disadvantaged.
Second generation wage differences
In international comparison, a different degree is shown. The largest wage gaps in the first generation were found in Spain with 29.3 percent and Canada with 27.5 percent, followed by Norway with 20.3 percent, Germany with 19.6 percent, France with 18.9 percent and the Netherlands with 15.4 percent. The differences in the USA with 10.6 percent, Denmark with 9.2 percent and Sweden with 7 percent were significantly lower. There are also differences in income for the second generation – on average, the wage gap here is 5.7 percent. Germany is therefore above average here. The second generation in Norway is greatest with 8.7 percent, the lowest in Canada with 1.9 percent.
dpa
Source: Stern
