Enduring Inequality: The Second Generation in the German Labor Market

Renee Luthra, University of California, Los Angeles

A central question in the study of migration, ethnicity, and social stratification is whether the children of immigrants will successfully integrate into the labor market of their receiving society. Exploiting the 2005 Mikrozensus, the first dataset to allow the full disaggregation of different immigrant origin groups in Germany, this paper examines the effect of context of reception, citizenship, and intermarriage on the labor force participation, employment, and occupational status of the children of immigrants in Germany. Most second generation men have much higher unemployment, and lower occupational status scores, than native Germans, even after controlling for human capital. Disadvantage is less pronounced among second generation women. Although second generation women benefit from a positive context of reception, citizenship, and intermarriage, second generation men do not. These findings suggest important variation across and within immigrant origin groups, as well as gender differences, in second generation labor market integration.