Immigration into Germany from the Former Soviet Union

Abstract

This chapter focuses on migrants from the former Soviet Union in Germany. First, the different phases of the immigration history of the Federal Republic of Germany are illustrated. Among them, the wave of immigration from the successor states of the Soviet Union is a very important one. In the second section, this study sheds light on the social and demographic characteristics of the various migrant groups living in Germany. The key issue of this chapter is to examine how well migrants from the former Soviet Union have integrated “structurally”, i.e., how well they perform in the educational system and in the labor market. The first key finding is that migrants from the former Soviet Union face, like all migrant groups, disadvantages in most indicators compared to the native population. Most of the disadvantages are stable even when important background variables are controlled. While migrants from the successor states rarely perform best compared to other migrant groups, they are never the group with the biggest disadvantages. In summary it can be stated that migrants from the former Soviet Union are quite well integrated compared to other migrants. That could be why they are rarely the focus of public debate which is often driven by problems concerning integration.