IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/iza/izadps/dp125.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

The Income Portfolio of Immigrants in Germany - Effects of Ethnic Origin and Assimilation Or: Who Gains from Income Re-Distribution?

Author

Listed:
  • Büchel, Felix

    (Max Planck Institute for Human Development)

  • Frick, Joachim R.

    (DIW Berlin)

Abstract

This paper deals with the economic performance of various population groups in Germany giving special attention to ethnic origin of immigrants as compared to the native born German population. In addition, winners and losers of the re-distribution process, induced by the tax and social security system, are identified. This is done by considering different components of market and non-market income as well as taxes and social security contributions. This income portfolio analysis is based on data from the German Socio-Economic Panel covering the observation years 1995 to 1997. Population subgroups are made up of West Germans, East Germans, and immigrants; the latter being split into Ethnic Migrants (Aussiedler) and foreigners. Immigrants are differentiated according to their state of assimilation: those immigrants living together with a native born adult German ("mixed" immigrants) and others ("pure" immigrants). In order to control for any retirement related impact we run all analyses for the total population as well as for those who live in households with a head of prime age. Our results show that immigrants are a very heterogeneous group with respect to their economic performance. The well-assimilated "mixed" immigrants have an even better relative income position than the autochthonous West German population. In general, we confirm the well-known poor market performance of immigrants. However, also immigrants´ non-market incomes are atypically low (except for those of "pure" Aussiedler), mainly due to their age structure, resulting in lower eligibility for and receipt of old age pensions. Non-market incomes of younger immigrants are somewhat higher than those of the autochthonous West German population, but still much lower when compared to the East German population. Analyzing the re-distribution effect caused by public transfers, old age pensions, and tax and social security contributions, we find that immigrants as a whole are (slightly) net payers. Again, "pure" Aussiedler are an exception. When focusing only on younger people, the situation is reversed, and immigrants profit slightly. This is due to above average non-market income of "pure" immigrants. However, East Germans are still much better off. The question which remains to be answered is whether these differences stem from an immigrant specific effect per se or whether they are influenced by underlying social structure differences. Using random-effects models to control for various socio-economic measures, we find that non-German immigrants remain net payers. In addition, immigrants’ need of being subsidized by the re-distribution process rapidly and strongly decreases with progressing duration of stay in Germany. On the other hand, the subgroups substantially profiting from the re-distribution process are "pure" Aussiedler and East Germans. This means --at least in our static "snapshot" analysis-- that the "classic" immigrants (of non-German nationality) are no economic burden to the autochthonous population.

Suggested Citation

  • Büchel, Felix & Frick, Joachim R., 2000. "The Income Portfolio of Immigrants in Germany - Effects of Ethnic Origin and Assimilation Or: Who Gains from Income Re-Distribution?," IZA Discussion Papers 125, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
  • Handle: RePEc:iza:izadps:dp125
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://docs.iza.org/dp125.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Murat G. Kirdar, 2012. "Estimating The Impact Of Immigrants On The Host Country Social Security System When Return Migration Is An Endogenous Choice," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 53(2), pages 453-486, May.
    2. Constant, Amelie F. & Gataullina, Liliya & Zimmermann, Klaus F., 2006. "Gender, Ethnic Identity and Work," IZA Discussion Papers 2420, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    3. Eileen Trzcinski, 2006. "Integration of immigrant mothers in Germany: policy issues and empirical outcomes," Population Research and Policy Review, Springer;Southern Demographic Association (SDA), vol. 25(5), pages 489-512, December.
    4. Murat G. Kirdar, 2005. "Return Migration and Saving Behavior of Foreign Workers in Germany," ERC Working Papers 0506, ERC - Economic Research Center, Middle East Technical University, revised Nov 2005.
    5. Jonathan Levie, 2007. "Immigration, In-Migration, Ethnicity and Entrepreneurship in the United Kingdom," Small Business Economics, Springer, vol. 28(2), pages 143-169, March.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    income re-distribution; Immigration; migration policy; income;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • J61 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Mobility, Unemployment, Vacancies, and Immigrant Workers - - - Geographic Labor Mobility; Immigrant Workers
    • J15 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demographic Economics - - - Economics of Minorities, Races, Indigenous Peoples, and Immigrants; Non-labor Discrimination
    • J18 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demographic Economics - - - Public Policy
    • D31 - Microeconomics - - Distribution - - - Personal Income and Wealth Distribution

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:iza:izadps:dp125. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Holger Hinte (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/izaaade.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.