Earnings Assimilation of Immigrants in Germany: The Importance of Heterogeneity and Attrition Bias

Michael Fertig and Stefanie Schurer

No 30, SOEPpapers on Multidisciplinary Panel Data Research from DIW Berlin, The German Socio-Economic Panel (SOEP)

Abstract: Heterogeneity in the ethnic composition of Germany's immigrant population renders general conclusions on the degree of economic integration difficult. Using a rich longitudinal data-set, this paper tests for differences in economic assimilation profiles of four entry cohorts of foreign-born immigrants and ethnic Germans. The importance of time-invariant individual unobserved heterogeneity and panel attrition in determining the speed of assimilation is analysed. We find evidence for heterogeneity in the assimilation profiles and for robust assimilation profiles for two entry cohorts only. Omitted variables, systematic sample attrition and the presence of second generation immigrants in the sample influence the speed of assimilation, but do not change the overall picture.

Keywords: Unobserved heterogeneity; panel attrition; sample selection; fixed effects; migration (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C23 I12 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 39 p.
Date: 2007
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-mig
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (36)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.diw.de/documents/publikationen/73/diw_01.c.61960.de/diw_sp0030.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:diw:diwsop:diw_sp30

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in SOEPpapers on Multidisciplinary Panel Data Research from DIW Berlin, The German Socio-Economic Panel (SOEP) Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Bibliothek ().