Earnings Assimilation of Post-reunification East German Migrants in West Germany

Regina Riphahn and Irakli Sauer ()
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Irakli Sauer: University of Erlangen-Nuremberg

No 17148, IZA Discussion Papers from Institute of Labor Economics (IZA)

Abstract: We investigate the wage assimilation of East Germans who migrated to West Germany after reunification (1990-1999). We compare their wage assimilation to that of ethnic German immigrants from Eastern Bloc countries and international immigrants to West Germany who arrived at the same time. The analysis uses administrative as well as survey data. The results suggest that East Germans faced significant initial earnings disadvantages in West Germany, even conditional on age and education. However, these disadvantages were smaller than those of international immigrants, supporting the beneficial role of cultural similarity. The earnings gap relative to West German natives narrowed over time for all immigrants. These findings are robust to controlling for potentially endogenous return migration and labor force participation. Controls for fixed effects reveal that positive assimilation for East German and international immigrants was concentrated among highly educated immigrants.

Keywords: Germany; earnings assimilation; internal migration; labor market integration; migration; cultural similarity; reunification (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: F15 J31 J61 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 57 pages
Date: 2024-07
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-his, nep-lab, nep-mig and nep-ure
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Published - published in: Labour, 2024, 38 (4), 475-510

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Working Paper: Earnings Assimilation of Post-Reunification East German Migrants in West Germany (2024)
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