Interlinked Transitions: Partnership Formation and Labour Market Entry among Young Male Refugees in Germany

While research on refugees’ labour market integration is flourishing, research on partnership formation among forcibly displaced individuals in receiving countries remains fragmented. Yet for young refugees, partnership formation and labour market entry are key transitions to adulthood that often unfold under heightened uncertainty, including precarious legal status, limited transferability of skills, and restricted pools of co-ethnic partners. Understanding how these transitions interrelate is therefore central to research on refugee integration.

This talk examines the interplay between partnership formation and labour market integration among Syrian and Afghan male refugees who arrived in Germany during the 2015/16 refugee migration. Recent research by Bauer and Kogan (2006) shows that these refugees are more likely to be married than most other resident minority groups in Germany. Their marital partners are predominantly co-national, whereas German partners are relatively more common in non-marital unions. We ask how partnership trajectories are related to labour market trajectories and, in particular, whether earlier labour market integration predicts subsequent partnership outcomes and vice versa.

We use two waves of the PARFORM (Partnership Formation in the Context of Recent Refugee Migration) panel study, covering male Syrian and Afghan refugees aged 21–35 in 2022–2024 who arrived in Germany during the 2015/16 influx. Labour market integration is measured by employment status and occupational status (professional, managerial, or technical versus other occupations). Partnership outcomes capture whether respondents have a partner and, among partnered respondents, whether their female partner is German without a migration background or co-national. We examine reciprocal prospective associations between labour market and partnership outcomes using two-wave cross-lagged structural equation models.

Preliminary results indicate that employment at Wave 1 is associated with a higher likelihood of being partnered at Wave 2. Lower occupational status at Wave 1 is also associated with a slightly lower likelihood of having a German-origin partner at Wave 2. In the reverse direction, being partnered at Wave 1 is not associated with subsequent employment but is positively associated with higher occupational status at Wave 2. These findings point to an asymmetric relationship between the two transitions: labour market integration appears to precede partnership formation, whereas partnership formation is related to subsequent occupational advancement rather than employment itself.

Joint workwith Jana Kuhlemann.

Date

Speaker

Venue

Registration