Job Quality as a Crucial Measure of Migrants’ Economic Integration

Abstract

"Migrants have left their home region since the earliest times for various reasons including economic opportunities, family reunification and education, as well as to escape war, persecution or human rights violations. In recent years, environmental factors have also become significant drivers. According to the United Nations, the global migrant population has reached unprecedented levels, with approximately 281 million people living in a country other than their country of birth in 2020, an increase of nine million from 2019 (McAuliffe and Oucho 2024). Research has extensively discussed the challenges migrants face in integrating into the labour markets of their destination countries. Traditional studies have focused on earnings as a central indicator of integration, demonstrating that integration tends to improve over time as migrants acquire language skills, country-specific education and firm-specific knowledge (e.g., Chiswick and Miller 2003, 2012). Fewer studies have examined job quality using indicators beyond earnings, such as occupational attainment, skill-qualifications matches and job security. An important aim of research in this field is the development of policy recommendations for better social and labour market integration, particularly of disadvantaged migrant groups. Here, the identification of institutional, family or other integration barriers is important, while a focus only on labour market entry and the development of earnings to native levels is insufficient to detect the reasons for such barriers. A consideration of multiple, and broad, indicators of job quality is crucial when analysing the integration process of migrants, as well as when comparing the labour market integration of different migrant groups with their respective native peers. Hence, the aim of this chapter is to examine migrant job quality as a multidimensional and dynamic process, highlighting the differences between p. 164 diverse migrant groups and within them, based on gender and the time since their migration to Germany, considering data between 2016 and 2022. New insights are provided to the effect that, despite earnings increasing with duration of stay, other job features, such as job security, do not improve to the same extent. A gender perspective is crucial, considering that migrant women often face higher challenges than men in acquiring country-specific education, language skills or other knowledge necessary for labour market integration, alongside women's greater willingness to work below the level to which they are qualified due to what are, on average, their higher care responsibilities. Furthermore, the inflow of refugees is a major transformational force in this turbulent era (see Piasna and Leschke, this volume). In recent years, Germany has mostly experienced intra-EU migration, especially from central and eastern EU Member States following the 2004 and 2007 enlargements. For many years, there were hardly any general migration pathways to Germany from non-EU countries for work reasons. However, as a result of demographic challenges, Germany has sought to enhance skilled migration from outside the EU, while it has accepted more refugees in recent years than any other EU country (Brücker et al. 2020). Consequently, it provides a critical case study for analysing the job quality of refugees compared to other migrant groups during their initial years." (Text excerpt, IAB-Doku, © Edward Elgar Publishing) ((en))

Cite article

Fendel, T. & Kosyakova, Y. (2026): Job Quality as a Crucial Measure of Migrants’ Economic Integration. In: Piasna, A. & Leschke, J. (Hrsg.) (2026): Job Quality in a Turbulent Era, Cheltenham, p. 163-181. DOI:10.4337/9781035343485.00015