Abstract

Germany has emerged as the leading destination of refugees in the EU and among other high-income countries in absolute terms at 1.6 million asylum applications, which have been submitted there from 2015 to 2018. More than two-thirds of the refugee population in Germany has already received a protection status, another one-fifth of the applications are still pending. Five years after the surge in refugee migration to Germany and other European countries in 2015 we aim to draw first conclusions of what has been achieved regarding the integration of refugees into the economy and other areas of society in the leading destination countries of asylum-seekers in the EU and world-wide. This becomes even of utmost importance given the challenges of the COVID-19 crisis for the economies and societies worldwide.