Abstract

Russia's war of aggression against Ukraine has led to the largest refugee movement in Europe since the Second World War. Over the past two years, Germany and other countries have taken in many people seeking protection, primarily from Ukraine. The integration of refugees into the labor market is a major challenge currently facing the countries of arrival. Overall, despite rising employment rates among those seeking protection, there is still considerable potential for skilled workers and employees who are to be placed in employment more quickly through various measures. In addition to labor market policy measures, factors such as local social networks are also decisive for labor market integration (Granovetter 1973). Previous studies have shown, for example, that volunteers with whom refugees have built up a relationship of trust can take on important pilot functions in social services (Bakoben et al., 2019). Contact with locals can also have a positive impact on integration if the focus is more on shared leisure activities, such as playing soccer together (Lange et al., 2017) or mentoring programs that promote language skills and social participation (Krieger et al., 2020). The research question of this proposal is to what extent the labor market integration of refugees varies depending on the level of civic engagement in their place of residence. In Germany, there are considerable regional differences in the extent to which local associations exist and how many people are involved in voluntary work (Simonson et al., 2017). In this study, the density of (newly founded) associations is to be used as a measure of local volunteering for refugees. For this purpose, counties with higher (lower) civic engagement, measured by the density of associations / changes in the number of associations / new associations founded at county level in 2010 / 2016 / 2022 are compared with each other and it is examined whether the refugees in the different counties differ in (i) labor market integration, (ii) language acquisition, and (iii) social integration.