Kurzbeschreibung

Research on welfare participation often shows significant differences between immigrants
and natives that are often attributed to immigrants' higher risk of welfare
dependence. We study whether immigrants in Germany also differ from their German
counterparts in their take-up behavior conditional on being eligible to welfare benefits.
The empirical approach intends (i) to determine eligibility for welfare benefits for a
representative sample of the whole population of Germany using a microsimulation
model (IAB-STSM) based on data from the German Socio-Economic Panel (GSOEP)
and then (ii) to estimate probit models of observed welfare benefit take-up for the
sample of eligible households. Our simulation results show that non take-up rates differs
between different groups of immigrants and natives. The estimation results do not
reveal a significant effect of being a migrant on the probability to take up entitlements.
Hence, our findings suggest that after controlling for other household characteristics
immigrants are not more prone to take up welfare benefits.