International migration is often characterised as a process of immigration from economically less developed to highly developed countries. Whereas the factors driving those flows and the integration of the respective ethnic groups are widely analysed, the international mobility of the populations of precisely those affluent societies is regularly missed and less-frequently studied. The chapter describes the research design of the German Emigration and Remigration Panel Study as one of the first endeavours to study the internationally mobile populations from prosperous welfare states. Following an origin-based probability sampling of internationally migrating German citizens, it offers survey data to study the consequences of emigration and remigration along the life course. The chapter discusses the quality of this new data infrastructure along the survey lifecycle and compares the distribution of central demographic characteristics in the survey with official reference statistics. The aim is to establish this approach as a new avenue for studying the global lives of internationally mobile populations.

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This article analyzes the relation of gender wage inequality to occupational licensing in Germany in 1993 and 2015. We show that the very particular German licensing system and strong gender segregation lead to an overrepresentation of women in licensed occupations. We further investigate, whether both genders benefit equally from licensing in terms of wages. Finally, we study whether both women’s overrepresentation and potential gender gaps within licensed occupations help to explain patterns in the overall gender wage gap. To this end, we distinguish licensed occupations in professions and semi-professions. We use 1993 and 2015 waves of the German Socio-Economic Panel Study to apply repeated cross-sectional regressions and decompositions. Our findings suggest that women benefited more from licensing in 1993 than in 2015. Men’s wage premiums seem to increase over time, but women’s premiums do not. We also show that semi-professions are less rewarding and women are overrepresented in these occupations. Finally, increased demand for licensed occupations is an important contribution to narrowing the gender wage gap. Women’s increased employment in licensed occupations alone would have reduced the overall gender wage gap by roughly 8 per cent.

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The lasting disenfranchisement of foreign residents presents democratic countries of immigration with a problem of legitimacy. The urge to open access to citizenship has been omnipresent in the academic debate since Walzer's Spheres of Justice. But what if immigrants do not want to naturalize in spite of liberal access? While many researchers studied the costs and benefits of naturalization little is known about the role of symbolic membership. This paper goes beyond past approaches. Next to pragmatic reasons of citizenship acquisition it considers the relation of immigrants to the majority group. The theoretical framework is developed from empirical findings and draws on the concept of symbolic boundaries. The analysis is based on a survey of Turkish residents in the German city of Hamburg. This group gains few additional rights through naturalization. Hence, symbolic aspects of membership become vital in the decision-making process. Results confirm the relevance of rights-oriented motives connected to the legal status. Moreover, symbolic aspects of membership are shown to be crucial for naturalization intentions. This insight offers an interpretation also for the non-naturalization of eligible immigrants. The paper is embedded in a larger project, where qualitative follow-up interviews explore variant perceptions of and responses to symbolic boundaries.