Tackling Germany’s Demographic Skills Shortage: Permanent Settlement Intentions of the Recent Wave of Labour Migrants from Non-European Countries

Abstract

Confronted with structural demographic challenges, during the last decade European countries have adopted new labour migration policies. The sustainability of these policies largely depends on the intentions of migrants to stay in their country of destination for the long term or even permanently. Despite a growing dependence on skilled labour migrants, very little information exists about the dynamics of this new wave of migration and existing research findings with their focus on earlier migrant generations are hardly applicable today. The article comparatively tests major theoretical approaches accounting for permanent settlement intentions of Germany's most recent labour migrants from non-European countries on the basis of a new administrative dataset. Although the recent wave of labour migrants is on average a privileged group with regard to their human capital, fundamentally different mechanisms are shaping their future migration intentions. In contrast to neo-classical expectations, a first path highlights economic factors that determine temporary stays of a creative class benefiting from opportunities of an increasingly international labour market. Instead, socio-cultural and institutional factors are the decisive determinants of a second path leading towards permanent settlement intentions. Three main factors-language skills, the family context and the legal framework-make migrants stay in Germany, providing important implications for adjusting and strengthening labour migration policies in Europe.

Spatial pattern and determinants of migrant workers' interprovincial hukou transfer intention in China: Evidence from a National Migrant Population Dynamic Monitoring Survey in 2016

“…Most studies focus on long‐term residence intention (Hu, Xu, & Chen, ; Tang & Hao, , ; Xie & Chen, ; You, Yang, & Fu, ; Zhu, ), whereas relatively few pay attention to hukou transfer intentions (Lin & Zhu, ). Studies of temporary migration in other countries have also concerned permanent settlement intentions (de Vroome & van Tubergen, ; Ette, Heß, & Sauer, ; Hosnedlova, ; Khoo et al, ; Wachter & Fleischmann, ). However, hukou transfer intentions only occur in China due to its unique hukou system.…”

Settlement or Mobility? Immigrants’ Re-migration Decision-Making Process in a High-Income Country Setting

“…For instance, the migratory intentions and plans of family migrants differ considerably from those of workers and students (Mak 1997). Age plays a crucial role, as the intentions to migrate usually decrease with increasing age (Ette et al 2014;Coulter et al 2011). However, Waldorf (1995) showed an increase in intentions just before retirement for guest-workers in Germany.…”

“…According to Cassarino (2004) the preparedness to return depends on sufficient tangible (e.g., financial capital) and intangible resources (contacts, relationships, and skills) that were gathered before or during the migration process. In addition, a high level of education is associated with migratory intentions, due to career requirements for mobility (van Ham et al 2001) and better access to job openings and information (Ette et al 2014;Coulter et al 2011).…”

“…Living with a native partner (Pungas et al 2012), having school-aged children (e.g. Khoo and Mak 2000;Massey and Akresh 2006), owning a household business (de Haas and Fokkema 2011), and having friends and/or family (van Dalen andHenkens 2007, 2013;de Haas et al 2015;Carling and Pettersen 2014) and language competences in the local language (Steiner and Velling 1992;Dustmann 1999;Ette et al 2014) also have a negative effect on a migrant's intention to remigrate.…”

“…Due to the unavailability of the data, other factors that were shown to have an influence could not be integrated into the analysis, such as psychological resources (van Dalen and Henkens 2013;Canache et al 2013;Cai et al 2014) or societal dimensions (e.g., the political climate and the legal context regarding foreigners (Reitz 1998;Ette et al 2014), or the experience of discrimination (Taylor 1976). In addition, we could not control for the language region in which the migrants live, because we did not dispose of this information.…”