The Global Lives of German Migrants Consequences of International Migration Across the Life Course

Based on the German case, this open access book highlights the increasing flows of migration and the internationalisation of individual life courses. It analyses the experiences of migration across four central domains - employment and income, partners and families, health and wellbeing, as well as friends and social participation - which potentially have far-reaching consequences for social inequalities and life chances. The book showcases results from an innovative probability sample that is representative of German emigrants who recently moved abroad and remigrants who recently returned from abroad and compares their international experiences with the sedentary population in Germany. Stays abroad, whether temporary or permanently, have become the new normal for increasing numbers of people from highly developed welfare states. Unnoticed from mainstream migration studies, these countries are today not only major immigration countries but also important sources of international mobility. By providing an empirically founded prism of the global lives of German migrants, this book is a valuable resource for students and researchers of migration, social inequality, and the life course and provides practitioners with insights into these regularly overlooked aspects of international migration.

Part I: Introduction

1 Between origin and destination: German emigrants and the individual consequences of their global lives

Marcel Erlinghagen, Jean P. Décieux, Andreas Ette, Norbert F. Schneider and Nils Witte

2 Surveying across borders: The experiences of the German Emigration and Remigration Panel Study

Andreas Ette, Jean P. Décieux, Marcel Erlinghagen, Jean Guedes Auditor, Norbert F. Schneider and Nils Witte

3 The demographics of German emigration: Historical developments, geographical contexts and social structures of emigrants, remigrants, internal migrants and non-migrants

Marcel Erlinghagen, Andreas Ette, and Jean Guedes Auditor

4 Why are they moving? Motives of migration through the life course

Nikola Sander

5 The formation of a transnational class? Previous migration experiences, migration intentions and social status

Andreas Ette, Lenore Sauer and Margit Fauser

6 Are they the adventurers? Comparing the personality structure of international migrants and non-migrants

Jean P. Décieux, Marcel Erlinghagen, Christiane Lübke and Gert G. Wagner

Part III: Employment and Income

7 Brain drain or brain circulation? The labor market integration of German emigrants and German remigrants

Andreas Ette and Nils Witte

8 Affluent lives beyond the border? Individual career consequences of migration

Nils Witte and Jean Guedes Auditor

9 Reproduction of social inequalities? Social selectivity of emigration and its consequences for intergenerational mobility

Nils Witte, Andreas Ette and Reinhard Pollak

Part IV: Partner and Family

10 To follow or not to follow? The International Migration of Couples:

Timing – Motives – Outcomes

Marcel Erlinghagen

11 Disruption of family lives? International migration, family formation, and breakup

Helen Baykara-Krumme, Marcel Erlinghagen and Lisa Mansfeld

12 Out of sight, out of mind? Emigrants’ contact to friends and family members in Germany

Lisa Mansfeld

Part V: Health and Wellbeing

13 Happy migrants? Consequences of migration for different dimensions of life satisfaction

Jean Guedes Auditor and Nikola Sander

14 Healthy Migrants, stressed Mobiles? Consequences of different forms of migration for physical and mental health status

Andreas Ette, Heiko Rüger and Nico Stawarz

Part VI: Friends and Social Participation

15 How strong are the ties of friendship? The consequences of international migration for friendship structures

Jean P. Décieux and Luisa Mörchen

16 Mono-, bi- or transcultural? Reflection of identity constructions of international migrants

Jean P. Décieux and Elke Murdock

Part VII: Methodology

17 Surveying emigrants from highly developed countries: Experiments with different survey modes and incentive strategies

Andreas Ette, Nils Witte, Jean Guedes Auditor, Jean P. Décieux, Frederik Knirsch

and Stefan Zins

18 Is there more than the answer to the question? The potentials of paradata analysis in GERPS

Jean P. Décieux

Part VIII: Conclusion and new research agenda

Andreas Ette, Jean P. Décieux, Marcel Erlinghagen, Norbert F. Schneider and Nils Witte

Marcel Erlinghagen is Professor of Sociology at the Institute for Sociology, University of Duisburg-Essen, Germany. He is also Research Fellow of the German Institute for Economic Research (DIW) in Berlin, Germany. In the past, he received research grants from the German Research Foundation (DFG), the Fritz-Thyssen-Foundation as well as from different government departments in Germany. In his research, he focuses on questions of migration and integration as well as on questions regarding labour market mobility, job security, and volunteering. His research has been published in leading international journals such as European Sociological Review, Journal of European Social Policy, Population Space and Place, Social Indicators Research, European Societies, and Journal of Social Policy.

Andreas Ette is Head of the Research Group International Migration at the Federal Institute for Population Research in Wiesbaden, Germany. He was PhD Fellow at the Bielefeld Graduate School in History and Sociology (BGHS) and guest researcher at the European University Institute. His research interests include the sociology and the politics of international migration in Europe. A particular interest in his recent research is directed towards the consequences of international migration for the individual life course as well as the responses of public administrations towards migration and diversity. His work has been published in the Journal of International Migration and Integration and the Educational Research Review.

Norbert F. Schneider is Director of the Federal Institute for Population Research, Germany. Previously, he was professor of sociology at the Johannes-Gutenberg University of Mainz, Germany and co-director of the State Institute for Family Research at the University of Bamberg, Germany. He teaches as a guest professor and honorary professor at the Universities of Vienna, Frankfurt, and Mainz. He is author and editor of various academic journals and book series and fulfils functions in national and international academic associations.