Settlers, target‐earners, young professionals. Distinct migrant types, distinct integration trajectories?
| Published date | 01 February 2023 |
| Author | Franziska Spanner,Claudia Diehl |
| Date | 01 February 2023 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1111/imig.12904 |
International Migration. 2023;61:105–124.
|
105
wileyonlinelibrary.com/journal/imig
Received: 7 July 2 020
|
Revised: 30 Apr il 2021
|
Accepted: 23 June 20 21
DOI: 10 .1111/imig .12904
SPECIAL ISSUE ARTICLE
Settlers, target- earners, young professionals.
Distinct migrant types, distinct integration
trajectories?
Franziska Spanner| Claudia Diehl
This is an open ac cess article und er the terms of the Creat ive Commo ns Attri butio n- NonCo mmerc ial- NoDerivs License, which
permits us e and distributio n in any medium, provid ed the original wor k is properly cited , the use is non- commercial and no
modificat ions or adaptatio ns are made.
© 2021 The Author s. International Migration published by John Wil ey & Sons Ltd on behalf of In ternational Org anization for
Migration
Universit y of Konstanz, Konst anz, Germany
Correspondence
Franziska Spa nner, University of Kon stanz,
Universitä tsstrasse 10, 784 65 Konstanz,
Germany.
Email: franziska.spanner@uni-konstanz.de
Funding information
NORFACE Researc h Programme on
Migration
Abstract
In this article, we start out from theoreti cal concepts about
different typ es of migrants that feature prominent ly in
the i mmigration literatu re. By applying latent class analy-
sis to a uniq ue ‘mini- pane l’ data set on recent Polish and
Turkish immigr ants in Germany, we ide ntify two types of
migrants that are in line with the literature, namely set-
tlers and target- earners. We label a third gro up that is best
described as educational target- earner s: ‘young learners/
professionals’. Regarding variation in these groups’ ear ly
sociocultural integrat ion patterns, result s suggest that they
reflect primarily differen ces in migrants’ intention to s tay,
individual resources such as education, and oppor tunities
for integration relate d to newcomers’ involvemen t in the
educational system or labour force. In sum, migrant types –
though cer tainly more intui tively appealing an d vivid than
single ‘variables’ – seem to have limited explanator y power
when it comes to predic ting newcomers’ ea rly integration
trajectories.
106
|
SPANNER ANd dI EHL
INTRODUCTION
Over the last decades, migratio n to Germany has become more diverse in terms of migrants’ motives for coming,
their socio- eco nomic compo sition, and their mobility patterns (cf. Castle s et al., 2014; Elsner & Zimmermann,
2013). Du ring the 1950 s and 1960s, migratio n to German y was predo minantl y charac terized by economic ally mo-
tivated low- skilled workers, a si tuation that changed with the recruit ment stop in 1973. Afte rwards, the cou ntry
saw the inflow of family membe rs of forme r ‘guest wor kers’, of a l arge number of ‘Ethnic Germans’ (Aussiedler)
from the for mer Soviet Union, an d of asylum seekers , including many that fled from the Balk an wars. Finally, the
EU enlargeme nt in 2004 an d 2007 enabled m igrants from Eas tern Europe to en gage in more temp orary and cir-
cular labour migr ation (Engbersen et al., 2013; Favell , 2008a) as well as in so- call ed lifestyle migration – migration
for individual g rowth and fulfilment (B enson & O'Reilly, 2009).
These new migration patte rns may challenge previous conceptio ns of migration and integration f or two rea-
sons. Fir st, it has been argued that mig ration proces ses are less of ten resulting in permanent set tlement sinc e mi-
gration decisions are incre asingly non- perm anent, especially for those groups that have the opport unities to move
back and forth bet ween origin and receiving cou ntry (Favell, 2008a). Secondly, these new mi gration patterns may
challenge the predict ions that migration processes ultimately lead to host countr y integration or even assimilation.
To be sure, these concepts are fuzz y themselves. Empi rical integration re search often sta rts out from pro minent
definitions such as the one by Richa rd Alba and Victor Nee, that assimilation is the ‘declin e of an ethnic distinction
and its cor olla ry cul tura l and so cial di ffer ence s’ (2003: 14) and assesses whether or not migrants and non- migrants
become more similar over time, for ex ample, in te rms of their in clusion in the labour marke t. Domains of sociocul-
tural inte gration include proficiency i n the language spoken in th e host countr y, the share o f majority me mbers
in migran ts’ social n etworks or identification as a member of the h ost society. C ompared to cl assic accounts of
assimilation theory, neo- assimilation theor y emphasizes t hat the focus of assimilatio n is ‘on the process, not on
some fin al state an d [that] assimilat ion is a m atter of degr ee. Assimilatio n designates a direction of change, not
a particular degree of similarity’ (Brubaker, 2001: 534). However, even st arting out from such a non- normative
and dynami c definition of a ssimilation it may n o longer appropr iately describe w hat happens after migrati on, for
example, in ter ms of changes in migrants’ so ciocultural adaptati on over time.
In or der to grasp pre vailing pat terns of migration and integr ation, previ ous migratio n literature mainly dif-
ferentiates between two types of migrants: Wh ile Neoclassica l Economics (N E) depicts migrants as settlers (cf.
Sjaastad, 1962; Todaro, 1969), target- ea rners are the core concept of New Economics of Labour Migration (NELM)
(cf. Stark, 1991; Stark et al., 1988). So far, onl y a limited numbe r of studies has tr ied to identif y these types empir-
ically (e.g. Consta nt & Massey, 2002; Drinkwater & Gara pich, 2015). Furthermore, regarding the growing diversity
of migratio n flows to an d within EU- countries, some authors argue that additional types nee d to be consid ered
(cf. Glorius, et al., 2013). In the few exis ting quantitative studie s, these are characterized as tran snationally mobile
individuals (e.g. Engbersen et al., 2013; Luthra et al., 2018). The only, rather explorative, quantitative study on
such new migrant types in Germany and other Europea n destinations focuses on EU- mig rants from Poland (Luthra
et al., 2018).
Against t his backdrop and ins pired by the migra nt types that have so far been des cribed in the lit erature, we
will conduct an emp irical analysis of migrant s from Poland and Turkey in Germany. In contrast to pr evious studies
(e.g. Engbersen et al ., 2013), we do not only focus on EU labour migra nts but also include migrant s from a non- EU
member state an d with various migration mot ives. The first aim of this ar ticle is to assess wh ich types of migr ants
can be empirical ly identified in a data set that was collecte d among newly arrived Poles and Turks whose dura tion
of stay i n Germany did not exceed 18 mon ths at the tim e of the inter view. Starting out from Laza rsfeld’s (1937:
120) under standing of ty pes as individual s sharing ‘a specia l combination of at tributes’, we examine whether re-
cent migrant s can be typ ified across orig in groups according to their family situation, intenti ons to stay, and tie s
to the country of o rigin.
Get this document and AI-powered insights with a free trial of vLex and Vincent AI
Get Started for FreeStart Your Free Trial of vLex and Vincent AI, Your Precision-Engineered Legal Assistant
-
Access comprehensive legal content with no limitations across vLex's unparalleled global legal database
-
Build stronger arguments with verified citations and CERT citator that tracks case history and precedential strength
-
Transform your legal research from hours to minutes with Vincent AI's intelligent search and analysis capabilities
-
Elevate your practice by focusing your expertise where it matters most while Vincent handles the heavy lifting
Start Your Free Trial of vLex and Vincent AI, Your Precision-Engineered Legal Assistant
-
Access comprehensive legal content with no limitations across vLex's unparalleled global legal database
-
Build stronger arguments with verified citations and CERT citator that tracks case history and precedential strength
-
Transform your legal research from hours to minutes with Vincent AI's intelligent search and analysis capabilities
-
Elevate your practice by focusing your expertise where it matters most while Vincent handles the heavy lifting
Start Your Free Trial of vLex and Vincent AI, Your Precision-Engineered Legal Assistant
-
Access comprehensive legal content with no limitations across vLex's unparalleled global legal database
-
Build stronger arguments with verified citations and CERT citator that tracks case history and precedential strength
-
Transform your legal research from hours to minutes with Vincent AI's intelligent search and analysis capabilities
-
Elevate your practice by focusing your expertise where it matters most while Vincent handles the heavy lifting
Start Your Free Trial of vLex and Vincent AI, Your Precision-Engineered Legal Assistant
-
Access comprehensive legal content with no limitations across vLex's unparalleled global legal database
-
Build stronger arguments with verified citations and CERT citator that tracks case history and precedential strength
-
Transform your legal research from hours to minutes with Vincent AI's intelligent search and analysis capabilities
-
Elevate your practice by focusing your expertise where it matters most while Vincent handles the heavy lifting
Start Your Free Trial of vLex and Vincent AI, Your Precision-Engineered Legal Assistant
-
Access comprehensive legal content with no limitations across vLex's unparalleled global legal database
-
Build stronger arguments with verified citations and CERT citator that tracks case history and precedential strength
-
Transform your legal research from hours to minutes with Vincent AI's intelligent search and analysis capabilities
-
Elevate your practice by focusing your expertise where it matters most while Vincent handles the heavy lifting