Social scientists have analysed many ways in which the state influences life chances of individuals and social inequalities between social groups. The welfare state as a “system of stratification” (Esping-Andersen Reference Esping-Andersen1990: 23) generates and modifies social inequalities: social rights decommodify workers from their dependency on the market, and taxes redistribute market income. Public education enables children to acquire competences and certificates crucial for their social statuses in later life, but structural features of school systems also strengthen or attenuate the dependency of educational attainment on social background.
Immigrants in welfare states are by and large subject to the same institutionally framed mechanisms of producing and reproducing social inequalities as natives: children of poor immigrants on average have a hard time at school when the school system in general offers less opportunity to children of socially disadvantaged families (Heath et al. Reference Heath, Rothon and Kilpi2008). Also, adult immigrants as “newcomers” have problems finding employment when labour market regulation is high – as have unemployed natives or natives without work experience in such countries (Kogan Reference Kogan2007). Hence, Reitz (2002: 1013) stresses that “immigrant incorporation actually may be affected by any government policy or program regulating institutional sectors of society, such as labor market, economic development, education, urban development, and the welfare state”.
And yet, beyond general government policies and institutional arrangements, immigrants are subject to specific institutional regulations which produce and reproduce inequalities and which are inherent to the organization of political communities as territorially bounded nation states. Social disparities between immigrants as well as between immigrant groups and the “average” native cannot be fully explained without reference to state policies and laws pertaining to immigrants alone. Given that on average 14 per cent of the population in oecd-countries is foreign born (oecd 2011: Tab. A.1.4., author’s calculation for 23 countries with information for 2009), pictures of socio-economic inequalities within these countries and of the institutions causally relevant for the explanation thereof would be incomplete without taking these immigrant-specific – and immigrant-group specific – forms of state intervention into account.
These specific arrangements are the subject of this article. This article outlines how such state intervention into the lives of immigrants and their children and its impact on socio-economic opportunities (e.g. in the labour market and in the education system) might be conceptualized and offers an empirical example for institutionalized inequalities and their manifold effect. Following Hammar (1985, p. 9), I distinguish two kinds of policies: 1) immigration policies, which regulate immigration, and 2) “immigrant policies”, i.e. “the conditions provided to resident immigrants”. Immigration policies establish whether and which kinds of immigrants are allowed to enter and settle legally. Immigrant policies determine the legal status as well as access to entitlements for those who have already entered state territory. Both aspects highlight the state’s power of social closure in the Weberian sense. Gate keeping of access to state territory and legal-political stratification among the immigrant population can be understood as differential external and internal ex-/inclusion of individuals by the nation state (Bös Reference Bös, Preyer and Bös2002, Mau et al. Reference Mau, Brabandt, Laube and Roos2012). As we live in a world of nation states, these types of social closure becomes potentially relevant for anyone who crosses state boundaries or aims at doing so.
While social research generally acknowledges the importance of immigrant-specific state intervention and of legal status in particular (Vertovec Reference Vertovec2007: 1040, Waldinger Reference Waldinger2003: 263), a more nuanced theoretical explanation of how exactly they influence the life chances of immigrants and the social inequalities between natives and immigrants as well as between different immigrant groups is still wanting (Baringhorst et al. Reference Baringhorst, Hunger, Schönwälder, Baringhorst, Hunger and Schönwälder2006: 10). This contribution presents such a more nuanced and comprehensive theoretical model. It aims to contribute to and complement the sociological analysis of how states, as welfare states and countries of immigration, generate and structure social inequalities.
Further, this article adds more insight into the analysis of differential incorporation processes and ethnic inequalities regarding the socio-economic integration of immigrants and their offspring, e.g. labour market outcomes or educational attainment. Taking direct or indirect effects of government action into account is far from the standard in research seeking to explain ethnic inequalities. Routinely, inter-ethnic differences in socio-economic resources of individuals or their families are regarded as a major explanation for ethnic disparities in education and the labour market (e.g. Kao and Thompson Reference Kao and Thompson2003, Kristen and Granato Reference Kristen and Granato2007). The importance of such factors is not to be denied. However, the role of the state and the government’s immigration and immigrant policies often remain invisible in such approaches. In the field of migration, integration and social inequality, the most influential concept which has brought the state back is that of “modes of incorporation” introduced by Portes and colleagues within their theory of segmented assimilation (Portes and Böröcz Reference Portes and Böröcz1989, Portes et al. Reference Portes, Fernández-Kelly and Haller2009, Portes and MacLeod Reference Portes and MacLeod1999, Portes and Rumbaut Reference Portes and Rumbaut2001).Footnote 1
Section 1 of this article introduces this concept of differential modes of incorporation and points out its merits as well as its deficits. Section 2 presents an extended and more nuanced model of modes of governmental incorporation, the role of immigrant selection and legal statuses. I distinguish distinct dimensions of government action as well as possible direct and indirect effects on integration outcomes. Differential immigration and integration policies and their effects are discussed consecutively, followed by thoughts on the ways in which selective legal entry categories and legal statuses can be connected. Section 3 applies these theoretical considerations to an empirical study on Germany. A brief account of how immigrants to Germany of differing legal statuses have (not) been compared in the literature so far is followed by an outline of the contexts of governmental reception as experienced by different immigrant groups who came to Germany between 1987 and 2003.
As distinct from guest-workers in previous decades, the new immigrant cohorts not only came from a wide range of countries and socio-economic backgrounds, but their legal-political situation in Germany was very diverse as well. In the empirical analysis of the German case, the main focus is on legal regulations and policies in order to explicate privileges and disadvantages in different political dimensions. This detailed analysis also allows attention to be drawn to the tension between particularist and universalist tendencies that were characteristic of the ways in which the German state treated different immigrant groups. Section 3.3 briefly summarizes empirical findings that are based on representative micro-level data and shows how modes of governmental incorporation eventually affect integration outcomes of different immigrant groups in Germany. The final section recapitulates the main results and discusses the transferability of the analytical framework to other countries and its usefulness for international comparisons.
“Modes of incorporation”: strengths and weaknesses of the concept
When Portes and Böröcz (Reference Portes and Böröcz1989) first introduced the concept of “modes of incorporation”, interchangeably termed “contexts of reception”, their main thrust was to argue against pure economic thinking: rather than supply and demand, e.g. levels of human capital and rational calculation being the only determinants of economic positions of immigrants, the specific contexts of reception encountered by immigrants “shape the way in which they can put their skills to use” (Portes and Rumbaut Reference Portes and Rumbaut2001: 46) and modify their aspirations and plans (Portes and Böröcz Reference Portes and Böröcz1989: 618).
Three main dimensions of modes of incorporation are distinguished: the immigrant’s reception by the government, by the society of the host country and by the respective ethnic community. Within each dimension, reception can be favourable, neutral, or negative. The ethnic dimension refers to the size of an ethnic community and intra-ethnic networks, the strength of an ethnic economy, and the share of highly educated co-ethnics. These are resources which otherwise socially disadvantaged individuals and families can draw on. The societal dimension refers to racism and ethnic stereotypes on the part of the native population in general and employers or teachers in respective social subsystems (Portes and Böröcz Reference Portes and Böröcz1989: 618-620, Portes, Fernández-Kelly and Haller Reference Portes, Fernández-Kelly and Haller2009: 1079). The mode of incorporation by the state is the dimension of most significance for this article. Here, Portes and Rumbaut (2001: 46-47) suggest:
“Although a continuum of possible governmental responses exists, the basic options are exclusion, passive acceptance, or active encouragement. When enforced, exclusion precludes immigration or forces immigrants into a wholly underground and disadvantaged existence. The second alternative is defined by the act of granting immigrants legal access to the country without any additional effort on part of the authorities to facilitate their adaptation. The neutral stance places newcomers under the protection of the law but does not grant them any special concessions to compensate for their unfamiliarity with their new environment. […] A third governmental option occurs when authorities take active steps to encourage a particular inflow or facilitate its resettlement. […] Government support is important because it gives newcomers access to an array of resources that do not exist for other immigrants”.
Modes of governmental incorporation predict favourable, neutral, or negative effects on the socio-economic integration of immigrants. As Portes and Böröcz (1989: 618) argue, the governmental, societal and ethnic modes of incorporation “tend to form more or less coherent patterns”, though they concede that occasionally there can be tensions between them, e.g. that the national government privileges a certain immigrant group that is not regarded very highly in the native population at large (Portes and Böröcz Reference Portes and Böröcz1989: 619).
In quantitative empirical analyses, however, Portes et al. (Portes, Fernández-Kelly and Haller Reference Portes, Fernández-Kelly and Haller2009: 1085) converge the possibly divergent contexts of governmental, societal and ethnic reception into “the” negative, neutral, or positive mode of incorporation of specific ethno-national groups. This is not entirely satisfactory, but an often necessary concession to the requirements of large-scale empirical data analysis. Usually, the mode of governmental incorporation or legal status cannot be measured on the individual level. Ethno-national origin has to serve as a proxy for the average combination of governmental, societal and ethnic modes of incorporation (Portes, Fernández-Kelly and Haller Reference Portes, Fernández-Kelly and Haller2009: 1084-1085). This simplifying, but pragmatic, procedure has its merits in explaining ethnic inequalities. In statistical analyses, individual-level factors such as adults’ social class origin are first controlled for, which means that the varying social compositions of different ethnic groups regarding such factors are accounted for. In the case of children of immigrants, for instance, multivariate analyses that predict integration outcomes such as educational attainment take into account that influential determinants like parental human capital and family composition varies between groups (Portes, Fernández-Kelly and Haller Reference Portes, Fernández-Kelly and Haller2009: 1080). The remaining disparities in terms of economic or educational outcomes are then – theoretically well founded – explained by the modes of incorporation typical for the ethnic groups, rather than referring to essentialized cultural values (Portes and Rumbaut Reference Portes and Rumbaut2001: 260) or discrimination only.
This contribution takes up the idea of immigrants’ incorporation by the government as a crucial factor of their life chances in the receiving society. On three accounts, however, this concept is unsatisfactory: first, the insufficient specification of the causal links between the context of reception by the government and actual outcomes on the level of individuals and immigrant groups; second, the confounding of immigration and immigrant policies; and third, the insufficient consideration of potential effects of immigration policy on integration opportunities.
As to the first point, I share the conviction of Portes et al. that it is analytically necessary to take into account governmental action. What is missing in their work, however, is a more thorough analysis of how exactly governmental reception exerts its influence on integration processes. This is especially important as some scholars in the field of migration and integration question the importance of such factors altogether. Regarding assimilation processes, Esser (2006: 5) for instance states that, compared to the “immediate living environment”, “the ‘macro’ contexts, for example the general migration and integration policy of the receiving countries and the public discourses surrounding it, appear to be far less significant, if at all”. In section 2, I do not aim to judge which of the two positions is correct. Rather I want to take a step back and look at the precise ways in which democratic states can actually practice differential treatment of immigrant groups. This is meant to make us more sensitive regarding the possible strength of the effect of immigrant-specific state action on integration outcomes. In addition, differentiating dimensions of governmental incorporation can reveal contradicting elements which again may explain why the effects could be smaller than expected or restricted to particular aspects of integration processes.
Regarding the second point of criticism, Portes and Rumbaut, as cited above, mention both immigration policies (e.g. “encourage a particular inflow”) and immigrant policies (e. g. “facilitate its resettlement”) in their definition of modes of governmental incorporation. Those two policies are indeed at least correlated: groups who are discouraged from entering the country will hardly benefit from favourable treatment and the other way around, too. Yet, groups who are encouraged to immigrate, such as foreign professionals, do not necessarily receive extra help by the government; and politically initially unwanted immigrants may climb up the ladder to the neutral context of reception, i.e. be tolerated.
Third, an even more important aspect of immigration policies which Portes and colleagues do not consider in detail is the social selectivity that goes with it. Referring to “conditions of exit”, Portes and Böröcz indeed mention one important difference between refugees and labour migrants regarding self-selection. In the case of refugees, “blockage of the return option” affects “refugees’ attitudes toward the host society and their patterns of adaptation” (Portes and Böröcz Reference Portes and Böröcz1989: 616). But their model is incomplete with respect to selection criteria imposed by immigrant law which are in turn likely to influence integration outcomes. The government cannot select its own people, but it can select among those who want to enter and stay on state territory – the extent to which this is possible and how this immigrant-specific state intervention may influence immigrants’ life chances will be discussed in the following section.
Refining and extending the concept of mode of governmental incorporation
Immigration criteria and the impact of socially selective immigration
Immigration into a country is always selective with regards to both the countries of origin and the kind of people emigrating from these countries. Part of this selectivity is due to self-selection, but part of it is induced by the immigration regulations of the receiving state (Guiraudon and Lahav Reference Guiraudon and Lahav2000, Zolberg Reference Zolberg, Dewind, Kasinitz and Hirschman1999). Immigrants may have to meet certain criteria laid out by national migration law in order to be allowed to immigrate via specific kinds of “entry category” (Morris Reference Morris2002: 19). Contrasting social selection criteria lead to more or less favourable starting positions in terms of resources brought along and these are likely to influence subsequent outcomes (cf. Massey et al. Reference Massey, Arango, Hugo, Kouaouci, Pellegrino and Taylor1998: 13). For instance, if immigrants are required to have earned certain educational credentials or demonstrate knowledge of the host country’s language before entering, these assets will surely be beneficial for their own economic prospects and constitute reliable determinants of their children’s educational opportunities.Footnote 2
However, the sovereignty of nation states in controlling their borders is limited – not only in a technical sense. Liberal democracies have imposed limits to the regulation of migration flows on themselves (Hollifield Reference Hollifield, Brettell Caroline and Hollifield2000: 144). Therefore, one has to look closer and distinguish the legal entry categories where the government of the host country can actually impose entry conditions.
• Economic migration – e.g. Canada’s points system favouring the highly skilled – is the area of immigration policy “in which state interests reign supreme” (Joppke Reference Joppke2005: 2) and where governments can regulate immigration in the most utilitarian fashion, choosing those with a certain minimum level of education, with specific professional skills or workers of any qualification level for whom demand is high.
• Education-related immigration, e.g. of international students, is also very much state-controlled and – almost by definition – “positively” selective.
• The other extreme is immigration on humanitarian grounds and the principle of non-réfoulement in international refugee law (e.g. the Geneva Convention) and national jurisdiction (Guiraudon Reference Guiraudon and Joppke1998: 297-299, Joppke Reference Joppke1998: 18-20), which severely limits the sovereignty of national governments to regulate this kind of migration. Refugees – as well as undocumented immigrants – cannot be selected on the basis of individuals’ socioeconomic or cultural resources – potential self-selection notwithstanding. Yet, governments following geopolitical interests (Portes and Böröcz Reference Portes and Böröcz1989: 616) and courts may decide which countries are regarded as “legitimate” countries where people can emigrate from as refugees. Hence, to an extent, host countries more or less explicitly determine the nationality of immigrants who may be accepted as legitimate refugees.
• The selection of immigrants based on family ties enjoys a high degree of universal legitimacy (Weiß et al. Reference Weiβ, Ofner, Pusch, Nohl, Schittenhelm, Schmidtke and Weiβ2010: 201) and is not economically selective per se. In practice, however, low-threshold criteria are often applied (e.g. requirements that the sponsor have a certain amount of income or independence of social welfare; a minimum level of knowledge of the host country’s language). The social composition of this immigrant group is mainly correlated with the characteristics of the family members already residing in the immigration country – for better or worse regarding integration prospects (Reitz Reference Reitz1998: 35).
• Immigration can be based on historical ties to former colonial powers and may privilege citizens from successor states of former colonies. In such cases, immigrants were not selected based on socio-economic criteria. While the historical legacy of hierarchal power relations between sending and receiving countries may lead to an extra burden in terms of the racism encountered, familiarity with the host country’s language and institutions, which were often “exported” in colonial times (Cummings Reference Cummings1999: 431-435), may give these immigrants a head start compared to other newcomers.
• A final type of immigrant category, which will figure prominently in the empirical case study of this paper, is ethnic migration. The ethno-national or ethno-religious origins of immigrants are the main criteria for this politically privileged immigration gateway. Ethnic German Aussiedler in Germany are the numerically most prominent example, although similar provisions exist in Spain, Portugal, Greece, and Turkey as well as Israel with its ethno-religious version (Joppke Reference Joppke2005, Joppke and Rosenhek Reference Joppke and Rosenhek2002). The legitimization of ethnic migration is linked to ethnic conceptions of nationhood and sometimes based on the assumption that the respective group suffered ethnic discrimination in the country of birth. These assumptions and the official recognition as co-ethnics may foster friendly welcome by the host society. But, as ethnicity and ethnic identification are rather flexible, socially constructed and contested factors (Brubaker et al. Reference Brubaker, Loveman and Stamatov2003, Wimmer and Glick Schiller Reference Wimmer and Glick Schiller2002), the newcomers may also be regarded and stigmatized as ethnic others in everyday life. Still, these types of immigrants possibly have a phenotypic appearance in common with the host society’s ethnic majority and hence stand a higher mid- to long-term chance of passing as “native” compared to visible minorities who may be relegated to the lower ranks of a more or less explicitly racist hierarchy. Moreover, knowledge of the host country’s official language may be part of the dominant understanding of ethno-national identity and belong to the immigration criteria of ethnic migration. Fulfilling this kind of linguistic selection, i.e. having knowledge of the country’s official language before immigration, can be of great help in the adaptation process, be it of adult immigrants or of their children (Esser Reference Esser2006, Mouw and xie 1999).
In addition, specific legal entry categories are sometimes reserved for certain countries of origin, as is obvious in the case of intra-EU migration, privileged treatment of citizens of “allied nations” or former colonies. Humanitarian and undocumented migration is mostly restricted to immigrants from economically less developed countries (because those from rich countries rarely need to choose those precarious entry channels). Beyond personal and family resources, which can vary between immigrants from one country, there are several ways in which the country of origin can be influential for integration outcomes in terms of a group-level effect: two ways are the societal and ethnic modes of incorporation introduced in section 2. Furthermore, the relationship between institutional characteristics of the sending and host countries may pre-structure integration opportunities. For adult immigrants, the kind of professions which can be learnt in the economy of the home country may not (or no longer) be asked for on the labour market in the host country. The education system in the sending state can influence the minimum level of schooling enjoyed in the country of origin. While “poorly” educated immigrants from more developed countries usually have at least basic literacy skills, immigrants coming from lower social strata of less developed states are less likely to be literate and will have a hard time finding qualified jobs. In the case of immigrant children who started their schooling before emigration, the degree of similarity between the education systems of the sending and receiving countries in terms of school language, curricula, learning cultures, schooling time, and organizational structure influences the ease with which children can make this transition and the educational risks they face.
In sum, different legal (or illegal) entry channels may go along with self-selection and with selection by immigration law regarding personal and family resources as well as specific national origins. The resources immigrants and their families bring along (as well as those of the ethnic community already residing in the host country) form an important condition for their subsequent incorporation, as e.g. financial capital and a certain kind of cultural capital (language, familiarity with institutions of higher education) play a paramount role in general processes of producing and reproducing social inequality in any modern society. However, the value of the resources brought from the countries of origins and hence the importance of immigrant selection for integration outcomes depends on the opportunity in the host country to put these resources to use and to build up new ones – and at this point legal status comes into play.
Legal statuses, differential integration policies and their direct and indirect effects
The different kinds of gateways discussed above lead to similar or divergent legal statuses – the basis for subsequent modes of governmental incorporation. In a broad sociological understanding, legal status is defined as the rights accorded or denied by the state to individuals residing on its territory. In the global system of nation-states, the most fundamental dichotomous distinction is the one between citizens with full membership in a nation state and non-members, i.e. foreign nationals. Among the latter, a stratified continuum of legal statuses exists. This “civic stratification” (Morris Reference Morris2002: 19) ranges from undocumented “illegal” immigrants to immigrants with short- and long-term residence permits and finally to immigrants who are naturalized and hold the same rights as native citizens. These basic categories, as laid out by Massey and Bartley (2005: 472) for the US (see also Waldinger Reference Waldinger2003: 262), can be found in many (if not all) modern nation states, even though there are variations in definitions in national law, the rights and penalties attached to the different kinds of status, the degree of differentiation and the distribution of immigrants across legal statuses between states (Morris Reference Morris2002) and over time (Massey and Bartley Reference Massey and Bartley2005).
The most important dimension of legal stratification is the degree to which immigrants are granted the unconditional right to stay in the country – a fundamental right which only national citizens enjoy to its full extent (Everson and Preuß Reference Everson and Preuβ1995: 71, Hansen Reference Hansen2009: 14). It is the – sometimes long-lasting – denial of this right as well as the insecurity and fear of imminent deportation experienced by immigrants with an illegal or insecure legal status, which constitutes a psychological living condition detrimental to the emotional well-being of immigrants and their dependents (Menjívar Reference Menjívar2008: 180).
Furthermore, the legal statuses assigned by the state administration as well as public political discourse impact on the social standing of members of these legal categories (Morris Reference Morris2009: 607). For instance, depending on political circumstances asylum seekers may be assigned to the “pitied out-group” or the “despised out-group” (see Massey Reference Massey2007: 12). The varying prestige can mitigate or aggravate ethnic prejudice in the broader society and in social subsystems. Hence, in this way the governmental incorporation can influence the societal context of reception.
Besides the two closely interrelated dimensions of security of stay and social prestige, different kinds of rights attached to specific legal-status categories can directly or indirectly impact immigrants’ lives in the host society. For some integration outcomes, the impact of legal statuses is straightforward. As to political participation, the general rule is that foreign nationals may not vote in national elections. Immigrants with the status of EU citizens, however, are allowed to vote in municipal elections within their host EU country.
For economic integration, economic rights and labour-market related immigrant policies are crucial. Regulating access to the national labour market is an important rationale of regulating immigration per se. Denied, conditional, or free access to the national labour market, having foreign educational certificates recognized and being eligible to participate in labour market programmes like further-qualification programs impact employment opportunities, job quality, and income of adult immigrants (Weiß Reference Weiβ, Nohl, Schittenhelm, Schmidtke and Weiβ2010). While it may be obvious that occupational integration depends on the right to work, it is uncommon in studies of the economic integration of (immigrated) ethnic minorities to consider the fact that many foreign nationals face restricted access to the labour market, at least at the beginning of their stay. Initial episodes of unemployment or of employment well below the immigrant’s actual qualification could have long-lasting “scarring” effects (Kogan Reference Kogan2007: 17), as they have been shown for natives as well (Dieckhoff Reference Dieckhoff2011).
Social rights also influence the material living situation. Differential assignment of social rights to immigrants, as guarding the gateway to rich national welfare states and thereby differentiating between desirable and deserving immigrants on the one hand and unwanted and undeserving ones on the other, is another major rationale for assigning different legal statuses to immigrants (Bommes Reference Bommes1999, Morris Reference Morris2002). Denied, reduced, or full access to financial benefits and to welfare-state services impact on the general conditions of living and on the level of poverty immigrants experience, especially when out of work (Mohr Reference Mohr2005).
Among explicit immigrant policies, language courses and other types of active integration policies like counselling services or subsidies for immigrant “self-help” organizations may foster adaptation processes in a broad sense: language courses financed by the government support immigrants’ linguistic adaptation, which in turn enhances their employment opportunities and the chance to gather information on mainstream institutions. While group-specific policies are not always as effective as intended, overall I assume that having access to immigrant policies will be supportive compared to excluded immigrants with similar needs.
Regarding immigrant children and their educational opportunities, the influence of immigration and immigrant policies becomes more complex. One may expect no direct effect of the legal status of the child. In the course of the last decades, liberal democracies have moved towards granting (near-)universal access to primary and secondary education independent of the citizenship of students or the specific legal status of alien children (Guiraudon Reference Guiraudon, Bommes and Geddes2000: 80-81). Exceptions from this inclusiveness in Germany notwithstanding (see section 3), less direct effects of legal status beyond educational rights should be considered.
Such indirect effects are mediated by the parents and their legal status – usually the legal status of immigrant children corresponds to that of their parents.Footnote 3 These mediated influences can be explained with reference to general sociological insights into the intergenerational reproduction of social inequality (Bourdieu Reference Bourdieu1979, Erikson and Jonsson Reference Erikson, Jonsson, Erikson and Jonsson1996) and into the integration processes of immigrant children and children of immigrants (Alba and Waters Reference Alba and Waters2011, Fuligni Reference Fuligni1997). First, socio-economic or ethno-linguistic immigrant selection criteria pertaining to adults are mirrored in the parental resources with which children start their school careers in their host countries. Second, the different modes of governmental incorporation of immigrant parents – more specifically the economic and social rights as well as their access to active immigrant policies associated with specific legal statuses – impact on the socio-economic status of the family and on the linguistic competences of the immigrant parents. These familial circumstances are, in turn, classic determinants of children’s educational opportunities (Menjívar Reference Menjívar2008: 184, Portes and MacLeod Reference Portes and Macieod1996: 260-261, Yoshikawa Reference Yoshikawa2011: 23-24).
Immigrant selection and modes of governmental incorporation: their interconnectedness and differential impacts
Figure 1 summarizes direct and indirect effects of the theoretical model. The partition of (governmental/societal/ethnic) modes of incorporation into the three boxes with bold dotted outlines corresponds to the Portes et al. model, the other boxes and most of the arrows indicating causal links are my extension thereof. The causal relationships indicated in the figure are not exhaustive, but restricted to those relationships mentioned in this article. Note that sometimes the arrows start at the legal status or end at socio-economic outcomes of immigrants as such (boxes with straight lines); sometimes they start or end at the smaller boxes with small-dotted outlines. This is meant to symbolize that some relationships are relevant for all immigrants or immigrant families (e.g. the effect of security of stay on life chances as such), some pertain to adult immigrants (e.g. direct effect of economic rights of adult immigrants on economic integration) or to children of immigrants in particular (e.g. the direct effect of educational rights on children’s educational opportunities). Social and economic rights of adult immigrants exert their indirect effect on educational outcomes of their children via the impact on post-migration resources of the adults and their family and via general mechanisms of intergenerational social reproduction.
The arrow emanating from the box on the right hand side named “pre-migration characteristics of immigrants” indicates their influence on the post-immigration resources, discussed in section 2.1. With regard to pre-immigration resources, i.e. the social selectivity of immigration, the model extends conventional analyses by distinguishing effects of self-selection and of selection by immigrant criteria on integration outcomes, thus making another role of the state in generating inequalities more visible.
A final theoretical question pertains to the connection between governmental immigrant selection and mode of incorporation. Every entry channel leads to some kind of legal status (including the illegal one as part of the sociological construct of legal stratification). But, first, similar entry channels may lead to different statuses, e.g. refugees may end up as asylum seekers, as undocumented immigrants or as refugees granted political asylum. Second, entry channels with different kinds of social selectivity need not lead to different legal statuses. Rather, they may be only linked with one kind of status or with a limited number of statuses, depending on the degree of legal stratification among immigrants in the country of reception. Mohr (Reference Mohr2005) shows, for instance, that the United Kingdom has a less complex system of legal statuses and offers faster access to permanent residence permits than Germany. In both Sweden and Canada legal stratification between different immigrant groups is even less pronounced and both countries serve as examples of a universalist allocation of rights and access to integration policies (cf. Bloemraad Reference Bloemraad2006, Groenendijk et al. Reference Groenendijk, Guild and Barzilay2002, mipex 2011). Thus it is an empirical question how marked the degree of legal stratification is in different nation states. The smaller the degree of stratification, the more adequate it is to speak of “the” national migration system of country X. To do the same for countries with a high degree of differential treatment of immigrant groups, can be quite misleading when larger groups that are particularly privileged (e.g. Aussiedler in the German case) or disadvantaged (e.g. undocumented immigrants) are ignored in the characterization of a country’s integration regime, as some internationally comparative large-N studies do (e.g. Fossati Reference Fossati2011).
Further, country-specific combinations of the extent of socio-economic immigrant selection and the degree of legal stratification indicate which mechanism might be more important for generating unequal life chances among immigrant groups in the respective host society. Canada, for instance, with its comparatively strict socio-economic immigration criteria and little legal stratification serves as an example for the importance of the immigrant-selectivity mechanism. As will be shown in the following section, Germany, in contrast, represents the combination of only moderate socio-economic immigration selection with drastic differences in how the state treats welcomed and despised immigrant groups. Correspondingly, a stronger weight of the effects of differential modes of governmental incorporation can be assumed for the German case.
The German case: immigrant-group specific institutional arrangements
The theoretical arguments presented in section 2 will now be illustrated by the German case, which serves as an example for extensive legal stratification among a country’s immigrant population. Within the hierarchical spectrum of legal statuses, the study puts special emphasis on the most positive status, that of Aussiedler immigrants, an immigrant group to whom all (West-)German governments since the 1950s have offered favourable political reception. The study focuses on the high time of Aussiedler immigration, 1987 to 2003, when about 3 million Aussiedler immigrated to Germany (till 1990 to West-Germany). Aussiedler are compared with other immigrants who came to Germany during the same period. The investigation concentrates on immigrant children. In this recent period of new immigration, 943,000 minor-aged Aussiedler as well as 2.15 million minor-aged non-German immigrants entered (Söhn Reference Söhn2011: 20). Of the latter, about 800,000 were still in Germany in 2005. Among legal entry categories typical for non-Aussiedler immigrant children, family migration, refugee migration, and EU migration were most relevant.Footnote 4
Comparing Aussiedler with other immigrant groups has as yet not been a common exercise in German research. Until the late 1990s, a number of substantial studies dealt with Aussiedler only (e.g. Bayer Reference Bayer1992, Dietz Reference Dietz1999, Elsner Reference Elsner1998, Greif et al. Reference Greif, Gediga, Janikowski, Bade and Oltmer1999, Hofmann et al. Reference Hofmann, Bürkner and Heller1992, Koller Reference Koller1997, Mammey and Schiener Reference Mammey and Schiener1998). These studies look at different dimensions of the integration process – e.g. employment, education, ethnic identification, spatial segregation – during the first few years after arrival, sometimes comparing Aussiedler from different countries. Even if not explicitly, research on Aussiedler partly reflects a perception of this group as specific: findings common to the immigrant experience are often not related to the broader literature. As a consequence, some research results such as the downgrading of cultural capital from abroad (Mammey and Schiener Reference Mammey and Schiener1998: 105-106), high unemployment rates and their negative correlation with duration of stay (Hofman et al. Reference Hofmann, Bürkner and Heller1992: 38, Koller Reference Koller1997), the cumulative economic disadvantage of Aussiedler women (Greif et al. Reference Greif, Gediga, Janikowski, Bade and Oltmer1999: 86) and Aussiedler parents’ aversion to the “liberal culture” in German schools (Dietz Reference Dietz1999, p. 32) were reported without linking these phenomena typical for many immigrants in any host society to the general migration literature. Furthermore, some researchers concluded that certain integration programmes for Aussiedler needed improvement (Dietz Reference Dietz1999: 40-43), without referring to the fact that most other immigrants were excluded from such programmes.
But there are also a number of more recent comparative studies of Aussiedler and Jewish refugees from the former Soviet Union (Dietz Reference Dietz2000, Harris Reference Harris, Bade Klaus and Oltmer2003, Kogan Reference Kogan2012). This comparison, however, is not one of contrasting cases as both immigrant groups profited from similar features of privileged, group-specific immigration and integration policies (see also below). Only few scholars draw more pronounced comparisons: regarding immigrant regulations, Marshall (Reference Marshall1992) points to the contrast between Aussiedler and asylum seekers. While focusing on Aussiedler and changes in Aussiedler policy, both Heinelt and Lohmann (1992: 34-35) and Bommes (2000, p. 105-106) compare Aussiedler with non-German refugees and labour migrants respectively with regard to the social rights provided by the West-German welfare state. More detailed analysis of regulations pertaining to Aussiedler on the one hand and to non-German immigrants on the other hand was carried out in the field of education. Yet, both Palt et al. (Reference Palt, Reuter and Witte1998) and Puskeppeleit and Krüger-Potratz (Reference Puskeppeleit and Krüger-Potratz1999) present their analyses on those groups in a consecutive rather than strictly comparative manner and draw opposite conclusions: Palt et al. (1998: 9) underlines the similarity of treatment, while Puskeppeleit and Krüger-Potratz (1999: 270) stress the German state’s preferential (and assimilationist) stance towards Aussiedler students. A recent example of a quantitative analysis of immigrants’ economic adaptation is Kogan’s (Reference Kogan2011) comparison of “ethnic Germans” and “non-Western new immigrants”, showing the former group’s relative advantage compared to the latter, but giving only brief credit to different legal-political circumstances (see also Seifert Reference Seifert1996). Overall, studies comparing immigrant groups in Germany with contrasting legal statuses were uncommon until the 1990s and more recent ones do not provide more detailed analyses of different dimensions of group-specific immigration and immigrant policies and their direct and indirect effects on life chances – the theme to be elaborated in the following paragraphs.
Immigrants’ entry channels to Germany
Individuals and families were admitted to Germany as Aussiedler if they could prove to be of German ancestry and – because this policy was after all an anti-communist policy – if they resided in a communist country in Eastern Europe (since 1993 restricted to successor states of the Soviet Union) (for an overview see Klekowski von Koppenfels Reference Klekowski von Koppenfels, Hunger, Meendermann, Santel and Woyke2001). For the immigrant cohorts studied here, Poland and Romania were the second (21 %) and third (8 %) largest sources of Aussiedler immigration after those from the former Soviet Union. Aussiedler adults and school-aged children had thus been educated in societies where the level of general education (at least 8 to 9 years of compulsory education) exceeded that of e.g. Turkey (Worldbank 1993, table 29), another important sending country.
Further, one of several criteria with which potential Aussiedler could “prove” their German ethnicity to the German authorities was basic knowledge of German, and this criterion became more and more central in the course of the 1990s. However, the linguistic threshold remained low and – until 2005 – did not have to be mastered by minor-aged children, grand-children, or spouses of the main applicants in order to be allowed to immigrate as Aussiedler (Söhn Reference Söhn2011: 79-83). Mainly the small group of ethnic German families from Romania spoke German as their primary language (Silbereisen et al. Reference Silbereisen, Lantermann and Schmitt-Rodermund1999: 83-84) – a case of self-selection within the framework of the less strict linguistic selection by German immigration law. These German-Romanian Aussiedler children occupied a better starting position in school than the majority of Aussiedler children, who – just like other immigrant peers – faced the challenge of learning the German school language.
Though the number of legitimate countries of origin was restricted, in the case of both Aussiedler and all types of (“non-German”) refugees, no socioeconomic selection criteria existed in German legislation. EU citizens, in contrast, had to be economically self-reliant in order to move to Germany. If they lived on social welfare or did not have adequate accommodation, they could not invite their children or spouse to join them.Footnote 5 The same economic criteria applied to family reunion for non-EU citizens (Söhn Reference Söhn2011: 84-86). We can thus assume that these adult immigrant parents were employed when their minor-aged children moved to Germany, in contrast to most adult Aussiedler and refugees at the beginning of their stay – a relative disadvantage for the latter. Only a small group of highly qualified temporary migrants from non-EU countries, who were given permission to work in Germany for a limited number of years, were allowed to bring along their spouses and minor-aged children, who could then profit from the relatively high socio-economic status of their partner or parent respectively.Footnote 6
Overall, the thresholds of linguistic or socio-economic immigration criteria were not negligible, but still rather low compared to traditional Anglo-Saxon immigration countries. Hence, the impact that might be expected from immigrant selection in Germany is comparatively low.
Modes of governmental incorporation in Germany
Legal stratification among those who managed to enter (West-)German territory was pronounced. Defined as of German origin, Aussiedler received German citizenship upon arrival and were thus clearly distinct from all other immigrants, who had more or less inferior statuses (for first reflections on this legal stratification see also Heinelt and Lohmann Reference Heinelt and Lohmann1992, Marshall Reference Marshall1992). As German citizens, Aussiedler clearly ranked highest in security of their residence. Refugees granted political asylum – among them the special category (Kontingentflüchtlinge) of Jews from the former Soviet Union – enjoyed a high degree of protection from deportation, even higher than EU citizens and third-country nationals with permanent residence permits. Refugees seeking asylum, and foreigners with an exceptional leave to remain (Duldung) faced a high degree of insecurity. Children who immigrated as family migrants started with a temporary permit, but with a fair hope of receiving a permanent one if their parents had or obtained one, too (Söhn Reference Söhn2011: 86-89). The same applied to immigrated spouses as long as they did not divorce before the end of a waiting time of three to four years. This hierarchy between legal-status groups regarding the security of stay granted by the German state is by and large visible in the other dimensions of governmental incorporation, too. Though, as explicated in the following, there were some significant exceptions and, in some dimensions, the main distinction between those favoured and those disadvantaged was drawn at different points within the spectrum of legal statuses.
Looking at the social prestige associated with legal statuses, until about 1989, the public discourse on Aussiedler was either hushed or outright positive. The more came and the less “German” they appeared in the eyes of native Germans (i.e. because they did not know the German language), the more the legitimacy of this group came under attack. However, politically unwanted refugees faced much harsher forms of exclusionary public debates, coinciding with racist atrocities directed at asylum seekers and “foreigners” more generally (Schönwälder Reference Schönwälder, Bloch and Levy1999: 84-87). EU-citizens, including those from former guest-worker sending countries like Italy and Spain, faced less severe prejudice than Aussiedler and asylum seekers by native Germans (Steinbach Reference Steinbach2004: 121-122). These differential negative attitudes illustrate that the correlation between the modes of governmental and societal incorporation can be frail.
The legal stratification among adult immigrants was very marked with regard to economic and social rights (Seifert Reference Seifert1996: 183-186, Söhn Reference Söhn2011: 118-125). Aussiedler, EU citizens, and refugees granted asylum had free access to the German labour market. For refugees with an insecure status, German policies combined tight state control and partial exclusion from social, economic, and other rights. During the course of the period investigated here, this underprivileged group was sometimes not allowed to work at all (at least in the first years of residence, at times up to five years) or had only restricted access to legal employment. Among other additional disadvantages, this group received only a reduced amount of social welfare – a practice judged unconstitutional in summer 2012 – and they were not allowed to leave without permission the local district they were assigned to (Morris Reference Morris2002). Unemployed Aussiedler, in contrast, received social transfers, partly exceeding those for poor natives, and profited from a bundle of active integration policies (Bommes Reference Bommes, Bommes and Geddes2000). Free German language training was the most important immigrant policy with regard to both the economic and social integration of adult Aussiedler and, indirectly, their children’s educational development.
Compared to adult immigrants, legal status played a smaller and rather complex role in determining the educational rights and opportunities of children. The right to education was not as universally implemented in Germany as theoretical considerations would predict: although (West-)Germany ratified several international conventions which enshrine the right to education (e.g. United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child), in several regional states, which are responsible for education policies, compulsory education only applies to children with lawful and regular residence in the respective state. As a consequence, children of asylum seekers, those with an exceptional leave to remain, and undocumented immigrants could be denied schooling when schools were not willing to accept them. Furthermore, until July 2011, schools as public authorities had to report to the aliens department if a child could not prove she or he was registered with the local authorities (as obligatory in Germany). Hence, undocumented parents risked deportation when they sent their children to school. The large majority of immigrant children, however, did attend schools.Footnote 7
As to immigrant children enrolled in schools, most regional states had separate regulations pertaining to the education of German immigrants on the one hand and non-German ones on the other at least until the beginning of the 1990s (Bavaria and Baden-Württemberg until the late 2000’s). Yet, the structure and amount of immigrant-specific schooling (e.g. teaching German as a second language) was in fact rather similar for Aussiedler and other immigrant children (Palt et al. Reference Palt, Reuter and Witte1998: 9, Söhn Reference Söhn2011: 93-108). However, as Puskeppeleit and Krüger-Potratz (Reference Puskeppeleit and Krüger-Potratz1999) stress, only Aussiedler and the small group of refugees granted political asylum were eligible for an extra-curricular support programme (Garantiefonds) financed by the federal government (additional tutoring, German language training for those beyond the age of compulsory education, special boarding schools).
As the institutional analysis of the German case shows, advantages and disadvantages of legal-status groups tended to accumulate across the different dimensions of the mode of governmental incorporation, i.e. security of stay, political (il)legitimacy, economic, social, and educational rights as well as access to supportive immigrant programs such as language courses. However, regarding these dimensions, different distinctions between legal-status categories were relevant – e.g. insecure versus secure status regarding access to schools and to the average social rights; Aussiedler versus non-German citizen per se regarding political rights and entitlements to integration programmes. Hence, it depends on the kind of outcome in question which legal-status groups is likely to show favourable or unfavourable outcomes and to what extent legal-status difference could be co-responsible for the extent of social inequalities between immigrants as well as between immigrant groups and natives.
The effects of immigrant selection and legal stratification: the example of educational outcomes
The following paragraph illustrates the effects of immigrant selection and legal stratification for the educational attainment of immigrant children, summarizing major results of studies based on statistical analyses of nationally representative data. Immigrant children clearly lag behind their native peers (Gresch and Kristen Reference Gresch and Kristen2011, Segeritz et al. Reference Segeritz, Walter and Stanat2010). Among 1.5-generation immigrants, however, Söhn (Reference Söhn2011, Reference Söhn, Solga and Becker2012) shows substantial educational disparities between immigrant groups with different kinds of legal status.
Based on the nationally representative Mikrozensus 2005, Söhn (Reference Söhn2011, Reference Söhn, Solga and Becker2012) studied immigrants who came to Germany as minors between1987 and 2003, the high time of Aussiedler immigration. Educational attainment was measured as the kind of school-diploma attained in Germany. Key indicators of the Aussiedler status were foreign birth, German citizenship, a former or second “Ex-Soviet”, Polish or Romanian citizenship as well as a time-span of not more than three years between immigration and naturalization. Similar to the methodological procedure of Portes et al. (2009: 1084-1085), for subgroups of non-German immigrants, countries of origin serve as a rough proxy for the typical legal status upon arrival, derived from various public statistics, e.g. on asylum applications (Söhn Reference Söhn2011: Annex I).
As figure 2 shows, educational inequalities are visible at the lower rungs of the educational ladder, which consists of low-, medium- and high-track types of secondary schools and corresponding stratified school diplomas (Söhn Reference Söhn2011, Reference Söhn, Solga and Becker2012). Aussiedler attained medium-level diplomas more often than other immigrants, who were overrepresented among drop outs and graduates of low-level schools. Such inter-group disparities are especially large between Aussiedler and those immigrant groups whose governmental reception was outright negative (e.g. civil war refugees from former Yugoslavia) or neutral at best (e.g. family migrants and asylum seekers from Turkey).
Immigration selection criteria affected such educational disparities only to a limited extent: within the group of Aussiedler, those from Romania, who spoke German as their mother tongue before immigration, quite often attained German high-level school diploma, yet this subgroup was too small to be the cause of the overall educational disparities between Aussiedler and other immigrants (Söhn Reference Söhn2011: 259-260). Other effects of state-induced immigrant selection were minor, too. As to the effects of modes of governmental incorporation and legal statuses, mediated effects become visible: Aussiedler adults were less often unemployed than other immigrants and not as often financially deprived as other immigrants who came during the same historical period and stayed in Germany, though the kind of employment of those in the workforce did not differ significantly between the groups (Kogan Reference Kogan2011, Söhn Reference Söhn2011: 208-209).The lower unemployment rate among Aussiedler parents contributed to the relative educational head start of Aussiedler children, which can be interpreted as an indirect effect of the parents’ context of governmental reception. Immigrant parents’ education, hardly influenced by immigration policies, is partly responsible for educational disparities between children, too. Such variance in the adults’ educational resources is largely due to self-selection and not to German migration policy. About one-quarter of the Aussiedler children’s educational advantage over the non-German immigrant peers is due to the fact that, among the latter, more parents in their own childhood had at best received compulsory education (Söhn Reference Söhn2011: 205, Söhn Reference Söhn, Solga and Becker2012: 178).
This shows that both social selectivity of migration not influenced by immigration law and intergenerational mechanisms of social reproduction are indeed important. But they do not fully explain why immigrant groups fare differently in a central institution of the host society such as the education system. Rather, the advantages associated with the Aussiedler-status and the disadvantages of less favourable modes of governmental incorporation turned out to be – statistically and substantially – significant for reducing educational risks of immigration even after statistically taking account of varying socio-economic resources among immigrant families and of individual influences on educational outcomes. Individual and family resources not influenced by intervention of the host may strengthen or weaken the impact of modes of governmental incorporation. Yet, some direct effects of legal status, not easily measurable with statistical data, like the missing right to attend schools in case of undocumented children and the prohibition of employment in the case of asylum seekers were non-modifiable direct effects of legal status in Germany.
Conclusions and implications for international comparisons
This contribution offered a systematic perspective on particular forms of how the state impacts on the life chances of individuals and on socio-economic disparities between social groups, here on inequalities among immigrants and hence between immigrant groups and the “average” native. This article first presented the concept of immigrants’ modes of incorporation by Portes and colleagues (Portes and Böröcz Reference Portes and Böröcz1989, Portes, Fernández-Kelly and Haller Reference Portes, Fernández-Kelly and Haller2009, Portes and Rumbaut Reference Portes and Rumbaut2001). The reception by the government, society and ethnic communities are powerful influences on integration outcomes beyond those of individual and family resources. Focussing on the state, I argued that the model of Portes’ et al. needs to be extended: first, though the concept of positive, neutral, and negative modes of governmental incorporation is valuable for analysing group differences in socio-economic outcomes, the causal links between these differential contexts of reception and actual integration opportunities need to be explicated in more detail. Second, it is necessary to clearly distinguish aspects of immigration and immigrant policies and thereby to account for immigrant selection by the state and its possible consequences for participation in the host society.
As to immigration policies, socially selective immigration gateways impact the social composition of immigrant groups and thus their endowment with potentially helpful resources at the beginning of their lives in the host society. For example, in Germany, the linguistic requirements for persons seeking recognition as Aussiedler gave them at least a moderate head start in terms of initial German-language skills, important determinants of structural integration.
With regard to the modes of governmental incorporation and their effects, I refined and extended this theoretical concept. In the model presented here, the rather abstract notion of positive to negative modes is conceptually linked to the more concrete one of legal stratification among immigrants. Specific legal statuses, the rights connected with them and their varying social prestige and political legitimacy of the respective groups provide an analytical basis for a more detailed analysis. Analytical distinctions between different rights (including eligibility for social and integration policies) that go along with legal statuses as well as differentiation between their direct and mediated effects are crucial for understanding different impacts on socio-economic outcomes. The economic and social rights of adult immigrants, for instance, affect their economic position directly as well as – in terms of a mediated effect – their children’s material living situations and thus form an important condition of learning and academic success.
While this analysis has been based on an intra-national comparison, the analytical framework presented here could also help advance the internationally comparative study of migration policies and their effects. Countries and national immigration regimes can be compared along the lines of legal stratification among their respective immigrant populations. Some degree of legal stratification – if only between “legal” and “illegal” immigrants – is practiced by most nation states. The extent of the stratification varies, and in order to compare this variation, the distinction between positive, neutral, and exclusive governmental reception provides a more general concept than the nationally specific juridical labels and programs. In this article, Germany served as an example of an extensive legal stratification among immigrant groups.
Furthermore, the quantitative distribution of immigrant groups across the hierarchy of modes of governmental incorporation may vary between countries and within a country across time.Footnote 8 Do illegal immigrants form a substantial or just a tiny share of the immigrant population in different countries? Are the foreign born divided into an excluded and a privileged immigrant group or is a neutral mode of governmental treatment the norm? Given common limits of the statistical data available, answering these research questions remains a challenge. Yet, such a comparison could contribute to a more nuanced portrayal of differing national migration and citizenship regimes. Further, future research should offer more careful interpretations of integration outcomes measured with standard representative data as they are typically “blind” to the most marginalized groups.
In addition, international comparison could focus on immigrants with the same – or rather functionally equivalent – modes of governmental incorporation in different countries. Pertaining to the “positive” end of the legal-stratification spectrum, e.g. Steinbach and Nauck (Reference Steinbach, Nauck, Metze, Mühler and Opp2000), in their German-Israeli comparison of politically privileged ethnic immigrants, examine both the varying focus of inclusive immigrant policies and their association with integration outcomes. It could also be fruitful to compare categories of immigrant groups granted a positive reception such as privileged refugees in the US or European countries and Aussiedler in Germany. Furthermore, within the exclusive modes of incorporation it would be interesting to study the striking differences between exclusionary practices of national governments and their consequences. In Germany, undocumented immigration (Schönwälder et al. Reference Schönwälder, Vogel and Sciortino2004) notwithstanding, “unwanted” immigrants are frequently assigned some form of insecure, yet legal status, but remain excluded from the labour market and dependent on sub-standard social transfers. In contrast, in the US (Massey and Bartley Reference Massey and Bartley2005), for example, many millions of the politically unwanted immigrants remain illegal, hence without social rights, but with de facto access to employment.
Overall, more comparative studies of alternative routes of legal-political exclusion or inclusion and their long-term consequences would be a valuable addition to existing research in the field of migration studies as well as of the sociology of social inequality more generally. Integrating legal-status differences and differential immigration and immigrant policies into comparative studies on (welfare) states could advance more comprehensive analysis of the ways in which states generate and moderate social and legal inequalities within the population living within their territories. At the same time such analyses can take into account the external and internal boundaries of countries as “national containers” and the consequences of this kind of social closure for individual life chances and for social disparities between social groups.
