"Ethnic revival“ among labour migrants in Germany? Political statements, theoretical arguments, and first empirical evidence

Claudia Diehl, Federal Institute for Population Research, Germany
Rainer Schnell, University of Constance, Germany

My presentation scrutinizes the thesis that the integration of immigrants in Germany has come to a standstill in the early 90s. With regard to the last decade, many authors state an increasing withdrawal into ethnic groups; a growing distance of even second generation migrants to the majority; and a growing ethnic self-confidence especially among Turkish immigrants. In my presentation, I present the German debate about an „ethnic revival“ among immigrants, assess the arguments and findings on this topic from the US literature, and discuss whether it is plausible to expect an „ethnic revival“ among Germany’s immigrants. Based on this, I present my own analytical scheme and describe my data and measurements. Finally, I present trend analyses for the last twenty years for different indicators in order to assess whether migrants’ identificational, cognitive, and social assimilation processes have slowed down or even reversed by using data from the German Socio-ecomomic Panel.