Month / June 2023
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![zwei Migrantinnen sitzen an einem Tisch mit Stift und Papier und lachen]()
Improved employment prospects
Refugee women have a much harder time on the German labor market than refugee men – although their chances have improved over the years. This is shown by a new evaluation of the study “Living in Germany,” for which protection seekers who arrived in Germany between 2013 and 2019 were surveyed.
According to the study, the employment of refugee women has increased but remains low compared to men. While five percent of working-age women surveyed reported having a job in 2017, nearly 13 percent did so in 2020. “Women are slowed down by several factors,” says SOEP migration expert Adriana Cardozo, who analyzed the data. For example, they lack education and language skills. And traditional gender roles also played a role.
Encouragingly, however, the number of young women participating in educational programs has more than tripled over the years. The number of women with intermediate and good language skills is also growing steadily.
“Women with refugee experience can make a contribution to compensating for the labor shortage in Germany,” emphasizes Adriana Cardozo. The expansion of integration and language programs is a prerequisite, she said. These should be even better tailored to the needs of women, for example by offering childcare options.
Further information
Handelsblatt: Untersuchung: Fortschritte bei Arbeitsmarkt-Chancen geflüchteter Frauen
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![Menschen mit verschiedenen Hautfarben tragen eine Maske]()
Migration and Covid-19
By the end of October 2021, more than four million people in Germany had been infected with Corona. In order to be able to investigate possible differences in infections and vaccinations between people with and without migration experience, the antibody study “Corona Monitoring bundesweit” (RKI-SOEP-2) was conducted. All participants of the survey “Living in Germany” 2021 were invited to participate in the antibody study.
At the time of the survey in October 2021, most of the people in Germany had already come into contact with the spike protein of the Corona virus at least twice through vaccinations and/or infections, i.e. were already immunized. The proportion of those who had already come into contact with the virus at least twice was higher among persons without migration experience than among persons with migration experience (90 versus 82 percent). This difference is due to the higher vaccination rate among persons without migration experience. In addition, persons with migration experience had already contracted Corona twice as often as persons without migration experience (8 versus 4 percent).
In their research report, the two researchers Dr. Manuel Siegert (BAMF-FZ) and Laura Goßner (IAB) show that the difference in the frequency of infection is not due to the migration experience per se, but to the different life circumstances, such as the residential, professional and family situation. For this reason, the researchers recommend that the respective living conditions of the group of people to be protected be taken into account when adopting protective measures and health campaigns.
The RKI-SOEP-2 study was conducted jointly by the Robert Koch Institute (RKI), the Socio-Economic Panel (SOEP) at the German Institute for Economic Research (DIW Berlin), the Research Center of the Federal Office for Migration and Refugees (BAMF-FZ) and the Institute for Employment Research (IAB).
Further information
