International Organization for Migration (IOM)

International migration largely occurs in ethnic networks and the importance of
migrant networks for migration decisions is frequently stressed (for example, Massey
et al., 1993). It is, however, less clear to what extent prospective immigrants actually
rely on personal and informal networks to find employment opportunities abroad
– especially in the German case. This research gap is, of course, in a substantial
part due to lack of adequate data. One piece of evidence can be deduced from the
employers’ perspective. As shown above in Figure 6.4, employers generally perceive
personal contacts as the most successful international recruitment channel. And as
a successful worker–job matching requires finding a prospective immigrant through
this channel, one can infer that prospective immigrants rely rather heavily on
personal and informal networks to find employment opportunities abroad.
Another piece of evidence is provided by studies that investigate the determinants
of migration decisions among potential migrants in sending countries. For example,
Mahmood and Schömann (2002) analyse the determinants of migration decisions
of IT graduates from Pakistan and find that economic factors are in general more
important in this context than socio-political and institutional factors. However,
when comparing more specifically the location decision between Germany and
the United States, the interviewees rate factors such as income, social networks,
residence permit as well as language and culture significantly higher for the United
States than for Germany.
Empirical evidence on this issue is also available after immigrants have made their
migration and location decision. In this context, the question is to what extent the
recourse to social networks contributes to the reproduction of ethnic segmentation
in the labour market of the destination country. To shed light on this issue, Constant
and Massey (2005) study the occupational progress and earnings attainment of
guest workers in Germany in comparison to the native population. Their analysis
shows a high degree of initial occupational segmentation, with immigrants
being less able to translate their human capital into a good first job than natives.
Additionally, immigrants appear to experience significant discrimination in the
process of occupational attainment. This results in little job mobility over time and
a widening of the status gap between Germans and immigrants. Conditional on
occupational status, however, there is less evidence of direct discrimination in the
process of earnings attainment. Although immigrants achieve lower rates of return
to technical or vocational training than their native counterparts, their wage returns
to experience, hours worked, years since migration, and academic high school were
greater, yielding significant earnings mobility over time.
The initial occupational segmentation of immigrants in Germany could be driven
by their recourse to ethnic networks when looking for employment opportunities.
Indeed, Drever and Hoffmeister (2008) find that nearly half of all new jobs of
individuals with a migration background are acquired with the help of personal
contacts in the social network. In the native population, this is the case for only
about one third of all jobs. This study additionally finds that it is particularly young
immigrants, immigrants with few years of formal education, and immigrants without
country studIes – GERMANY
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