Long-distance spatial mobility in Western Germany. A comparison between minorities of Turkish ancestry and native Germans

Abstract

This paper examines the spatial mobility incentives and constrains of minorities of Turkish ancestry compared to natives between counties in Western Germany based on 10 waves (2000-2009) of the SOEP. Given that ethnic groups systematically differ from natives in characteristics like risk aversion due to their international migration experience, it has been assumed that regarding internal migration they will be more mobile than natives as well (DaVanzo 1981). However, first descriptive findings have shown that Turkish people are twice as less likely than Germans to migrate. Accordingly, I address the question of to what extent these differences in spatial mobility behaviors of German and Turkish origin individuals are generated 1) by individual level characteristics, 2) by macro level regional economic characteristics and 3) by regional ties using multilevel-modeling techniques in a two-level design. The analysis shows that the differences to first generation Turkish people can be fully explained by individual level characteristics, whereas neither the individual level nor the contextual level characteristics hold for deep explanation for the differences to the 2nd generation of Turkish ancestry. Unemployment rate of the county does not have any effect on migration whereas the concentration of Turkish population, as a context level indicator of social capital, deters migration of Germans, and interestingly doesn’t affect the propensity to migrate of Turkish people in any direction.