Arriving in Germany: The Impact of State Support on the Integration of Newcomers

Integration Department

Project head: Dr. Nora Ratzmann

Project team members: Minou Bouchehri ,  Prof. Dr. Magdalena Nowicka ,  Alexandra Orlova ,  Dr. David Schiefer ,  Denis Zekovic

Germany, as a destination country of immigrants, continues facing facing multiple challenges, such as the maintenance of social cohesion in light of rising right-wing populism and an increasingly polarised discourse on migration and ingration, the ageing of German society and the shortage of skilled workers in many sectors, as well as the arrival of protection-seekers from various countries, which calls for needs-centred, innovative approaches.

Yet the role of (welcoming) local integration policy and practice, bureaucratic institutions, or civil society, has remained underexplored with regard to newcomers‘ subjective settlement perspectives, considering that many leave again within the first four years of arrival. Our own research on Ukrainian protection-holders shows that those with immediate access to regular state services tend to disappear from state authorities’s radar, leaving them in the unknowm on whether support services are accessed in practice or not.

Against this background, our project questions the (new) role of integration policies for settlement processes in Germany, understood as both as a (multi-year) phase following immigration, and the feeling of having arrived (‘anchoring’). Empirically, we focus on the role of state support, including ‘street-level organisations’ and their interactions with (immigrant) citizens, exploring the following questions:

• Who is addressed by policy and politics, in other words, which groups are actively encouraged to stay and who is not, and based on what understandings of belonging?
• What sorts of state support do newcomers rely on and in which phase of arrival? What gaps in provision may exist?
• How do immigrants perceive the local opportunity structures during arrival and settlement, and how do they negotiate their stay, return or onward mobility considering their transnational (family) ties?

Over the course of the project, we will take different groups of newcomers into focus, such as protection-holders from Ukraine, whose prospects of staying remain unclear. During the first year, we explore differences in transnational practices by examining the case of digital work across borders, to shed light on the complexity of decisions on stay/return, of social descent/ascent through meaningful employment and of categorisations as refugees, skilled global talent or immigrant workers.  Our work will also include a qualitative investigation into the experieces of protection-seekers arriving with special needs, through old age, disabilities, or obligations of care work. Local integration programmes tend to focus on newcomers able to actively participate in the labour market but challenges remain in providing needs-driven, inclusive programmes for all.

From 2026, the conceptualisation of a qualitative longitudinal panel with newcomers of different legal residence status (e.g. Blue Card Holders, TPD versus asylum, EU freedom of movement, family reunification) will be developed. Findings will inform integration theories by relying on a life-course perspective when examing migration and integration processes.

Funding: Federal Ministry for Education, Family Affairs, Senior Citizens, Women and Youth (Institutional funding)