Kiel Working Papers, Kiel Institute for World Economics
No 1719:
The Economic Integration of Forced Migrants. Evidence for Post-War Germany
Thomas Bauer, Sebastian Braun and Michael Kvasnicka
Abstract: The flight and expulsion of Germans from Eastern Europe
during and after World War II constitutes one of the largest forced
population movements in history. We analyze the economic integration of
these forced migrants and their offspring in West Germany. The empirical
results suggest that even a quarter of a century after displacement, first
generation migrants and native West Germans that were comparable before the
war perform strikingly different. Migrants have substantially lower incomes
and are less likely to own a house or to be self-employed. Displaced
agricultural workers, however, have significantly higher incomes. This
income gain can be explained by faster transitions out of low-paid
agricultural work. Differences in the labor market performance of second
generation migrants resemble those of the first generation. We also find
that displacement considerably weakens the intergenerational transmission
of human capital between fathers and children, especially at the lower tail
of the skill distribution
Keywords: Forced Migration, Economic Integration, World War II, West Germany; (follow links to similar papers)
JEL-Codes: J61,; O15,; R23; (follow links to similar papers)
27 pages, July 2011
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