Coming to stay? Relevance and determinants of new immigrants' settlement intention in Germany

Abstract

The question of whether immigrants intend to stay or to remigrate is of crucial importance not only from the perspective of the countries of destination. For the immigrants themselves, too, their initial intention to stay is a decisive factor because it influences their individual endeavours to assimilate and also their success in eventually doing so. Based on these assumptions, the article investigates the settlement intentions of 600 newly arrived immigrants interviewed in a pilot study in two German cities (Essen and Munich) in winter 2004/5. About 40% of the respondents declare that they plan to live in Germany permanently. In addition to the motives for immigration, the crucial mechanism behind this intention is the existence of pre-migratory social ties to Germany. Even though immigrants have become more heterogeneous in terms of their socio-economic situation, this implies that there is a continuity between present immigration patterns to Germany and those of the past that have been dominated by the inflow of foreign workers.