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Diese Dissertation betrachtet verschiedene Schritte einer sozialwissenschaftlichen Erhebung zur Integration Geflüchteter in Deutschland. Anhand von vier Zeitschriftenartikeln wird eine neuartige Strategie, um eine Zufallsstichprobe von Geflüchteten in Deutschland zu ziehen, besprochen, die Folgen fehlender muttersprachlicher Übersetzungen von Fragebögen analysiert, latente Konstrukte auf Vergleichbarkeit getestet und Fragen ökonomischer Integration in sich verändernden Migrationsregimen diskutiert. Der erste Artikel befasst sich mit einer sequentiellen Ziehungsstrategie für Zufallsstichproben. Diese ermöglicht eine zeitnahe Erhebung von Zuwanderern in Zeiten hoher Immigration, da Registerdaten Migranten nur mit zeitlicher Verzögerung umfassend abdecken. Im zweiten Artikel wird gezeigt, dass fehlende muttersprachliche Übersetzungen von Umfragen die Item-Nonresponse erhöhen. Auch die Bereitstellung von Audio-Aufnahmen kann diesem Effekt nicht entgegenwirken. Im dritten Artikel wird die Vergleichbarkeit latenter Konstrukte in multikulturellen und multisprachlichen Erhebungen am Beispiel von Vorstellungen zu demokratischen Systemen untersucht. Messinvarianztests deuten darauf hin, dass Vorstellungen von Demokratie über verschiedene Herkunftsländer und Sprachen nicht vergleichbar sind. Der letzte Artikel beschäftigt sich mit der ökonomischen Integration Geflüchteter und argumentiert, dass diese auf institutioneller Ebene betrachtet werden muss. Fixed-Effects- Regressionsanalysen kombiniert mit einem exakten Matching führen zu der Schlussfolgerung, dass sichere Aufenthaltstitel und die Teilnahme an Integrationskursen bei Geflüchteten in Deutschland zu einer erhöhten Anstrengung führt Zugang zum Arbeitsmarkt zu bekommen. ; This dissertation looks at the different steps in the process of conducting a survey on refugees living in Germany and discusses key focal points of integration research. In four different articles, I discuss the novel sampling strategy used in a survey of refugees, analyze the effects of missing questionnaire languages, test latent constructs for measurement invariance, and discuss the analysis of economic integration in a changing migration regime. In the first article, I propose a sequential sampling strategy to sample refugees in times of high immigration. In the second article, I show that the lack of questionnaires in a respondent's mother tongue increases item nonresponse. Providing additional audio recordings of the questions does not diminish this effect. In the third article, I use conceptions of democracy as a case study to show that latent constructs in multi-cultural and multi-linguistic surveys face specific challenges and limitations in their comparability. By employing tests for measurement invariance, my results show that conceptions of democracy are likely not comparable across countries of origin or across languages. The fourth and last article looks at the economic integration of refugees. In it, I propose that integration trajectories have to be observed within the specific institutional settings in which they take place. Fixed-effects regression analyses combined with a coarsened exact matching lead to the conclusion that a secure residence permit and participation in integration classes lead to increasing investments in future labor market access of refugees in Germany.

Abstract
Adding to the rich literature on the economic integration of refugees, this article extends the scope towards the role of institutions by focusing on the transfer of human capital by means of credential recognition. The 2012 Federal Act of Recognition in Germany is a new institution that provides the possibility to study the transfer of human capital in depth. I argue that analysing the decision for recognition of credentials is an important aspect of economic integration because it mirrors an investment in future labour-market access. I hypothesize that institutions, such as integration and language classes and the refugee status by admission, are key for explaining who tries to obtain official recognition for their credentials. In order to test my hypothesis, I employ panel data from the IAB-BAMF-SOEP Survey of Refugees in Germany. Results show that both a secure residence title and participation in language/integration classes lead to a higher likelihood of applying for the recognition of degrees.

Etwa jede vierte Person in Deutschland hat eine Einwanderungsgeschichte. Ein Indikator für ihre Inklusion in das politische Leben ist, ob sie sich mit einer Partei verbunden fühlen. Befragungen des Sozio-oekonomischen Panels (SOEP) zeigen, dass Eingewanderte und ihre Kinder dies seltener tun als die restliche Bevölkerung. Bei selbst Eingewanderten steigt die Parteibindung mit der Aufenthaltsdauer: Bis fünf Jahre nach ihrer Einwanderung gibt etwa ein Viertel der Befragten eine erste Parteibindung an, nach 15 Jahren ist es rund die Hälfte. Dabei unterscheiden sich die Parteibindungen zwischen Personen verschiedener Herkunftsländer stark. So neigen Menschen aus der Türkei häufiger der SPD zu, während sich Eingewanderte aus Osteuropa und der ehemaligen Sowjetunion beziehungsweise den Nachfolgestaaten häufiger der CDU/CSU verbunden fühlen. Dass die Hälfte der Menschen mit Einwanderungsgeschichte in Deutschland den Parteien bisher dauerhaft distanziert gegenübersteht, weist auf ein hohes Mobilisierungspotenzial hin. Parteien sollten daher diese wachsende Wählergruppe noch aktiver ansprechen und ihre vielfältigen politischen Interessen stärker einbeziehen.

Etwa jede vierte Person in Deutschland hat eine Einwanderungsgeschichte. Ein Indikator für ihre Inklusion in das politische Leben ist, ob sie sich mit einer Partei verbunden fühlen. Befragungen des Sozio-oekonomischen Panels (SOEP) zeigen, dass Eingewanderte und ihre Kinder dies seltener tun als die restliche Bevölkerung. Bei selbst Eingewanderten steigt die Parteibindung mit der Aufenthaltsdauer: Bis fünf Jahre nach ihrer Einwanderung gibt etwa ein Viertel der Befragten eine erste Parteibindung an, nach 15 Jahren ist es rund die Hälfte. Dabei unterscheiden sich die Parteibindungen zwischen Personen verschiedener Herkunftsländer stark. So neigen Menschen aus der Türkei häufiger der SPD zu, während sich Eingewanderte aus Osteuropa und der ehemaligen Sowjetunion beziehungsweise den Nachfolgestaaten häufiger der CDU/CSU verbunden fühlen. Dass die Hälfte der Menschen mit Einwanderungsgeschichte in Deutschland den Parteien bisher dauerhaft distanziert gegenübersteht, weist auf ein hohes Mobilisierungspotenzial hin. Parteien sollten daher diese wachsende Wählergruppe noch aktiver ansprechen und ihre vielfältigen politischen Interessen stärker einbeziehen.

Involuntarily or planned – many refugees flee their home country alone, leave behind spouses and children but also siblings, parents and other family members they otherwise care for. Reunification in hosting communities is difficult, as governments limit institutional family reunifications and the individual journey of kin is dangerous and often illegal. Having family abroad is mentally distressing for refugees, as kin might not live in safety. Additionally, reuniting with family members can be a source of support in the new environment. Grounded in theories of mental distress and social support, this analysis investigates the association between family reunifications and refugee mental health in a random sample of refugees in Germany (N = 6610), the IAB-BAMF-SOEP Survey of Refugees 2016–2018. By means of panel fixed-effect regression analysis, we observe institutionally sponsored but also individual moves of other family members. The study finds that family reunification has a positive association with refugee mental health, though not at an equally increasing rate for each additional member of the family. Gender differences show in the size of association, yet significant heterogeneous associations between refugee men and women cannot be observed. Finally, the associations are larger when only observing reunifications with the nuclear family.

This study addresses the heated academic and public debate on the compatibility and comparability of refugees' and host societies' democratic values. Comparative values research has long capitalized on global similarities and differences in support for Western democratic values. We argue that such cross-cultural comparisons of culturally diverse groups are challenged by (1) different conceptions of democracy determined by different experiences with democratic systems and (2) bias introduced by linguistic differences and translation processes. In order to analyze whether the conception of democracy is comparable between different nationalities and languages, we test data from the German IAB-BAMF-SOEP Survey of Refugees and the world values survey (WVS) for measurement invariance using multi-group confirmatory factor analysis (MGCFA). Applying strict and conservative criteria for measurement invariance and fit indices, our results suggest that the applied democracy scales are problematic for comparing conceptions of democracy between refugees and Germans and across languages. However if more lenient criteria regarding partial invariance and fit indices are considered acceptable, mean comparisons could be carried out between language groups and between groups of refugees.

Abstract
With the so-called 'long summer of migration' of 2015, there was an urgent need to accommodate many refugees in Germany. This situation was framed as a 'refugee reception crisis', and it revealed diametrically opposed stances within German society. Within this debate, anti-refugee sentiment is often explained with the placement of nearby refugee reception facilities. Conclusive evidence of this claim is yet missing. Most studies dealing with refugee immigration and attitudes toward refugees lack of appropriate geo-data to test this assumption. We fill this empirical gap by employing novel data on refugee reception facilities in Germany, including exact geo-location, and combine it with the geo-locations of households participating in the German Socio-Economic Panel. Drawing on group threat and contact theory, we report a solid null effect and conclude that the placement of reception facilities does not influence locals' attitudes toward refugees.

Five years ago, almost a million people came to Germany seeking refuge. Chancellor Angela Merkel responded to public concern over such a large influx of refugees with her well-known saying, "Wir schaffen das" (We can do this!). Much has happened since then. As this report shows, the German population's concerns over immigration have been decreasing since 2016. Nevertheless, refugees are increasingly concerned about xenophobia. At the same time, although their trust in key state institutions is high, they are less trusting of Germany's public administration system. One way of building mutual reliance might be to foster personal contact between refugees and local populations. However, the present study indicates that, so far, only around half of refugees have regular contact with Germans. Female refugees, in particular, have less contact with Germans. Government initiatives to create diverse social networks could be an important step toward greater integration.

Over the course of 2013 to 2016, over one million asylum seekers arrived in Germany, around 890,000 of them in 2015 alone. The growing refugee population posed a major challenge for Germany's policy makers, civic administrators, and society at large, in finding new approaches to registration procedures, housing, and social and economic integration. To design policies and programs that meet these needs, government administrators, politicians, and the public require robust analyses of the accompanying social and demographic changes based on timely, valid, and reliable empirical data. Yet despite the urgent need for quantitative data on this target group, survey organizations and data collection agencies had little experience gaining access to the target population and approaching and surveying them effectively. In late 2015, when the influx reached its peak, the Institute for Employment Research (IAB), the Migration, Integration and Asylum Research Center at the Federal Office for Migration and Refugees (BAMF-FZ), and the Socio-Economic Panel (SOEP) joined together in a cooperative longitudinal project to survey a nationwide random sample of refugee households in Germany: the IAB-BAMF-SOEP Survey of Refugees. In this paper, we summarize the sampling and fieldwork design as well as the challenges faced in the IAB-BAMF-SOEP Survey of Refugees. We discuss the sequential strategy applied for sampling recent refugees and asylum seekers who arrived in Germany, particularly in 2015, in such large numbers that proper registration was delayed, and in many cases their initial accommodations were only temporary. Moreover, the paper discusses alternative survey instruments introduced for the difficult-to-interview population of the IAB-BAMF-SOEP Survey of Refugees, including translated questionnaires and audio files.

Over the course of 2013 to 2016, over one million asylum seekers arrived in Germany, around
890,000 of them in 2015 alone. The growing refugee population posed a major challenge for
Germany's policy makers, civic administrators, and society at large, in finding new approaches to
registration procedures, housing, and social and economic integration. To design policies and
programs that meet these needs, government administrators, politicians, and the public require
robust analyses of the accompanying social and demographic changes based on timely, valid, and
reliable empirical data. Yet despite the urgent need for quantitative data on this target group, survey
organizations and data collection agencies had little experience gaining access to the target
population and approaching and surveying them effectively.
In late 2015, when the influx reached its peak, the Institute for Employment Research (IAB), the
Migration, Integration and Asylum Research Center at the Federal Office for Migration and
Refugees (BAMF-FZ), and the Socio-Economic Panel (SOEP) joined together in a cooperative
longitudinal project to survey a nationwide random sample of refugee households in Germany: the
IAB-BAMF-SOEP Survey of Refugees. In this paper, we summarize the sampling and fieldwork
design as well as the challenges faced in the IAB-BAMF-SOEP Survey of Refugees. We discuss
the sequential strategy applied for sampling recent refugees and asylum seekers who arrived in
Germany, particularly in 2015, in such large numbers that proper registration was delayed, and in
many cases their initial accommodations were only temporary. Moreover, the paper discusses
alternative survey instruments introduced for the difficult-to-interview population of the IAB-BAMFSOEP
Survey of Refugees, including translated questionnaires and audio files.

"Die Präsenz Geflüchteter in Deutschland sowie die Herausforderungen ihrer Integration beschäftigen die Öffentlichkeit seit nunmehr zwei Jahren. Neuesten Zahlen des Sozio-oekonomischen Panels (SOEP) zufolge machten sich im vergangenen Jahr weitaus mehr Menschen in Deutschland Sorgen aufgrund von Zuwanderung sowie Ausländerfeindlichkeit und Fremdenhass als noch im Jahr 2013. Weitere repräsentative Ergebnisse eines eigens erhobenen Stimmungsbarometers zu Geflüchteten in Deutschland im Jahr 2016 und der aktuellen SOEP-Welle deuten darüber hinaus darauf hin, dass die Befragten in der Fluchtzuwanderung eher Risiken als Chancen sehen. Gleichzeitig engagierte sich 2016 rund ein Drittel der Bevölkerung nach eigenen Angaben in Form von Geld- oder Sachspenden für Geflüchtete und rund zehn Prozent halfen vor Ort, etwa indem sie Geflüchtete bei Behördengängen begleiteten oder Sprachkurse gaben. Eine höhere formale Bildung sowie bisheriges ehrenamtliches Engagement machen einen solchen Einsatz für Geflüchtete vor Ort wahrscheinlicher. Im Jahresverlauf nahm die in der Umfrage geäußerte Absicht, sich künftig zu engagieren, jedoch ab." (Autorenreferat, IAB-Doku)

Five years ago, almost a million people came to Germany seeking refuge. Chancellor Angela Merkel responded to public concern over such a large influx of refugees with her well-known saying, "Wir schaffen das" (We can do this!). Much has happened since then. As this report shows, the German population's concerns over immigration have been decreasing since 2016. Nevertheless, refugees are increasingly concerned about xenophobia. At the same time, although their trust in key state institutions is high, they are less trusting of Germany's public administration system. One way of building mutual reliance might be to foster personal contact between refugees and local populations. However, the present study indicates that, so far, only around half of refugees have regular contact with Germans. Female refugees, in particular, have less contact with Germans. Government initiatives to create diverse social networks could be an important step toward greater integration.