Dissimilation? The Educational Attainment of Second Generation Immigrants

The educational attainment of second generation immigrants is of crucial importance for their subsequent labour market success in Germany. While the schooling outcomes of natives improved in recent decades, German-born children of immigrants did not partake in this development. The Paper applies representative data from the Mikrozensus and the German Socioeconomic Panel (GSOEP) to investigate the development and determinants of educational attainment of immigrant youth. Even after controlling for covariate effects, the time trends in the educational attainment of natives and second generation immigrants deviate. This evidence for ‘dissimilation’ calls for responses by educational policy and further research attention. An additional outcome of the study is that the analysis of immigrant educational attainment ought to distinguish first and second generation immigrants as these groups differ in statistically significant ways.