Angela Merkel’s Record on Immigration and Gender

ABSTRACT

Angela Merkel served as Chancellor at a time when German society was quickly diversifying due to immigration. Her policy choices now shape the life chances of millions of immigrants and their descendants. These choices also set the terms on which Germans will decide which divisions and which forms of solidarity will characterise the society in the years to come. Merkel was more willing to accept the reality of immigration than earlier CDU leaders. And yet I argue that, faced with rapid societal change, the Merkel governments generally avoided deep reforms of existing institutions, even those that yield sharp disparities by immigration status and gender. I find that, although Merkel focused on economic integration and female labour force participation, immigrant-origin residents have made only slow progress in these areas, though educational disparities have narrowed. Additionally, millions of long-term residents still lack German citizenship and the right to vote, so that their voices are muted in debates over what it means to be German. Meanwhile support for anti-immigrant extremists has surged. I conclude that it is an open question whether Merkel’s conservative approach will provide a stable basis for the economic, social, and political consolidation of a more diverse Germany.

Disclosure Statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Acknowledgment

The author is grateful for encouragement and fruitful suggestions from Petra Ahrens, Phil Ayoub and Sabine Lang, as well as the editor and anonymous reviewers.

Notes

1 By including evidence on outcomes my approach aligns with the work of Engeli and Mazur (2018), who argue that research on gender equality policies should not end at the point of policy enactment but, rather, should also assess policy outputs and the relevant outcomes.

2 Citizens of other EU member states are allowed to retain dual citizenship if they naturalize in Germany. Children with one German-born and one immigrant parent are also typically allowed dual citizenship. Since intermarriage is more common for immigrant-origin groups from Western Europe, the combined effect of these exceptions to the superficially race-neutral stance against dual citizenship was to exclude the children of non-European migrants.

3 For research on Merkel’s individual impact see, e.g. Mushaben 2017a.

4 I rely on many of the works cited in this article, and on contributions to this special issue, to classify each issue. No single piece of evidence can be used across disparate issues (some chronic, others sudden) to draw the line between, for instance, active and passive facilitation. Others might reach different judgments in certain cases but I believe the broad pattern—the preponderance of passive and conservative responses—is robust.

5 There was EU pressure to expand childcare options, as agreed at the 2002 Barcelona summit. Similarly, the EU has pushed to standardize data on gendered wage disparities.

6 From 277,000 to 364,000. See Statistisches Bundesamt 2006 and 2020b.

7 My data source is the Mikrozensus, a compulsory annual survey of about 400,000 German households that provides information on living situation, employment and education. The concept of ‘Migrationshintergrund’ has been used by some to essentialize, e.g. by politicians who demand to know whether crimes were committed by people with a ‘Migrationshintergrund.’ However, the data can also be used to convey relevant information.

8 See https://www.bundesregierung.de/breg-de/mediathek/kanzlerin-podcast/potenzial-von-maennern-und-frauen-gleichermassen-nutzen-1728928. Accessed January 2, 2020.

9 Over this time period people became less reliant on unemployment benefits, less reliant on other welfare state support, and also less reliant on support from family members. Thus, this trend does not seem to be driven only by a change in other circumstances, such as the changes in unemployment benefits related to the “Hartz” reforms of the early 2000s.

10 Data from 2006, 2007 and 2020 reports by the Bundesamt für Migration und Flüchtlinge, BAMF. As of 2019, about 25 per cent were from EU countries; the remainder from elsewhere, led by China and India. In most cases half or more of the students were women; lower women’s shares for instance for India (28 per cent), Syria (23 per cent) and Egypt (27 per cent).

11 See https://www.bundesregierung.de/breg-de/mediathek/videos/merkel-neujahrsansprache-2020-1833774. Accessed January 3, 2020.

12 See, e.g. https://www.forschungsgruppe.de/Umfragen/Politbarometer/Langzeitentwicklung_-_Themen_im_Ueberblick/Politik_II/ Accessed January 2, 2020.

13 By may calculation, for instance, women accounted for 40 per cent of immigrant-origin politicians in the German Bundestag elected in 2017, whereas women held 31 per cent of Bundestag seats overall.

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Alex Street

Alex Street studies Comparative and American politics, focusing on political participation. He has published articles on why immigrants naturalise and how this affects their politics, on how voters choose between candidates, on how immigrants develop a preference for political parties, and on how voter registration laws affect turnout, among other topics. Dr. Street has also served as an expert witness in court cases on voting rights in several US states.