Threat and Assimilation: Evidence from Refugees in Germany

This paper studies the effects of local threat on the cultural assimilation and economic integration of refugees, exploiting plausibly exogenous variation in their allocation across German regions between 2013 and 2016. We use representative survey data and administrative records to measure cultural preferences as well as employment, earnings and job characteristics of refugees and German residents, and construct a threat index that integrates contemporaneous and historical variables on xenophobia at the local level. We document that refugees assigned to more hostile regions converge to Germans' stated preferences more rapidly, but do not find a job more quickly and experience slower earnings growth. We provide evidence that, by heightening threat perceptions, local hostility prompts refugees to adopt German culture more quickly. However, higher discrimination in these regions slows down refugees' successful integration.

Keywords: Migration, refugees, culture, assimilation, identity

Suggested Citation: Suggested Citation

Jaschke, Philipp and Sardoschau, Sulin and Tabellini, Marco, Threat and Assimilation: Evidence from Refugees in Germany (January 02, 2025). Harvard Business School BGIE Unit Working Paper No. 22-043, Harvard Business Working Paper No. 22-043, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=3988428 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3988428