Content characteristics
Topics
Migration history:
Year of immigration; migration history; search behaviour and information channels; social networks
Education history:
highest obtained schooling and vocational degrees; years of schooling; education acquired at home and abroad; acknowledgement procedure of foreign credentials; language proficiency
Employment history:
Employment; self-employment; unemployment in Germany and in foreign countries
Labour market background:
Earnings; full- and part-time employment; benefit assistance, participation in active labour market policies
Return migration:
Return migration intensions
Miscellaneous:
(life) satisfaction; risk preferences; everyday life; social integration and acceptance; worries
Data unit
Anchor persons: Persons who entered Germany since Jan. 2013 and applied for asylum in Germany by the end of July 2016. A refreshment sample was added in 2017, to consider asylum-seekers and refugees who moved in by 31.12.2016 and were registered by 1.1.2017. A second refreshment sample was added in 2020, including asylum-seekers and refugees who moved to Germany between January 2017 and June 2019. Family members: All household members who are running the household together with the anchor person.
Number of cases
Wave 1: 4465 persons in 3289 households
Wave 2: 5595 persons in 3822 households
Wave 3: 4376 persons in 3061 households
Wave 4: 3906persons in 2697 households
Wave 5: 4473 persons in 3549 households
Wave 6: 2636 persons in 1663 households
Wave 7: 2216 persons in 1407 households
Period covered
Wave 1: Year 2016
Wave 2: Year 2017
Wave 3: Year 2018
Wave 4: Year 2019
Wave 5: Year 2020
Wave 6: Year 2021
Welle 7 (bm): Jahr 2022
Time reference
Date of survey, migration biography retrospectively since first leave of country of birth, retrospective questions on life course
Regional structure
German federal state (Bundesland)
Territorial allocation
As of date of survey
Methodological characteristics
Method of data collection
The sample is drawn from the Central Register of Foreigners (AZR) and is representative for asylum seekers who entered Germany between January 2013 and December 2016 and who filed an asylum application until the end of June 2016. An increase in the 2017 survey will also take into account refugees seeking asylum who arrived by December 31, 2016 and were registered by January 1, 2017. A second increase in the 2020 survey refreshes the old sample and additionally augments the sample, including refugees who arrieved in Germany between January 2017 and June 2019. Higher sample probabilities are assigned to individuals with a higher likelihood of staying in Germany (e.g. Afghans, Iraqis or Syrians), to women as well as to individuals age 30+. Design weiths will correct for these unequal sampling probabilities.
Institutions involved
Commissioned by: Cooperation between the Institute for Employment Research (IAB), the Research Centre of the Federal Office for Migration and Refugees (BAMF-FZ) and the Socio-Economic Panel (SOEP) at the German Insitute for Economic Research in Berlin (DIW).
Carried out by:
KANTAR Public social research institute (formerly: TNS Infratest Sozialforschung) between Wave 1 and Wave 5
infas Institute for Applied Social Science from Wave 6 on
Frequency of data collection
Yearly (Panel)
File format and size
STATA (several files)
File architecture
Person-related, household related and biographical datasets.
The structure of the datasets is organised as the GSOEP at DIW Berlin
>> Further information on the versions of the IAB-BAMF-SOEP Survey of Refugees dataset.