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; working hours; benefit assistance, reservation wage; participation in active labour market policies
Return migration:
Return migration intensions; return migration; limited survey of returned immigrants
Miscellaneous:
Remittances to home countries; life satisfaction; risk preferences; social integration and acceptance
Data unit
Anchor persons: Persons registered at the federal employment agency the first time after 1995 who immigrated to Germany themselves or who are children of immigrants. Family members: All Family members of anchor persons over 16 years.
Number of cases
Wave 1: 4964 persons in 2723 households
Wave 2: 3752 persons in 2021 households
Wave 3: 4770 persons in 2768 households
Wave 4: 3832 persons in 2155 households
Wave 5: 3408 persons in 1913 households
Wave 6: 2962 persons in 1692 households
Wave 7: 2515 persons in 1424 households
Wave 8: 4383 persons in 3177 households
Wave 9: 2151 persons in 1476 households
Period covered
Wave 1 (bd): Year 2013
Wave 2 (be): Year 2014
Wave 3 (bf): Year 2015
Wave 4 (bg): Year 2016
Wave 5 (bh): Year 2017
Wave 6 (bi): Year 2018
Wave 7 (bj): Year 2019
Wave 8 (bk): Year 2020
Wave 9 (bl): Year 2021
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 initial sample, which was surveyed for the first time in 2013, has been drawn from all individuals in the IEB data that have appeared there for the first time after 1994. Clusters of 2,500 people each were formed using geocoded data from the RDC of the IAB, result-ing in a total of 6,725 geographical sample units (PSUs). In the next step, all people with a migration background were identified on the basis of their nationality. Among the people of German nationality, the onomastics procedure was used to search for further people with a migration background. The onomastics procedure was only carried out in a partial sample of 600 out of a total of 6,725 PSUs. The PSUs were selected on the basis of stratified random sampling. All persons without a migration background were removed from the data. A total of 250 out of the 600 PSUs were considered for the field survey. In the selected 250 PSUs, the gross sample con-sists of 80 addresses (households). Simulated random walk proce-dures were implemented for the sampling. Through a so-called screening interview with the anchor people, the households that meet the criteria of the sample design were identified.
Since 2015 there has also been a refreshment sample to take ac-count of panel attrition and changing immigration pattern in younger years. The new respondents are only those who immigrated between 2009 and 2015. The refreshment sample has also been drawn from the IEB data and is disproportionate to the country of origin, as certain countries are overrepresented (e.g. Bulgaria) and other coun-tries are underrepresented (e.g. Turkey).
In order to evaluate legislative changes to facilitate the immigration and employment of skilled workers from third countries, the migration sample has been expanded since the introduction of the Skilled Immigration Act 2020 to include new subsamples of households if the anchor persons moved to Germany from the EU (M7) or a third country (M8) for employment purposes. While some of the samples are also drawn from the IEB, some samples are drawn on the basis of data from the Federal Employment Agency on approvals to take up employment.
Institutions involved
Commissioned by: Cooperation between the Institute for Employment Research (IAB) and the Socio-Economic Panel Study at DIW Berlin.
Carried out by:
infas Institut für angewandte Sozialwissenschaft GmbH
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-SOEP Migration Sample Survey Dataset.