Integration of immigrants in Germany: Much has been accomplished but problems remain

Few topics in Germany spark as many heated debates as integration. How successful have efforts been to integrate new arrivals? What is needed to enable successful integration? And what are the biggest problems? Every two years, the government's Commissioner for Integration presents a comprehensive set of statistics on the matter. Since last year, that role has been held by Natalie Pawlik, a parliamentary representative from the center-left Social Democratic Party (SPD).

Speaking in Berlin on Wednesday, Pawlik offered an overall positive assessment: "Integration is improving steadily, despite ongoing hurdles and challenges." She continued: "The people of our country want integration to succeed. They rightly expect that people who live in Germany permanently will learn our language and abide by our laws." The Commissioner for Integration is part of the Federal Ministry of Labor because ensuring that newcomers find work quickly is especially important.

The integration report was created by a team led by Frank Kalter, director of the German Center for Integration and Migration Research (DeZIM), drawing on official government statistics, surveys and independent studies. They found that when all immigrant groups are counted, about 30% of the population today has some sort of immigrant background — even if that means only one parent.

Pawlik commented: "This is an important message at a time when the discussion often focuses primarily on problems related to supposedly failed integration." Kalter also pointed out that the employment rate among immigrants in Germany is higher than in most other EU countries — nearly 70%.

And they work primarily in one sector: "In recent years, the biggest increase of workers without German citizenship has been in the health and social services sector." According to the data, there were about 1.8 million people without a German passport working in Germany in 2009. By 2025, this number had more than tripled to 5.8 million.

However, there are still plenty of problems. In nearly all immigrant groups, women have difficulty finding employment, especially if they have children and their husbands are employed. Only about 60% of women in such families are employed, whereas nearly 88% of women in families with German passports are employed.

There are also immigrant groups that face barriers to accessing educational opportunities and the job market: mostly young men who came to Germany as refugees. And if one considers only citizenship as a distinguishing factor, the percentage of convicted criminals who are not German citizens is far higher — at 40% — than their share of the population. And they are also reported to the police far more frequently. At the same time, individuals without a German passport are more likely to become victims themselves.

Pawlik emphasizes that language acquisition is the foundation and starting point of any successful integration. But this is precisely where the government tightened its purse strings earlier this year in an effort to save money. Many integration courses are now no longer offered at all or receive less government funding. Pawlik made it clear that she is strongly critical of these cuts, even though she herself is part of the federal government.

Most recently, Pawlik and her fellow Social Democrats have been advocating for people who have been working in Germany for some time to receive more secure residency permits — especially those from Syria and Ukraine. On Tuesday, SPD lawmakers adopted a position paper on the matter. In the paper, they propose that existing legal rights that allow workers to remain in the country should also apply to refugees. In other words, it would give working refugees a more secure status.

But will the conservatives from the Christian Democratic Union (CDU) and Christian Social Union (CSU) — who lead the coalition led by Chancellor Friedrich Merz (CDU) — support this? "You'll have to ask the interior minister," Pawlik replied when asked by DW. Interior Minister Alexander Dobrindt (CSU) is known for being a hardliner on immigration policy.