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Refugees are improving their German language skills and continue to feel welcome in Germany , , The third wave of the IAB-BAMF-SOEP Survey of Refugees
BAMF Brief Analysis 1|2020 addresses the question of how refugees assessed their own current living situation in Germany and their German language skills in 2018.
The analysis uses the data from the third wave of the IAB-BAMF-SOEP Survey of Refugees from 2018 to examine how refugees' language acquisition has developed over the past three years. It then goes on to examine refugees' general satisfaction with life, and to show how they assess their economic situation and their relationship with the host society.
German language skills continue to improve among refugees in 2018
The self-assessed knowledge of German among refugees who entered the country from 2013 up to and including 2016 continued to improve in 2018: 44 percent of those surveyed stated that they had a good or very good knowledge of German. This figure was 35 percent in 2017 and 22 percent in the first survey in 2016. The proportion of people with no knowledge of German at all had fallen to five percent in 2018.
It is also apparent that especially people with an intermediate level of education have made significant progress in the past year, whereas the German language skills of women with children developed only slowly.
Attendance at language promotion activities continues to rise
There is a close correlation between the language level and attendance at a language course: 85 percent had attended a language promotion course by the time the survey was conducted in 2018; 65 percent had attended an integration course. This means that the Federation's central language course was the offer that was taken up most commonly. The first catching-up processes with regard to attendance at integration courses are evident among people with a low level of education and among women with older children, but not among women with small children.
A stable level of life satisfaction
Refugees were largely satisfied with their lives on average – only slightly less so than members of the host society. Refugees' life satisfaction is related to their family situation, residence status, employment and housing situation, health situation, sense of being welcome in Germany and the extent of their social contacts with Germans.
Roughly three-quarters of refugees felt welcome in Germany in 2018
It was also shown that a smaller proportion of the refugees surveyed were concerned about xenophobia in Germany than was the case among members of the host society. On the other hand, more refugees than other individuals with a migrant background had the feeling that they had been discriminated against in the past because of their origin.
Many of them are however worried about their economic situation
General life satisfaction is dampened by concerns about personal economic situations. On average, refugees are also not really satisfied with their employment and personal income situation. This might indicate that a large proportion of the refugees do not content themselves with what they have achieved so far, and would like to make further progress.
The Brief Analysis was prepared by: Cristina de Paiva Lareiro, Dr. Nina Rother and Dr. Manuel Siegert