The applicability of foreign vocational credentials - The case of ethnic Germans in the German labor market

Since the breakdown of communism, Germany has experienced a major influx of ethnic German migrants (Aussiedler) from Eastern Europe. In this paper, we use data from the German Socio-Economic Panel of the year 1998 to analyze the integration of ethnic German migrants into the German labor market. We focus particularly on the transferability of educational credentials for th e labor market integration of migrants. Although there are official procedu res for ethnic German to have their educational and vocational certificates recognized, only a minority of them are working in the occupation they wer e actually trained for. For migrants, however, working in the occupation le arned is a prerequisite for performing well in the German labor market. The problems ethnic German migrants are faced before they can utilize their vo cational skills lead us to some general conclusions about dominant allocati on mechanisms and further predictions about the fate of future migrant popu lations in the German labor market.