The Federal President served kebab in Istanbul as a gift. Nothing on Steinmeier’s trip to Türkiye attracted more attention. Finally, one might get the impression that people of Turkish origin primarily contribute grilled meat to German society.
Yunus Ulusoy puts it diplomatically: “I was irritated when I heard that Federal President Steinmeier had brought a kebab skewer with him to Turkey.” He understands the symbolism. But it is not suitable, says the program manager for Transnational Connections Germany-Turkey at the Center for Turkish Studies and Integration Research (ZFTI) in an interview with ntv.de. Because the kebab skewer is a picture from the 1970s to 90s, when the first people of Turkish origin set up their own business in Germany. “They went into industries where they found niches that the majority population didn’t serve,” says Ulusoy. This image is long outdated.
Ulusoy himself has pursued an academic career; the economist has been working at the ZFTI at the University of Duisburg-Essen since the 1990s. He belongs to the so-called second generation; his parents immigrated from Turkey. “When I started studying in 1984, it was unthinkable for foreigners to work in the public service,” remembers Ulusoy. “For example, because of my Turkish nationality, I wouldn’t have been able to pursue a career as a civil servant, but our vision was also different.”
When Helmut Kohl became chancellor in 1982, one of his first measures was to encourage the return of foreign workers. Shortly before Ulusoy graduated from high school, a bonus of 10,500 DM was offered to return home. “Many people from my environment went back to Turkey.” He did not choose his field of study, economics, based on his wishes, but rather by thinking about what he could do with it in Turkey. “For law, for example, I would have chosen Germany.”
That seemed unimaginable to him at the time. Because he was competing with baby boomers, and Germany was far from being a country of immigration. Today, people of Turkish origin can more easily obtain German citizenship and thus become judges or soldiers in the Bundeswehr. Becoming a police officer was also “unthinkable for us,” says Ulusoy. The third and fourth generations, on the other hand, have gone through the entire German education system and, above all, have better opportunities thanks to the shortage of skilled workers. According to studies, younger people also experience discrimination. “But employers today can afford much less to screen out applicants with a name they don’t like,” says Ulusoy.
And the chances of applicants with foreign names continue to increase. Ulusoy expects a particular boost from the retirement of the baby boomers. So far, only a few of the employed people who themselves or whose parents were born in Turkey work in public administration: 3.9 percent, as shown in the 2023 microcensus. Among those in employment without an immigration history, the figure is 8.9 percent. 6.3 percent without a migration background are civil servants, while only 1.5 percent of those of Turkish origin are civil servants.
Yunus Ulusoy has been working at the University of Duisburg-Essen since the late 1990s.
(Photo: picture alliance/dpa)
Workers, on the other hand, are significantly more represented among them at 18.6 percent than among those without a migrant background (8.9 percent). So it’s no wonder that more people of Turkish origin are among the low-income earners. Almost a fifth earn less than 1,000 euros net, while the figure is twelve percent of those without an immigration background. One in six people without a migration background earns 3,500 euros net or more, whereas only one in ten employed people of Turkish origin achieves this level of income. According to the microcensus, the unemployment rate with a Turkish immigration background (5 percent) is more than twice as high as without a migration background (2.2 percent).
For the first and second generation of immigrants, opportunities were even more limited. They also found niches with Turkish customers, as Ulusoy explains. In the 1970s, the first travel agencies opened that only offered tickets for so-called guest workers, as well as the first shops selling Turkish food. Restaurants followed in the 80s and 90s. While a craft business would have required a master’s degree, which most people did not have, immigrants from Turkey sought out areas that did not require specific know-how or high investments, as Ulusoy explains.
The proportion of workers falls significantly
The scientist emphasizes that the opportunities for employed people of Turkish origin have now improved significantly. In 2010, the proportion of blue-collar workers among them was more than half. Today it is less than a fifth. For example, while people of Turkish origin ran virtually no hairdressing salons in this country in the 70s and 80s, today there are numerous of them. “Back then, the Germans came into contact with guest workers in the mine or factory, but not in everyday service life,” explains Ulusoy. In the meantime, for example, it is no longer possible to avoid migrant craft businesses when building houses. “Today there are entrepreneurial families, some of them in their third generation.”
According to the microcensus, employees of Turkish origin still work more often in the manufacturing sector (31 percent) than employees without an immigration history (26 percent). Almost a third with a Turkish migrant background work in trade, hospitality or transport, while the figure for those without an immigration background is less than a quarter. Other services are also provided by a third of employees of Turkish origin, and almost 41 percent without a migration background.
More precise data is not available. The employment agency only evaluates the fields of work of Turkish nationals, which only represents around half of the population of Turkish origin. Of the employees subject to social security contributions with a Turkish passport, around a third work as helpers, while only 16 percent of the German employees work. The proportion of skilled workers is about the same. But among specialists and experts, the proportion of German employees (31 percent in total) is more than twice as high as that of Turkish employees (13 percent in total).
Educational opportunities, place of residence and discrimination slow down
Christian Hunkler from the Berlin Institute for Empirical Integration and Migration Research at Humboldt University suspects several reasons behind the differences in the employment structure, as he explains in response to an ntv.de query. The obvious reasons are inequalities in the educational sector, the concentration of the population of Turkish origin in the former West German industrial centers and the labor market opportunities available there, as well as discrimination by employers, which is to varying degrees in certain professions and possibly also regions.
Success in school and therefore training in Germany depends heavily on the social status of the parents, as Hunkler explains. Students of Turkish origin are less likely to graduate from high school and obtain a vocational or university degree. Across various educational stages, children and young people of Turkish origin usually achieved worse results than other migrant groups.
In the future, however, thanks to demographic change, more people with a migrant background are likely to work in all sectors of the economy, as Ulusoy emphasizes. Without immigration, the German population would have been shrinking for a long time. Almost 30 percent now have a migration background. The largest group is made up of the 2.93 million people with migration ties to Türkiye. Around 1.58 million people of Turkish origin have a German passport, around 1.35 million only the Turkish one. “Anyone who votes for the AfD today will realize in 10 or 15 years that they cannot cope with everyday life with so-called bio-Germans,” says Ulusoy.
After its 60-year history of migration, the economist is convinced that Germany now has a competitive advantage over countries whose populations are shrinking. “Syrians in Germany will achieve in three to five years what it took Turks decades to do.”