The poverty situation of immigrants compared between Germany, Sweden and Lithuania

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1. Introduction

On the following pages I’ll try to look at the situation of immigrants in the three countries Germany, Sweden and Lithuania. I want to find out in which way poverty is a problem for these people. Which are their chances on the labour market, their educational chances, their health-situation, their living situation and their social situation? Do they have a higher poverty risk than the established population? Which specific problems do they have?

After describing the situation in each country I’ll try to make some comparisions and find out the commonalities and differences.

2. The situation of immigrants in Germany

The recruitment of foreign labour, the admission of refugees and the return of ethnic German settlers from former Eastern bloc countries caused large numbers of migrants to Germany. At the end of 2003 7.8 million immigrants lived in Germany which makes nearly 9% of the whole population. The number of foreign population remained nearly constant between 1999 and 2003 while the number of asylum seekers went down. From these 7.3. million immigrants 25% are from EU states, 26% are from Turkey and 8% are from Serbia and Montenegra. 47% of the immigrants are women, so that there is an increasing number of women among the foreign population in Germany. An especially high number of foreign population lives in big cities like Frankfurt am Main, München and Stuttgart and in smaller industrial towns. The foreign population is younger than the german population: In 2002 47% of the immigrants are between 18 and 40 years old, but only 30% of the Germans. Only 10% of the immigrants were older than 60 years, but 26% of the Germans. In spring 2000 26.6% of all 15-year old pupils had a migration background which means that at least one parent was born in a foreign state ¹ .

Children of a foreign origin don’t have such a good school education as german children which makes the chances for participation for these children worse. So only 10.3% of the german children visit the “Hauptschule” (a school which ends after 9 years of school attention), but 21.1% of the children with a foreign citizenship. 13.6% of the german children visit the “Realschule” (a school which ends after 10 years of school), but 9.1% of the migrant children. 32.2% of the Germans attend the

¹ Der 2. Armuts- und Reichtumsbericht der Bundesregierung, p. 158/159