Germany on the way to modern immigration society

Researchers at the Berlin Institute for Population and Development said in the study "New potential" presented in Berlin on Tuesday that Germany is already on the path to a modern immigration society.
In the study, the authors welcome the current strong highly-skilled immigrants from abroad and warn at the same time against the consequences of the missed integration.
The study said, Germany opens more and more to people from other countries and is developing slowly but surely into a modern country of immigration, which has very positive consequences.
Who nowadays goes to Germany to find work, is on average better qualified than the average of the local population, said the study.
In particular, the migrants from the crisis-hit southern European countries and from the new Eastern European member states fill the growing gaps in the skilled labor market and contribute significantly to the stable economic situation in Germany.
"However, the current high level of immigration is unlikely to persist in the long term," warns Institute Director Reiner Klingholz, as many of the new immigrants are not only highly qualified but also highly mobile.
So Germany needs a "targeted and coherent integration policy to consolidate Germany's reputation as an attractive country of immigration," said Klingholz.
According to the authors, one of the main findings of the study "New potential" also said that people with a migration background in Germany will become more similar to the local society, as they get older as a group, live more often alone, found more rarely families and have fewer children in families.
However, the Berlin Institute warns against old problems caused by the missed integration policy, because migrants from the time of labor recruitment agreements had been left to themselves for a long time.
According to the study, those migrants are still lagging behind their native peers, even when all opportunities of the local education system are at least formally open to them.
The experts of the Berlin Institute therefore call to further promote early childhood education, to assist in training teachers and educators in dealing with children from different backgrounds and to expand kindergartens and schools targeted to family education centers.
For the results, the scientists have analyzed the micro census data of 2010.
The micro census, which covers about 800,000 people in Germany, is one of population surveys carried out by the German Federal Statistical Office and the Land Statistical Office.