Socioeconomic Impacts of Syrian Refugees in Germany

Abstract

Germany has accepted millions of refugees since their arrival in January 2015. Even though they came with various sets of human skills and previous experiences, a bigger section of the Syrian refugees has a common Asian origin. Since the immigration of Syrians in Germany characterized a larger tendency of what was taking place all over Europe at the time, it appeared suitable to explore their case for this research paper. Therefore, this research investigates the socioeconomic impacts of Syrian refuges in Germany along with the solutions that offer refugees organization to participate in their individual development and integration into the German space. The considerations for improving the integration of refugees and allowing them to participate in a constructive manner to their host communities serve as future recommendation to the German government in its effort to contain the humanitarian crisis caused by the immigrants. The research is divided into sections covering different aspects such as the general introduction to the topic, study’s hypothesis and thesis statements, and the impact of Syrian refugees on economy (history, inflation and GDP). It discusses the impact caused on the German community, managing the influx, efficient refugee policy, along with the social impact on Syrian refugees. Broadly, this research contributes to a developing body of literature on how refugees can help as economic advantage rather than being a liability.

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Introduction

Exploring the socioeconomic impacts of Syrian refuges in Germany is important in understanding the best approaches of containing the situation before it becomes immensely unbearable for the government to manage. The European Union experienced an unparalleled arrival of refugees between January 2015 and end of 2016, widely known as the European refugee crisis (Peter). Millions of refugees traversed the Mediterranean and Aegean Seas in an effort to arrive at Europe, following the reports given by the refugee agency of the United Nations, United Nations High Commission for Refugees (Bagir). A number of refugees lost their lives in the process, drowning on the dangerous sea routes. Germany has been a lure for immigrants who successfully traverse the routes into the country, receiving more immigrants than any other nation within the European Union. In the year 2015, Germany excellently implemented an open border policy and within the same year, it received hundreds of refugees with nearly equal amounts of formal applications for offer of political asylum to the refugees. This time characterized the highest number of applications received every year in the history of the Federal Republic and Germany is experiencing a backlog of applications as shown in the figure below.

Thesis & Hypothesis

The current research investigates the socioeconomic impacts of Syrian refuges in Germany, recommending that embracing an improved integration can adequately be accomplished by nurturing economic empowerment and self-reliance among the refugee populations. The economic integration of refugees fosters social, political, and cultural inclusion of the Syrian immigrants in Germany. With the current regime, opportunities for an effective asylum system are accessible and all that should be done is to pass them in a sound course of action. This research maintains that it is in the course of the waiting time that Syrian refugees should get exhaustive support and adequate training in particular skills needed to back their integration into various sectors of the economy. In this perspective, the refugees can profoundly contribute to Germany’s economic development once they are given permission to work as part of the country’s labor force.

Impact on Economy

Following the August 2015 declaration made by Germany on a new policy that was vastly welcomed approval by two-thirds majority of the nation’s voters, a section of the Syrian refugees took advantage of the opportunity to secure asylum in Germany. The policy offering a chance to the asylum seekers to beneficiaries such as Bidal Majeed who fled war in Syria. This beneficiary happens to be a graduate with a professional background in English literature and experience with humanities as he also worked in office management in the past. Such personalities can be afforded asylum by Germany and integrated into the country’s labor force, although the asylum takes a lot of money from the government’s budget leading to high spending. The accommodated graduate was among the several immigrants leaving Syria for Germany to begin a new life away from war. In his description of the experience of entering the country, Bidal explains that the local populations staring at them in amazement, together with his brother, and several other refugees who alighted from a van into German land for the first time in their history. The Germans who greeted Bidal proceeded to help him along with his brother to purchase train tickets bound for Berlin and further assisted them on how to reach the train station.

History of Economy

In history, the nation of Germany is considered as the largest economy in Europe although after the Second World War, Germany was left in ruins. Private land and properties were destroyed as millions of people were compelled to move away and those that remained usually did not have enough basic need such as food, shelter and clothing for their families that survived the tumultuous times. The rate of inflation was extreme and higher rates of unemployment was noted at very high at unfavorable high levels. The government that ruled Germany at the time got a chance to recover from the ruin a new, to a more stable economy aimed at offering equal opportunities to everyone and limiting the creation of disadvantaged social groups as this can result to an uprising and authoritarianism. Creating a stale economy could substantially stabilize the entire society, in relation to the miracle economy era.

As a result of the economic developments, West Germany got loads of support from investment funds for European repossession in the economy, as in the case of the Marshall plan support approach. There was a farfetched economic prosperity in the years after 1950 that was fueled by the plan as the rate of growth of the industrial production was better in 1950 and reduced in thereafter. This fast development persisted all over the 50s, faced with a few infrequent slowdowns. By 60s, the rate of industrial production had increased to more than double the level it was during the 50s. In the same era, the country’s GDP per capita increase by more than half. There also existed histrionic variations in the unemployment rate over this time period as it declined substantially. In the 60s, there was a slow growth in the economic development compared to the previous decades as a result of sustainability concerns. The newly elected government at the time instituted new economic policies that revived the economic stimulus and that has sustained the development of the German economy in the European and global markets.

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Inflation

The immigration of the Syrian refugees into Germany has substantial effect on the rate of inflation. In a training perspective, a host nation finances the processing of applicants, together with food, housing, health and education when asylum seekers make their first appearance in the new land. As an interim measure, the additional spending of the government raises the nation’s aggregate demand or financial expansion relative to its annual budget allocations. That implies that additional goods and services are manufactured, leading to more disposable pay for native employees of Germany. The additionally manufactured good caters for plunging burdens on wages and inflation when the asylum seekers ultimately get absorbed into the job market. This particular process can be done for nearly two years in relation to different rules of nations. When they can begin job searching process, beginners have a tendency of falling behind native employees. In order to bridge the gap, it is imperative to quickly enhance employability of the nation such as Germany having a high influx of refugees from Syria. The enhanced employment implies that providing housing facilities closer to workplaces, and establishing flexible labor markets, along with the provision of proper language skills and education can facilitate then integration of Syrian refugees in Germany. Having a successful economic integration can assist in the financial sustainability for Germany while substantially taking care of demographic challenges that can negatively affect the sustainability of the country’s economy.

Moreover, the impact of the immigration of Syrian refugees on inflation has a number of outcomes such as the rise in the food and housing prices, rise in the rates of employment and internal migration patterns noticed in an effort to relocate to areas where there are jobs. With the help of comparisons of the difference-in-differences estimation method with an aggregated province level data, there is no significant negative impact of the immigration of Syrian refugees on the employment level of the German citizens in the country. On the other hand, the food and housing inflation can disproportionately increase due to the limited availability of housing facilities and low food production that cannot support the millions of refugees streaming into the country’s borders. Nonetheless, treating all the locations apart from the regions predominantly affected by the refugee influx in Germany as the control group, it is established that there is no significant negative effect on the employment level of the nation’s citizen in the area while the food and housing inflation gets excessively larger in the area.

Bibliography

• Bagir, Yusuf Kenan, “Three Empirical Essays on International Trade and Public Economics.” Dissertations – ALL. 557., 2016. http://surface.syr.edu/etd/557
• Chase, Jefferson. “Refugee Numbers Dropped Dramatically in 2017.” DW News 16 Jan. 2018. Web. 29 Oct. 2018.  https://www.dw.com/en/refugee-numbers-in-germany-dropped-dramatically-in-2017/a-42162223
• Dimitriadi, Angeliki. Irregular Afghan Migration to Europe: At the Margins, Looking in. 2018. Internet resource.
• Peter, Lurence. “Migrant Crisis: how Can EU Respond to Influx.” BBC News, 7 Sept. 2015. Web. 29 Oct. 2018.