ABSTRACT
In North America and Britain, a standing tradition of analysis of residential mobility and internal migration of immigrants and ethnic minorities already exists. This chapter focuses on ethnic minorities in Germany. To study ethnicity, the German research tradition uses concepts of culture of origin, or migration background linking one's cultural affiliation to the parents' national origin. Migration background is a comprehensive term encompassing immigrants as well as those born in Germany and German citizens who are descendants of immigrants to Germany after 1949. The chapter presents an overview of minority mobility in Germany. Minority characteristics, such as recent settlement in the country or being part of the second generation were associated with higher mobility rates in our descriptive analysis. It may be debated whether grouping together different national origins with similar historical conditions of immigration, as offered in the chapter, is an acceptable operational strategy to assess ethnic minority behaviour and outcomes.
