Migration background

In the Germanosphere, migration background (German: Migrationshintergrund) is a term used to describe people on the basis of identity and ancestry. Migration background is a variably defined socio-demographic characteristic that describes persons who themselves or whose ancestors immigrated from one country to another or whose ancestors did not have the nationality of the destination country.

The term was first used in 1998 by sociologist Ursula Boos-Nünning [de] in the 10th Children and Youth Report [de]. It is used as a concept primarily in German-speaking countries. The definitions are usually linked to nationality or place of birth. In Germany (or according to the Federal Statistical Office), people who were not born with German citizenship themselves or whose father or mother were not born with German citizenship are considered to have a migration background. In Austria, it refers to people whose parents were both born abroad; depending on their place of birth, a distinction is also made between first and second generation migrants. In Switzerland the Federal Statistical Office defines the term relatively independently of nationality.

In 2007, the German Federal Statistical Office started publishing data regarding "the population with a migration background". In 2019, according to the official definition, 21.2 million people with a migration background lived in Germany, which corresponds to a population share of around 26%.

The term Migrationshintergrund is a neologism that was first used by the Essen education professor Ursula Boos-Nünning [de] in the 1990s. The term is derived from the English term "migration background" and was translated by Boos-Nünning. The term was brought about as a reaction to changing demographics: with naturalized people, late repatriates [de] (with German citizenship) and children of foreigners born in Germany who, under certain conditions, had German citizenship following a legal reform, more than 7 million people lived in Germany at the beginning of the 21st century and their migration experiences should be taken into account. The previously used criterion of citizenship or statelessness was too short to describe the social integration processes of naturalized immigrants of the first generation and their descendants, so the new criterion was also used.

When defining the term for the 2005 microcensus, the Federal Statistical Office of Germany claimed that the term had been "common in science and politics for a long time". It was being used "increasingly frequently, despite its awkwardness". It expressed "that those affected should not only include the immigrants themselves – i.e. the actual migrants – but also certain of their descendants born in Germany". The office admitted, however, that it was difficult to use the term "people with a migration background" in a clear-cut manner. For example, the term appeared in 1998 in the tenth report on children and young people by the German Youth Institute, and in the PISA study of 2003. In 2005, the term was officially included as an ordering criterion in the official statistics of the microcensus [de], which, according to migration researcher Klaus Jürgen Bade [de], had been "demanded by experts for years".

Since the 2005 microcensus [de], the state statistical offices and the Federal Statistical Office have distinguished between the population with a migration background and the population without a migration background. This distinction is made by indirectly determining data on migration background. The basis for this is an amendment to the Microcensus Act of 2004, which provides for the inclusion of questions to determine migration background in the surveys from 2005 to 2012. Specifically, information is requested on immigration, nationality and immigration of the respective respondent and their parents. People with a migration background (in the broader sense) are defined as "all those who immigrated to the current territory of the Federal Republic of Germany after 1949, as well as all foreigners born in Germany and all those born in Germany as Germans with at least one parent who immigrated after 1949 or was born in Germany as a foreigner". The definition of people with a migration background in the narrower sense, which is also used for the purpose of comparability over time, is the same, except that this definition does not include German immigrant children who are born and no longer live with their parents or one parent.

By definition, late repatriates [de] and their children are also considered to be people with a migration background. These people don't necessarily need to have any migration experience of their own. In Germany, migration experience of one parent is sufficient to be classified as a person with a migration background, while in Austria, for example, migration experience of both parents is required. An estimated 2.45 million people (27.2% of the total population) with a migration background lived in Austria in 2023.

One-third of people with a migration background have lived in Germany since birth. In 2023, roughly 58.97 million Germans did not have a migration background.