Do Egalitarian Attitudes Promote Integration?

Currently, more than three million refugees reside in Germany (Federal Statistical Office 2024a). The large majority of them moved to Germany within the past decade, in particular in the years 2015 and 2016 and in the aftermath of the 2022 Russian invasion of the Ukraine. While the latter group of refugees has been received largely favorably (Moise et al. 2024), public opinion on the considerable number of people seeking asylum in 2015 and 2016 has been and continues to be more divided. Reactions varied from the illustrious “We can do it!” of then-Chancellor Angela Merkel to vehement rejection including xenophobic violence. While the majority of Germans was quite willing to accept refugees from war and civil war areas, skepticism regarding the consequences of such large-scale immigration and the regarding the integration perspectives of refugees was prevalent as well (Gerhards et al. 2016).