Much to lose, no credentials to prove it – Educational aspirations and intentions of adult refugees as means of occupational status re-attainment

Abstract We analyse how educational aspirations and intentions of adult refugees in Germany are shaped by their foreign educational credentials and their previous occupational status. Because the allocation of medium-skilled jobs on the German labour market heavily relies on a variety of credentials, unlike in the countries of origin, where skills are usually acquired on the job but not formally certified, refugees often cannot provide the credentials required to work in their previous job. We use status allocation theory and the concept of relative risk aversion to formulate expectations as to why some refugees may be more inclined to emit higher educational aspirations. Based on the IAB-BAMF-SOEP Survey of Refugees we first show that the German labour market is stratified regarding educational credentials, while both refugees without and with medium professional credentials occupied positions with a very similar status in their countries of origin. Based on regression models, we show that in contrast to refugees with professional credentials, refugees without credentials have higher educational aspirations and intentions if they occupied high status positions in their country of origin. However, additional analyses did not reveal this positive effect for female refugees. We therefore conclude that especially male refugees who have much to lose, see additional education as a salient way to avoid occupational status downgrades after migration. We conclude with a discussion of gender-specific mechanisms potentially at play shortly after migration and discuss the generalizability of our findings to other types and contexts of migration.