Interethnic friendship ties as an indicator of social integration. An empirical investigation of young Italian and Turkish migrants in Germany

Social integration is examined on the basis of friendship ties with Germans, using the concept of social capital. Applying methods of social network analysis, indicators for interethnic friendships (e.g. homogeneity of friendship networks) are constructed. The database of the analysis is provided by the 'Integrationssurvey' of the Federal Institute for Population Research (BiB), a survey with Germans, Italians and Turks aged 18 to 30. Migrants of Italian origin more frequently engage in friendship ties with Germans than do migrants of Turkish origin. Young female immigrants are less frequently engaged in friendship ties with Germans than men of the same ethnic descent. The host-country specific social capital and therefore the social integration increases in the second generation. German-Italians, i.e. respondents descending from Italian-German parents, as well as naturalized German-Turks are particularly well integrated. An analysis of comparable subgroups of the German Socio-Economic Panel (SOEP) show similar results. Thus the findings are confirmed that without appropriate consideration of double citizens and naturalized immigrants the integration success of ethnic groups is underestimated.