In order to participate in the second wave of our study, you must have declared your consent to be recalled during the first wave of surveys in 2024. For this purpose, you have provided us with your e-mail address and/or your mobile phone number. Participation is, of course, voluntary. Please feel free to revoke your consent at any time (see item 17). Unfortunately, it is not possible for other interested persons who have not received an invitation to participate in the study.
Yes, the survey can be interrupted at any time. Your answers will be saved so that you can resume the survey later, starting from the point at which you interrupted it. Please note, however, that the surveys are only available for a certain period of time.
My Way in Germany is an online survey studying the lives of persons with a migration history over an extended period of time. This means that the respondents have the opportunity to take part in surveys over multiple years. These online surveys are conducted on a purely voluntary basis. As of today, there is only a limited number of studies asking people of an employment age living in Germany and abroad about their living and working conditions in this way.
The data collected will be used to investigate the influence of the current social and economic changes on the (employment) lives of people who have migrated to Germany. Our particular focus of interest are the working and living conditions, the social security situation as well as the social and political attitudes of people who have migrated to Germany. With this study, the Institute of Employment Research (IAB) is aiming to make a contribution to addressing the immediate requirement for information within the administrative and political sectors and to provide them with a sound basis for making informed decisions.
All responses from the online survey will be digitally processed. Your details are stored anonymously, i.e. without your name or contact details. The responses of all respondents are then statistically evaluated. The responses provided in their totality can, for instance, be used to calculate percentages or to perform statistical analyses. The results will be reported in the form of tables and graphs. The analyses of the first wave can be retrieved from our website in German (https://doku.iab.de/forschungsbericht/2025/fb1525.pdf) and in English (https://doku.iab.de/forschungsbericht/2025/fb1525en.pdf). Individual responses cannot be identified.
Your information from the surveys will be processed in accordance with the strict data protection regulations and stored separately from your name and address. The Federal Employment Agency, represented by its executive board, Regensburger Str. 104, 90478 Nuremberg, Germany, is responsible for the processing of personal data within the scope of this survey. The technical implementation of the survey is carried out by the company Ingress as a contractor of the Institute for Employment Research. Ingress acts exclusively in accordance with the instructions of the Institute for Employment Research and is obliged to maintain strict confidentiality. You can find more information about Ingress at: www.ingress.de. At the Institute for Employment Research, only the researchers involved in the survey have access to the data from the survey. All of the parties involved are contractually obliged to maintain the strictest confidentiality.
No! The study only pursues research objectives. The data will not be forwarded for the purposes of market research or advertising! The results of the study will be made available to other researchers, politicians, administrators and interested members of the general public.
The results of the first wave of surveys can be found here in German and in English. The research findings are also frequently reported in the media (daily newspapers, television news).
If people agree to share information about their life situation in surveys, the researchers can better recognise and understand their needs and challenges. The more people take part in such research surveys, the more accurate and detailed the picture becomes of how the lives and work of immigrants in Germany are developing. Their support is therefore of considerable importance for being able to advise political decision-makers on the basis of research findings.
The Institute for Employment Research (IAB) is the research institute of the Federal Employment Agency. The central task of the Institute is to provide political stakeholders at all levels with advice on the basis of its research findings. The research and consulting activities of IAB are based on its legal mandate, as set out in Section 55 (1) of Book Two of the German Social Code (SGB II) and Section 280 and 282 (1 – 4) of Book Three of the German Social Code (SGB III). Further information about the Institute for Employment Research is available the website: www.iab.de
The study is funded by the Federal Employment Agency. The study is scientifically independent, which means that the Institute for Employment Research and the project staff involved are solely responsible for the contents of the study. The Federal Employment Agency has no influence on the configuration of the study.
Experience has shown that participants need different amounts of time to answer the questions. Answering a survey should take about 20 minutes on average.
As part of our study, we would like to invite you to take part in a survey approximately once a year. If necessary, we will also invite you to partake in other surveys at short notice.
If you have any further questions, please contact the corresponding researchers by email at: myway@iab.de.
Some time ago, you participated in our Study “My Way in Germany”, which is conducted by the Nuremberg-based Institute of Employment Research (IAB). When participating in the last survey, you have given us your consent to be recalled and have provided us with an e-mail address and/or a telephone number for that purpose. Therefore, we hereby invite you to take part in the follow-up survey.
In order to participate in the second wave of our study, you must have given us your permission to recall you during the first wave of surveys in 2024. The aim of our study is to learn from the experiences of people with a migration history living in Germany. In the first wave of the study in 2024, we therefore searched for any people with foreign citizenship who might have registered in the various data sources kept by the Federal Employment Agency (BA). From this group, then, we selected a random sample of participants.
Please send us an e-mail stating your intentions to myway@iab.de. We will delete your data and will refrain from contacting you any further.