Open Access

Cristina Samper Mejia

• The aim of this dissertation is to study the employment behaviour of women with a migration background from a life course perspective. Data for the analyses come from the German Socio-Economic Panel and the German Microcensus. The first paper studies the entrance into employment of immigrant women who arrived in Germany while childless between 1990 and 2016. The main findings show that women who moved as marriage migrants were highly likely to have a child shortly after their arrival. Having a child before they enter the labour market strongly delays the participation of migrant women in remunerated work. In the German context, marriage migration is most common among women who are third country nationals, and have comparatively low levels of labour market capital upon arrival. The second paper studies the employment trajectories of women who immigrated from Central and Eastern Europe after the fall of the Iron Curtain. By distinguishing the trajectories of women who came from similar female employment contexts, but who arrived through different migration channels (ethnic Germans vs. third country nationals), the paper sheds light on the selection mechanisms of the different legal entry modes, and the post-migration adaptation patterns associated with them. The third paper looks at the early life employment participation trajectories of women of the second migrant generation who were born in Germany. It shows that women who follow early family formation trajectories are also less likely to participate in the labour market early in life. Early family formation is found to be most common among second-generation migrant women with parents of Turkish origin. The three papers together illustrate the strong relationship between migrant women’s (non)-employment behaviour and the onset family formation. From a migration policy perspective, the findings show the selective effects of migration channels. From a social and labour market policy perspective, the results allude to the importance of childcare access, and the need for activation policies tailored to mothers with a migration background.