Citizenship as a Path to Equality with Helmut Rainer

Hosts: Gabriele Spilker – Professor of International Politics and Global Inequality and Co-Speaker of the Cluster of Excellence “The Politics of Inequality” at the University of Konstanz.Marius R. Busemeyer – Professor of Comparative Political Economy and Speaker of the Cluster of Excellence “The Politics of Inequality” at the University of Konstanz.Guest: Helmut Rainer – Professor of Economics at LMU Munich and Director at the ifo Institute. His research covers labour, family and demographic economics, with a focus on gender, citizenship and ethnic inequality.Episode OverviewHow do early childcare and citizenship shape the opportunities of second-generation immigrants in Germany? In this conversation, our Hosts speak with Helmut Rainer about two major reforms from the late 1990s and early 2000s that expanded childcare access and introduced birthright citizenship. Both policies generated “natural experiments” that help identify their long-term effects on education, employment and integration.Rainer shows how additional months in early childcare boost language skills and later labour-market outcomes, especially for children from non-German-speaking households. Birthright citizenship similarly raises educational attainment and reduces welfare dependence—at comparatively low fiscal cost. The episode also discusses cultural conflicts within immigrant families, gender-specific effects, and why some reforms trigger both empowerment and short-term psychological strain.Episode HighlightsWhy second-generation immigrants matterChildcare expansion and language developmentBirthright citizenship as integration policyGender and intergenerational tensionsPolicy implicationsLinks & ResourcesCluster of Excellence “The Politics of Inequality”: www.exc.uni-konstanz.de/inequalityFurther readings:Dahl, B., Felfe, C., Frijters, P. Rainer, H. (2022): Caught between Cultures: Unintended Consequences of Improving Opportunity for Immigrant Girls. The Review of Economic Studies, Volume 89, Issue 5. Felfe, C. et al. (2021): More opportunity, more cooperation? The behavioral effects of birthright citizenship on immigrant youth. Journal of Public Economics, Volume 200. Felfe, C., Rainer, H., Saurer, J. (2020): Why Birthright Citizenship Matters for Immigrant Children: Short- and Long-Run Impacts on Educational Integration.  Journal of Labor Economics, 2020, vol. 38, no. 1. Contact: [email protected] New episodes every first Wednesday of the month – subscribe now!