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Longitudinal study examines cultural identity shifts in first-generation immigrants, suggesting assimilation as the main strategy.
= 6,846) in Germany during their first 20 years after immigration and tested the impact of sociocultural background, forcedness of migration, and structural integration factors on these individuals' cultural identity development. We used multivariate latent growth curve models based on longitudinal data from the German Socio-Economic Panel to model cultural identity trajectories. The results show that the cultural identity of these immigrants changed over time-especially in the first decade after immigration-with ethnic identity decreasing in strength and national identity increasing. Initial levels of ethnic and national identity were negatively correlated, as were the trajectories of these two dimensions over time. In the context of acculturation research, this indicates that assimilation is the predominant acculturation strategy among immigrants in Germany. In addition, the unique longitudinal findings from this large-scale German data set suggest high interindividual variability in cultural identity trajectories following migration. Identity levels and trajectories were predicted by sociocultural background and were related in part to the forcedness of migration and the degree of structural integration in the country of residence. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2026 APA, all rights reserved).
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Runge et al. (2026) studied this question.
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