Non-German-Speaking and Bilingual Children in Germany: An Analysis of the Microcensus

3.04 million, or 21.9 per cent, spoke both German and a further language. A lack of German and bilingualism at home are often associated with other factors that have a detrimental impact on successful schooling and good development, such as a family background with little experience of either educational institutions or the labour market. In 2021, 20.2 per cent of children from non-German-speaking families in lower secondary education attended a high school, only half as many as their peers who only spoke German at home (40.9 per cent). Controlling for other aspects of family background in a multivariate analysis reduces this difference to 5.3 percentage points. Compared with bilingual children, the difference disappears entirely, although at 30.4 per cent they, too, are much less likely to attend a high school than children who only speak German. In view of this, measures aimed at socially integrating young people from immigrant families should not focus solely on language acquisition, but rather address all the special challenges they face holistically. While daycare centres can make an important contribution here, in 2021 a significantly smaller proportion of children from non-German-speaking and bilingual homes attended a daycare facility than their exclusively German-speaking counterparts.