Rapid or long-term employment? A Scandinavian comparative study of refugee integration policies and employment outcomes

ABSTRACT

Although many studies compare national integration policies, analyses connecting these policies to integration outcomes are rare. This study combines longitudinal analysis of employment outcomes for Scandinavian refugees, with analyses of integration measures and policies to explain these differences. Can different usages of integration measures explain cross-national differences in employment outcomes between genders and with increased residence time? Moreover, can the countries’ integration policies explain such differences? Our analyses show substantial cross-national differences. Danish male refugees are employed faster; however, Sweden catches up, and Norway surpasses Danish employment levels with increased residence time. Additionally, Norway has a substantially smaller gender gap in employment than Sweden and particularly Denmark. We demonstrate that different usages of integration measures may explain differences in outcomes. We conjecture that different policies regulating (1) financial benefits and (2) employment and self-sufficiency requirements for obtaining a secure legal status may reinforce differences in programme participation and employment patterns.

KEYWORDS:

• Employment
• immigrant integration
• policy analysis
• refugees
• Scandinavian comparative analysis

Acknowledgements

We wish to thank the three anonymous reviewers for their constructive and helpful comments. Thanks also for comments on earlier drafts from participants in the workshop ‘Public Policy’ at EGPA 2019 and the department seminar at the Department of Political Science, University of Oslo. We also want to thank the Nordic Council of Ministers for funding and great collaboration.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 The Danish government weighted education as an alternative to employment as a requirement for permanent residence from 2012 to 2015.

2 Some restrictions were issued in Norway and Sweden in 2016 after the refugee crisis (see Hernes, 2018). These changes are outside the scope of our statistical analysis, but are further discussed in the conclusion.

3 The countries also provide other types of activities or measures in their integration programmes. For analyses of these other measures, see Hernes et al. (2019).

4 However, this model has a standard identification problem because years since settlement are identical to calendar year minus settlement year. The estimated outcome profile with time since settlement and calendar effects will therefore also capture any differences across settlement cohorts that might occur either because of differences across cohorts who settle in different years or because of differences in the impact of integration efforts over time.

5 This estimator has the same mean asymptotic properties as the random effects estimator. Both estimators allow the error term to be correlated over time for the same individual, but the random effects estimator is more efficient (has less asymptotic variance) if this correlation is fixed across time. If this is not the case, the random effects estimator provides biased standard error estimates, but the clustered estimator allows a fully flexible within-individual correlation structure. Note also that we cannot perform a fixed-effects estimation, as most of the covariates are fixed over time.

6 Figure 1 portrays that the three countries end up at essentially the same level of employment for male participants for the different periods analysed (after eight, six and four years), however, other studies indicate that these converging patterns are temporary, and that after 7–10 years in the country, the three countries diverge substantially, see e.g. Liebig and Tronstad (2018).

7 This improvement could be caused by improved labour-market conditions in the years after the economic recession during the financial crisis in 2008/2009 (Grundfelder et al., 2016).

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by Nordic Council of Ministers [grant number 17098].

Notes on contributors

Vilde Hernes

Vilde Hernes is a researcher at the Norwegian Institute for Urban and Regional Research, Oslo Metropolitan University, Norway.

Jacob Arendt

Jacob Arendt is a professor in economics and research leader at the Rockwool Foundation, Denmark.

Pernilla Andersson Joona

Pernilla Andersson Joona is an Associate Professor of Economics at the Swedish Institute for Social Research, Stockholm University, Sweden.

Kristian Tronstad

Kristian Tronstad is research director at the Norwegian Institute for Urban and Regional Research, Oslo Metropolitan University, Norway.