Employment Prospects of Humanitarian Migrants in Australia: Does Gender Inequality in the Origin Country Matter?

Abstract

Despite a steady inflow of humanitarian migrants to Australia, their socio-economic outcomes remain visibly poorer than those of other migrants and the general population. Therefore, understanding the factors contributing to refugee integration is an important endeavor. In this paper, we focus on refugees’ labor-market outcomes and the role of a potentially important macro-level factor: gender inequality in the origin country. To accomplish this, we leverage high-quality longitudinal data from a probability survey (Building a New Life in Australia, n = 9,268) augmented with country-level data from the UNDP. Our results bear implications for gender and migration scholarship, and equity policy and practice.

Keywords:

• Australia
• employment
• gender inequality
• humanitarian migrants
• refugees