Dynamics of Refugee Return: Theory & Evidence from Syrian Refugees in Lebanon

• In Event: After Exile: Refugee Return and the Politics of Displacement

Abstract

How do refugee crises end? A naïve theory of return would suggest that refugee crises end when conflicts end. It is clear, however, that this theory is insufficient. A survey of past refugee crises shows that many refugees return before conflict termination, by any reasonable definition of the term, and that many refugees choose not to return even after conflict ends. Conflicts often do not end definitively on a national level; war ends in different ways across different areas and for different groups of people. To better understand how refugee crises end, we ask: How do refugees make choices about whether to return home or continue living abroad? We argue that it is essential to examine how individual refugees choose between returning home or not, as these choices profoundly impact the dynamics of hosting communities and the post-war political environment. Therefore, we explore the drivers of refugees’ decision-making, and how policy and programming might influence return dynamics. We structure our thinking about the determinants of refugee return by drawing on Borjas’s (1987) model of migration choices, and draw a set of testable hypotheses from the model. Using observational data on migration, and experimental results from a conjoint experiment embedded in the survey, funded and scheduled for data collection in 2019, the authors how refugees’ return intentions and choices are shaped by four key dimensions: 1) their living situation in their host community in Lebanon; 2) the conditions in their place of origin inside Syria; 3) their access to information about the situation in Syria; and 4) the costs of mobility.

Authors

• Daniel Masterson, Stanford University

• Ala Alrababah, Stanford University

• Jeremy M. Weinstein, Stanford University

• Dominik Hangartner, London School of Economics

• Marine Casalis, Immigration Policy Lab - ETH Zurich