Why Refugee Employment Declines: Shortcomings in Federal Resettlement Support

• In Event: Governance of Immigration and Emigration in Institutions

Abstract

In the United States, the integration experiences of immigrants depend in part on whether they are recognized as refugees or as economic migrants. Unlike economic migrants, refugees receive federal resources to help find employment, and this distinction raises important questions about the role such government support plays in migrants’ labor market integration. First, drawing on nationally representative data from the New Immigrant Survey, we find that despite their early access to government-funded employment services, refugees actually experience employment declines the longer they live in the United States. Next, drawing on interviews with sixty-one refugee-serving organizations across the country, we highlight three structural weaknesses in the federal refugee resettlement process that help account for these employment declines: (1) retrenched resettlement funding, (2) a logic of self-sufficiency prioritizing rapid employment in generally undesirable jobs, and (3) siloed networks of refugee-serving organizations. Our findings have important implications for immigrant integration, the welfare state, and how nonprofit organizations shape inequality.

Authors

• Els de Graauw, Baruch College, CUNY

• Anna Kreisberg, Brown University

• Shannon Gleeson, Cornell University/ILR