Immigrant Social Capital and U.S. Refugee Integration

• In Event: Political Organizations and Parties & Political Networks & American Political Thought & Education Politics and Policy Virtual Poster Session
  In Virtual Poster Session: Political Networks Virtual Poster Session

Abstract

What factors facilitate successful refugee integration? Might co-nationals, meaning individuals from the same country, support the integration process? It appears refugees are asking the same questions. Almost one fifth of refugees in the US opt for in-country secondary migration, often correlating with two factors: a destination’s relatively low unemployment rate and its existing co-national network. Combined, these pull factors can be understood to indicate sources of social capital to migrating refugees, who seek larger and higher quality co-national networks to provide greater access to resources. While extant quantitative studies hold that co-national social capital has a positive effect on immigrant economic integration, it is less clear how it affects non- economic integration types, which are also crucial to substantive community membership. Conducted within a social capital theory framework, this large-N comparative analysis utilizes a quasi-natural experiment to examine the effect of a state’s share of co-nationals and employment rate on three types of refugee integration: economic, linguistic and navigational. My results suggest that co-national social capital is influential in immigrant integration and that the variables that refugees often prioritize during secondary migration – low unemployment rate and existing co-national network – may effectively encourage multiple types of immigrant integration. This is the first large-N quantitative study to emphasize the relationship between co- national networks and non-economic immigrant integration outcomes.

Author

• Alice Cho Timken, Syracuse University