Can Job Search Assistance Improve the Labour Market Integration for Refugees? Evidence from a Field Experiment

Labor Market Integration of Refugees: RCT Evidence from Sweden

“…We calculate the total cost of the program to be around SEK 1.2 million, corresponding to roughly SEK 27,000 per person that participated. 9 To give the reader a sense of whether the program is expensive or not we compare our estimated cost to the cost of two other labor market programs in Sweden. We first look at the counseling program called Stöd och Matchning (STOM), which is one of the most used programs for unemployed job seekers in Sweden.…”

“…Previous work on integration policies have separately evaluated the effects of language training (18)(19)(20), increased contacts with employers (9), and intensive coaching (21,22). The program we evaluate has three unique features.…”

“…Figures from the OECD show that employment among new immigrants is ten percentage points lower than among the native-born (6). In recent years, large inflows of refugees to many Western countries have spurred a substantial and sometimes heated debate on how to best improve immigrants' labor market prospects (7)(8)(9). Consequently, finding successful integration policies is at the top of the political agenda (10).…”

The Social Integration of International Migrants: Evidence from the Networks of Syrians in Germany

“…For policymakers, language and integration courses are one of the few direct tools to foster the social integration of migrants and such courses have been a central component of the German government's integration policy. We next explore the effectiveness of such integration courses, thereby contributing to a literature that has studied various government policies intended to assimilate minority groups or to improve their labor market prospects (Abdelgadir and Fouka, 2020;Abramitzky, Boustan and Eriksson, 2020;Arendt et al, 2020;Bandiera et al, 2019;Battisti, Giesing and Laurentsyeva, 2019;Fouka, 2020;Lleras-Muney and Shertzer, 2015). We find that in counties with more completed integration courses, relative friending is higher.…”

Scared Straight? Threat and Assimilation of Refugees in Germany

“…7 Finally, our work speaks to the literature that leverages the quasi-exogenous allocation of refugees within Germany to assess the e↵ect of local characteristics on a wide range of economic outcomes (Bahar et al, 2019;Battisti et al, 2021). More broadly, we complement the growing literature on the causes and consequences of the post-2015 refugee inflow to Germany and Europe (Battisti et al, 2019;Busch et al, 2020;Deole & Huang, 2020;Gehrsitz & Ungerer, 2017;Giavazzi et al, 2020;Hangartner et al, 2019;Hilbig & Riaz, 2020;Martén et al, 2019). 8 The remainder of the paper is structured as follows.…”