Gender and Refugee Integration: a Quantitative Analysis of Integration and Social Policy Outcomes

Abstract

The population of refugees in the UK is expanding and will expand further given the UK Government's response to the European refugee crisis. This paper breaks new ground by undertaking a gender analysis of integration outcomes across a range of areas, namely social networks, language proficiency, health, education, employment and housing, that are highly relevant for social policy. Using the UK's only longitudinal survey on refugees, we conduct secondary data analysis to examine the factors associated with integration outcomes. We find significant gender differences in language, self-reported health, ability to budget for household expenses and access to formal social networks and quality housing, with women generally faring worse than men and some inequalities enduring or intensifying over time. We call for the recording of refugee outcomes in institutional monitoring data to enable inequalities to be identified and addressed. The findings also enable the identification of social policy areas in which a gender sensitive approach might be necessary.

The impact of self-employment on the economic integration of immigrants: Evidence from Germany

“…Finally, our study also provides interesting results from a socio-economic policy perspective, and integration policy in particular. For instance, the two groups perceived as "problematic" in public discourse on immigration: refugees and Muslims (Adida, Laitin, & Valfort, 2016;Cheung & Phillimore, 2017) -exhibit different integration outcomes, depending on the measure of integration chosen. In the case of absolute income per capita and fulltime employment, those two groups attain significantly lower integration scores, but when we take into consideration the measure of fair income, all this negative effect disappears.…”

Introduction: rethinking integration. New perspectives on adaptation and settlement in the era of super-diversity

“…Fyvie et al (2003) pinpoint education and training, the labour market, health and housing as the main focus of their review of the integration literature because they consider progress in these functional dimensions to be fundamental for the integration process to start. Several authors have argued that functional aspects of integration can be measured by using objective indicators that compare refugees' position to the majority (Mestheneos and Ioannidi 2002;Phillimore and Goodson 2008), while others consider that focus upon the functional alone is inadequate because of the inter-relatedness of functional, social and other factors (Cheung and Phillimore 2016;Fyvie et al 2003). Integration rarely encompasses the psycho-social need for stability and security or identity as highlighted by Ager and Strang (2008) and identified by Grzymala-Kazlowska (2017) as well as Phillimore and her collaborators (2017) in this special issue.…”

Refugee Integration in Europe Since the ‘Crisis’

“…Ruiz and Vargas-Silva (2018: 862) note that 'comparing across groups and genders it is clear that, for the most part, women who migrated to seek asylum are at a substantial disadvantage relative to men who migrated for the same reason and other women'. Using a longitudinal survey on refugees in the UK, Cheung and Phillimore (2017) conducted secondary data analysis to examine the factors associated with integration outcomes and found significant gender differences and some inequalities enduring or intensifying over time. By the fourth wave of the survey, women were more likely to be in education and training than men but less likely to be in employment.…”