The impact of educational achievement on the integration and wellbeing of Afghan refugee youth in the UK

Abstract

This study has been prepared within the UNU-WIDER project on 'Forced migration and inequality: country-and city-level factors that influence refugee integration', which is part of the UNU-WIDER project on 'The politics of group-based inequalitiesmeasurement, implications, and possibilities for change', which is part of a larger research project on 'Disadvantaged groups and social mobility'.

Involuntary migration, inequality, and integration: National and subnational influences

“…Notably, daughters of Afghan immigrants have both better employment probabilities and earnings than other immigrant women, and several explanations are considered. Gladwell et al (2018) consider the experience of Afghan involuntary migrants in the UK through a focus on Afghan youth, in particular unaccompanied asylum-seeking children, an especially vulnerable group (see Allsopp and Chase 2019). This paper, which was written by researchers from the Refugee Support Network, a London-based NGO, provides an example of practice-based research.…”

“…Nevertheless, there is evidence of ethnic networks playing a role in the labour market. Gladwell et al (2018), for instance, report that Afghan care leavers with low skills tend to find employment in market stalls and shops owned by other Afghans or Pakistanis. In short, the pattern of labour market integration, across countries, suggests deeper and more persistent horizontal inequality, despite intergenerational mobility, and the possibly weaker emergence of ethnic niche economies-in other words, in terms of the three broad integration patterns reviewed in Section 2, the second or third patterns.…”

“…For instance, in the fiscal year 2001-the year that the third wave of out-migration from Afghanistan began-the State Department's target of resettlement places for Afghan refugees from Pakistan and other countries was 4,000 (Hetfield 2001). As Gladwell et al (2018) illustrate poignantly, immigration status has far-reaching effects on lived experience and socioeconomic outcomes for Afghan migrants, including entry into the formal labour market-and the protections that it provides in terms of minimum wages and working conditions-as well access to education and other public benefits.…”

“…In explaining differences in employment rates between Montreal and Toronto, he finds that this ethnic enclave effect accounts for 22 per cent. Likewise, the observation in Gladwell et al (2018) that low-skilled Afghan care leavers tend to seek employment with Pakistanis underscores that ethno-linguistic, religious, and cultural links, which can cross-cut national origin, can play an important labour market role.…”