Association for Public Policy Analysis & Management

Panel: Labor Market and Health Impacts of Refugees and Asylum Seekers

(Population, Migration and Refugees)

The panel aims to bring together diverse scholars in population, migration and refugees to present topical evidence based on state-of-the-art methodologies and resulting policy implications on the labor market and health impacts of the recent refugee flows in Europe as well as the social networks of migrant workers in China. The surge of refugees and asylees in Europe has upended the cultural, political and humanitarian norms in Europe and many fear that it threatens the very existence of the 25 years old European Union. The first paper "Let them Work or Not? Refugees and their Labor Market Outcomes in Europe" will present evidence on the labor market outcomes of the refugees in Europe. While refugees under the Geneva Convention are protected by the host country government and have the right to work immediately, asylees that is, those who have arrived in the host country and applied for asylum are not protected by any government. In Europe, it is up to the individual EU-state to allow asylees to work or not while they stay in reception centers and wait for the verdict. Some countries such as Sweden allow asylees to work immediately, while others such as Ireland never permit asylees to work. In between are the other 15 EU-states. Moreover, no country permits asylees to become self-employed. But labor market integration is quintessential for any integration in a country. We are using the Labor Force Survey in Europe to study the labor force participation of refugees and asylees in Europe. The second paper "Refugees in Europe and the Public Health Crisis: Evidence from Greece" will present evidence on the health outcomes of the refugee crisis in Greece. Greece, as a gateway country, received over 170,000 refugees in 2016 alone. With a public health system that has already suffered cuts from the austerity measures everybody’s health is at stake. The paper studies the health of foreigners versus natives and examine sthe viability of the public health system in Greece. It uses data from the emergency room of Evangelismos, the largest public hospital in Athens, which has all health units except gynecology and pediatrics. The study offers insights into the ailments and diseases of the foreigners, whether communicative or not and increases our understanding about the needs of the foreign patients so we can cater to their needs in a more cost efficient manner. Social network plays important role for Chinese rural-to-urban migrant workers in labor market, such as securing a job. In the third paper "Formation of Social Network of the Chinese Rural to Urban Migrants", we take one step back and examine the social network of migrant workers itself carefully. We look into several dimensions of the social network: size, quality and composition using the Rural-Urban Migration in China survey. We identify and investigate the factors behind formation and evolution of the social network of the migrants since their migration, and compare their network with the one of urban native’s.