IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/bsl/wpaper/2022-01.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Unregistered work among refugees: Evidence from a list experiment in Germany

Author

Listed:
  • Doerr, Annabelle
  • Hartmann, Carina
  • Sajons, Christoph

Abstract

The integration of refugees in host countries' labor markets is complicated by structural barriers, missing formal qualification and language deficiencies. This leads to widespread concern that refugees may end up in informal and precarious employment relationships. Empirical evidence on the prevalence of unregistered work is missing, however, due to the sensitive and illegal nature of this phenomenon. In this paper, we conduct a list experiment to measure unregistered work among refugees in Germany. Our results indicate that 31% have had experience with an unregistered job since their arrival. Refugees who report that they do not have work permission show a significantly higher likelihood of experiencing unregistered work. Furthermore, the lack of post-secondary education and vocational degrees, and a low German proficiency predict the risk to work without registration.

Suggested Citation

  • Doerr, Annabelle & Hartmann, Carina & Sajons, Christoph, 2022. "Unregistered work among refugees: Evidence from a list experiment in Germany," Working papers 2022/01, Faculty of Business and Economics - University of Basel.
    • Handle: RePEc:bsl:wpaper:2022/01
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://edoc.unibas.ch/86290/1/20220105110004_61d56c24e4236.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Christian Dustmann & Francesco Fasani & Tommaso Frattini & Luigi Minale & Uta Schönberg, 2017. "On the economics and politics of refugee migration," Economic Policy, CEPR, CESifo, Sciences Po;CES;MSH, vol. 32(91), pages 497-550.
    2. Christian Dustmann & Francesca Fabbri, 2003. "Language proficiency and labour market performance of immigrants in the UK," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 113(489), pages 695-717, July.
    3. Gary S. Becker, 1974. "Crime and Punishment: An Economic Approach," NBER Chapters, in: Essays in the Economics of Crime and Punishment, pages 1-54, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    4. Lemieux, Thomas & Milligan, Kevin, 2008. "Incentive effects of social assistance: A regression discontinuity approach," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 142(2), pages 807-828, February.
    5. Courtney Brell & Christian Dustmann & Ian Preston, 2020. "The Labor Market Integration of Refugee Migrants in High-Income Countries," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 34(1), pages 94-121, Winter.
    6. Imai, Kosuke, 2011. "Multivariate Regression Analysis for the Item Count Technique," Journal of the American Statistical Association, American Statistical Association, vol. 106(494), pages 407-416.
    7. Lars P. Feld & Claus Larsen, 2012. "Undeclared Work, Deterrence and Social Norms," Springer Books, Springer, edition 127, number 978-3-540-87401-0, December.
    8. Leandro Medina & Mr. Friedrich Schneider, 2018. "Shadow Economies Around the World: What Did We Learn Over the Last 20 Years?," IMF Working Papers 2018/017, International Monetary Fund.
    9. Rebecca M. Blank, 2002. "Evaluating Welfare Reform in the United States," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 40(4), pages 1105-1166, December.
    10. Herbert Brücker & Albrecht Glitz & Adrian Lerche & Agnese Romiti, 2021. "Occupational Recognition and Immigrant Labor Market Outcomes," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 39(2), pages 497-525.
    11. Harald Bauder, 2005. "Institutional Capital and Labour Devaluation: The Non-Recognition of Foreign Credentials in Germany," European Journal of Economics and Economic Policies: Intervention, Edward Elgar Publishing, vol. 2(1), pages 75-93.
    12. Blair, Graeme & Imai, Kosuke, 2012. "Statistical Analysis of List Experiments," Political Analysis, Cambridge University Press, vol. 20(1), pages 47-77, January.
    13. Herbert Brücker & Johannes Croisier & Yuliya Kosyakova & Hannes Kröger & Giuseppe Pietrantuono & Nina Rother & Jürgen Schupp, 2019. "Language Skills and Employment Rate of Refugees in Germany Improving with Time," DIW Weekly Report, DIW Berlin, German Institute for Economic Research, vol. 9(4/5/6), pages 49-61.
    14. Altındağ, Onur & Bakış, Ozan & Rozo, Sandra V., 2020. "Blessing or burden? Impacts of refugees on businesses and the informal economy," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 146(C).
    15. Graeme Blair & Kosuke Imai & Jason Lyall, 2014. "Comparing and Combining List and Endorsement Experiments: Evidence from Afghanistan," American Journal of Political Science, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 58(4), pages 1043-1063, October.
    16. Blundell, Richard, 2001. "Welfare Reform for Low Income Workers," Oxford Economic Papers, Oxford University Press, vol. 53(2), pages 189-214, April.
    17. Elisabetta De Cao & Clemens Lutz, 2018. "Sensitive Survey Questions: Measuring Attitudes Regarding Female Genital Cutting Through a List Experiment," Oxford Bulletin of Economics and Statistics, Department of Economics, University of Oxford, vol. 80(5), pages 871-892, October.
    18. Chris Herbst, 2013. "Welfare reform and the subjective well-being of single mothers," Journal of Population Economics, Springer;European Society for Population Economics, vol. 26(1), pages 203-238, January.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Burgstaller, Lilith & Feld, Lars P. & Pfeil, Katharina, 2022. "Working in the shadow: Survey techniques for measuring and explaining undeclared work," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 200(C), pages 661-671.
    2. Jarkko Harju & Sami Jysmä & Aliisa Koivisto & Tuomas Kosonen, 2023. "Do household tax credits increase consumption? The role of demand elasticity and the extent of demand," Working Papers 8, Finnish Centre of Excellence in Tax Systems Research.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Bedaso, Fenet, 2021. "The Labor Market Integration of Refugees and other Migrants in Germany," GLO Discussion Paper Series 884, Global Labor Organization (GLO).
    2. Ronconi, Lucas & Zarazaga S.J., Rodrigo, 2015. "Labor Exclusion and the Erosion of Citizenship Responsibilities," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 74(C), pages 453-461.
    3. M. Niaz Asadullah & Elisabetta De Cao & Fathema Zhura Khatoon & Zahra Siddique, 2021. "Measuring gender attitudes using list experiments," Journal of Population Economics, Springer;European Society for Population Economics, vol. 34(2), pages 367-400, April.
    4. Richard Traunmüller & Sara Kijewski & Markus Freitag, 2019. "The Silent Victims of Sexual Violence during War: Evidence from a List Experiment in Sri Lanka," Journal of Conflict Resolution, Peace Science Society (International), vol. 63(9), pages 2015-2042, October.
    5. Jacob Nielsen Arendt & Christian Dustmann & Hyejin Ku, 2022. "Refugee migration and the labour market: lessons from 40 years of post-arrival policies in Denmark [‘The Dynamics of Return Migration, Human Capital Accumulation, and Wage Assimilation’]," Oxford Review of Economic Policy, Oxford University Press and Oxford Review of Economic Policy Limited, vol. 38(3), pages 531-556.
    6. Damelang, Andreas & Kosyakova, Yuliya, 2020. "To work or to study? Postmigration educational investments of adult refugees in Germany - evidence from a choice experiment," IAB-Discussion Paper 202031, Institut für Arbeitsmarkt- und Berufsforschung (IAB), Nürnberg [Institute for Employment Research, Nuremberg, Germany].
    7. Marine JOUVIN, 2021. "Addressing social desirability bias in child labor measurement : an application to cocoa farms in Côte d’Ivoire," Bordeaux Economics Working Papers 2021-08, Bordeaux School of Economics (BSE).
    8. David Boto‐García & Federico Perali, 2024. "The association between marital locus of control and break‐up intentions," American Journal of Economics and Sociology, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 83(1), pages 35-57, January.
    9. Arendt, Jacob Nielsen & Bolvig, Iben, 2023. "Trade-offs between work-first and language-first strategies for refugees," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 92(C).
    10. Olivia Bertelli & Thomas Calvo & Emmanuelle Lavallée & Marion Mercier & Sandrine Mesplé-Somps, 2023. "Measuring insecurity-related experiences and preferences in a fragile State. A list experiment in Mali," Working Papers DT/2023/01, DIAL (Développement, Institutions et Mondialisation).
    11. María del Mar García Rueda & Pier Francesco Perri & Beatriz Rodríguez Cobo, 2018. "Advances in estimation by the item sum technique using auxiliary information in complex surveys," AStA Advances in Statistical Analysis, Springer;German Statistical Society, vol. 102(3), pages 455-478, July.
    12. Seonho Shin, 2022. "Evaluating the Effect of the Matching Grant Program for Refugees: An Observational Study Using Matching, Weighting, and the Mantel-Haenszel Test," Journal of Labor Research, Springer, vol. 43(1), pages 103-133, March.
    13. Elisabetta de Cao & Clemens Lutz, 2015. "Measuring attitudes regarding female genital mutilation through a list experiment," CSAE Working Paper Series 2015-20, Centre for the Study of African Economies, University of Oxford.
    14. Dahlberg, Matz & Egebark, Johan & Vikman, Ulrika & Özcan, Gülay, 2024. "Labor market integration of refugees: RCT evidence from an early intervention program in Sweden," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 217(C), pages 614-630.
    15. Burgstaller, Lilith & Feld, Lars P. & Pfeil, Katharina, 2022. "Working in the shadow: Survey techniques for measuring and explaining undeclared work," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 200(C), pages 661-671.
    16. Friedrich Schneider & Mangirdas Morkunas & Erika Quendler, 2021. "Measuring the Immeasurable: The Evolution of the Size of Informal Economy in the Agricultural Sector in the EU-15 up to 2019," CESifo Working Paper Series 8937, CESifo.
    17. Berbée, Paul & Brücker, Herbert & Garloff, Alfred & Sommerfeld, Katrin, 2022. "The labor demand effects of refugee immigration: Evidence from a natural experiment," ZEW Discussion Papers 22-069, ZEW - Leibniz Centre for European Economic Research.
    18. repec:dgr:rugsom:14017-eef is not listed on IDEAS
    19. Matti Sarvimäki, 2021. "Managing Refugee Protection Crises: Policy Lessons from Economics and Political Science," RF Berlin - CReAM Discussion Paper Series 2131, Rockwool Foundation Berlin (RF Berlin) - Centre for Research and Analysis of Migration (CReAM).
    20. Hallsworth, Michael & List, John A. & Metcalfe, Robert D. & Vlaev, Ivo, 2017. "The behavioralist as tax collector: Using natural field experiments to enhance tax compliance," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 148(C), pages 14-31.
    21. Harry J. Holzer, 2009. "The Labor Market and Young Black Men: Updating Moynihan's Perspective," The ANNALS of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, , vol. 621(1), pages 47-69, January.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Unregistered work; Informal employment; List experiment; Refugees; Germany; Survey experiment;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • J46 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Particular Labor Markets - - - Informal Labor Market
    • J61 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Mobility, Unemployment, Vacancies, and Immigrant Workers - - - Geographic Labor Mobility; Immigrant Workers
    • C83 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Data Collection and Data Estimation Methodology; Computer Programs - - - Survey Methods; Sampling Methods

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:bsl:wpaper:2022/01. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: WWZ (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/wwzbsch.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.