IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/hhs/ifauwp/2023_017.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

The long-term integration of refugee children:Swedish experiences after the Yugoslav Wars

Author

Listed:
  • Åslund, Olof

    (Uppsala University, Department of Economics)

  • Liljeberg, Linus

    (IFAU - Institute for Evaluation of Labour Market and Education Policy)

  • Roman, Sara

    (IFAU - Institute for Evaluation of Labour Market and Education Policy)

Abstract

We study the economic and social integration of refugee children. The analysis follows war refugees arriving from former Yugoslavia to Sweden in the early 1990s for up to 25 years. We find strong educational and economic integration, although differing by age at migration and gender. By contrast, segregation is striking in family formation. Those under 7 at migration had grades and high school completion on par with natives. Poor initial school performance among teenage refugees was partly compensated by education at higher ages. By 2019 there was on average full labor market assimilation among women while a small gap remained among men. However, refugees arriving before school start outperformed their native peers. Endogamy was common; even among preschoolers, 60–70 percent had their first child with a partner of Yugoslavian descent. Many of the partners migrated after the refugee had turned 20. Intermarriage is gendered and related to socioeconomic status. Residential and workplace segregation decreased over time but remained pronounced among people without tertiary education.

Suggested Citation

  • Åslund, Olof & Liljeberg, Linus & Roman, Sara, 2023. "The long-term integration of refugee children:Swedish experiences after the Yugoslav Wars," Working Paper Series 2023:17, IFAU - Institute for Evaluation of Labour Market and Education Policy.
    • Handle: RePEc:hhs:ifauwp:2023_017
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.ifau.se/Forskning/Publikationer/Working-papers/2023/the-long-term-integration-of-refugee-children/
    File Function: Full text
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Refugee children; migrants; economic and social integration;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • F22 - International Economics - - International Factor Movements and International Business - - - International Migration
    • J15 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demographic Economics - - - Economics of Minorities, Races, Indigenous Peoples, and Immigrants; Non-labor Discrimination
    • J18 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demographic Economics - - - Public Policy

    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:hhs:ifauwp:2023_017. 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.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using 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: Ali Ghooloo (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/ifagvse.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.