Syrian Refugees and the Migration Dynamics of Jordanians: Moving In or Moving Out?

Abstract

This paper examines the impact of massive refugee inflows on the internal mobility of the host’s country population. We rely on panel data from before and after the Syrian war and exploit the geographical distribution of Syrians across Jordanian subdistricts. Using Difference-in-Differences, we find that the Syrian inflows increased Jordanian residential mobility. In particular, native outflows of the camp hosting areas increased by 27%. The increased residential mobility out of the camp areas seems to be triggered by an increase in rents and a crowding out of Jordanian students by Syrians in schools. Our results also show that the Syrian presence increased Jordanians’ job location mobility into the camp areas. These findings are robust to controlling for refugees’ locational sorting using instrumental variables, while auxiliary placebo regressions confirm that pre-existing trends in outcomes are not driving the results. We also provide a thorough discussion on the impact of refugees versus broader impacts of the Syrian war.