Abstract
Refugees hosted across the developed world often work in low-quality jobs, regardless of education previously attained in their country of origin. In this paper, I analyse the long-term value of formal host-country education for refugees using the example of forcefully displaced Bosnians who arrived in Austria during the 1992-1995 Bosnian war. Deploying 22 years of Austrian microcensus data, I exploit the age at the time of forced migration as an instrument for the probability of receiving host-country instead of origin country education to recover local average treatment effects of education attained in Austria vis-a-vis Bosnia on labour market outcomes for refugees aged around schooling thresholds. These estimates show that attaining a formal degree in the host-country significantly reduces the probability of work below educational attainment and low-skill employment over the entire observation period. Income differences between Austrian and Bosnian degree holders are visible after more than two decades of stay in Austria. The discount on Bosnian education declines over time for men but not for women, suggesting that host-country degrees are particularly important to groups that faced cultural barriers to quality employment in their country of origin.
Highlights
One of the key characteristics of refugee employment across the developed world is the low quality of jobs of those who manage to obtain employment
Using 2008 European Union (EU)-LFS data, Zwysen [2019] finds similar results and further shows that qualifications obtained in the host-country or having taken steps to get foreign education recognised are associated with a lower likelihood of working part-time involuntarily or in jobs of low social status among migrants who initially came for humanitarian reasons
Subsection 5.2 shows the main results of a pooled sample regression of the employment and employment quality indicators on the variable indicating whether or not the individual attained formal education in Austria
Summary
One of the key characteristics of refugee employment across the developed world is the low quality of jobs of those who manage to obtain employment. The results from the corresponding instrumental variable regressions imply that discouraging humanitarian migrants from pursuing host-country specific education in favour of meeting minimum employability requirements may be short-sighted: Over the observation period from five to 27 years after migration, the age-induced attainment of education in Austria led, on average, to a 10 percentage points lower likelihood to work below educational attainment compared to Bosnians who had attained similar education in Bosnia. It led to a 9 percentage points lower likelihood to work in a low-skill profession. They are largely driven by female Bosnians who, absent Austrian education, are likely to have permanently reverted to professions traditionally open to them in Bosnia prior to forced migration
Sign-in/Register to view highlights & summary Sign-in/Register to access full text options 
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a call
