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Trade-offs between work-first and language-first strategies for refugees

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  • Arendt, Jacob Nielsen
  • Bolvig, Iben

Abstract

This study investigates how local integration strategies that prioritize a work-first approach affect refugee's participation in language courses and their medium run labor market outcomes. We utilize a gradual rollout of the work-first approach (on-the-job training within the first year after arrival) combined with a dispersal policy of refugees across municipalities in Denmark. We find that being placed in municipalities emphasizing the work-first approach is positively associated with later employment and earnings but show that the associations are temporary. A higher local propensity to use the work-first approach is negatively related to time spent in language courses, level of courses completed and the grade point average for language course exam attendees. We discuss whether the reduced language course attendance could be an explanation of the lack of a persistent labor market effects.

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  • 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).
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:ecoedu:v:92:y:2023:i:c:s0272775722001261
    DOI: 10.1016/j.econedurev.2022.102353
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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Refugee; Integration; Language acquisition; Skill investment; Labor market;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • J15 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demographic Economics - - - Economics of Minorities, Races, Indigenous Peoples, and Immigrants; Non-labor Discrimination
    • J24 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demand and Supply of Labor - - - Human Capital; Skills; Occupational Choice; Labor Productivity
    • J61 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Mobility, Unemployment, Vacancies, and Immigrant Workers - - - Geographic Labor Mobility; Immigrant Workers
    • Z13 - Other Special Topics - - Cultural Economics - - - Economic Sociology; Economic Anthropology; Language; Social and Economic Stratification

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