Do Refugees with Better Mental Health Better Integrate? Evidence from the Building a New Life in Australia Longitudinal Survey
Hardly any evidence currently exists on the causal effects of mental illness on refugee labor market outcomes. We offer the first study on this topic in the context of Australia, one of the host countries with the largest number of refugees per capita in the world. Analyzing the Building a New Life in Australia longitudinal survey, we exploit the variations in traumatic experiences of refugees interacted with time as an instrument for refugee mental health. We find that worse mental health, as measured by a one standard deviation increase in the Kessler mental health score, reduces the probability of employment by 14.1% and labor income by 26.8%. We also find some evidence of adverse impacts of refugees' mental illness on their children's mental health and education performance. These effects appear more pronounced for refugees that newly arrive or are without social networks, but they may be ameliorated with government support. Our findings suggest that policies that target refugees' mental health may offer a new channel to improve their labor market outcomes.
Year of publication: |
2021
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Authors: | Dang, Hai-Anh ; Trinh, Trong-Anh ; Verme, Paolo |
Publisher: |
Bonn : Institute of Labor Economics (IZA) |
Subject: | refugees | mental health | labor outcomes | instrumental variable | BNLA longitudinal survey | Australia |
Saved in:
freely available
Series: | IZA Discussion Papers ; 14766 |
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Type of publication: | Book / Working Paper |
Type of publication (narrower categories): | Working Paper |
Language: | English |
Other identifiers: | 1774769131 [GVK] hdl:10419/250427 [Handle] RePEc:iza:izadps:dp14766 [RePEc] |
Classification: | i15 ; J15 - Economics of Minorities and Races ; J21 - Labor Force and Employment, Size, and Structure ; J61 - Geographic Labor Mobility; Immigrant Workers ; O15 - Human Resources; Income Distribution; Migration |
Source: |
Persistent link: https://www.econbiz.de/10012882342