Integration of recent refugees and third country nationals into the Austrian labour market

Client/Funding Institution

Anniversary Fund of the Oesterreichische Nationalbank

Abstract

The aim of this project was to investigate the opportunities and challenges of integrating refugees and migrants in the Austrian labour market. A particular focus of the analysis was to follow the dynamics of labour market integration, building on a variety of longitudinal databases, including our own survey (FIMAS) covering recent refugees/asylum seekers as well as register-based labour market career data from Statistics Austria. The aim was to follow the experiences of different groups of refugees and migrants coming from different countries of origin with their specific personal characteristics, social contexts and participations in various policy programmes. Analytically, labour market integration was analysed along a number of different dimensions of integration (such as social network formation, cultural integration, integration into the health and other aspects of the welfare system, training and educational integration, etc) to check how these interact to facilitate or hinder labour market integration. An important part of the project addressed the vulnerability of refugees to mental health problems and identified the effect of stressors and resilience factors on their mental health situation. Various state-of-the-art statistical methods were applied to analyse the heterogeneity of experiences, effectiveness of policy programmes and interaction between different dimensions of integration.

Duration

October 2016 - June 2019

wiiw team Leader

Michael Landesmann

wiiw Staff

Stefan Jestl, Michael Landesmann, Sandra M. Leitner, Sebastian Leitner, Isilda Mara

Publications

External Publications

Successful settlement of refugees in Austria: A multiple indicators and multiple causes approach' (with Michael Landesmann), in: Rainer Bauböck, Christoph Reinprecht and Wiebke Sievers (eds), Flucht und Asyl. Internationale und österreichische Perspektiven, Jahrbuch 5/2019, Österreichische Akademie der Wissenschaften, Wien, 2020

Related News

Keywords: Austria, refugees, economic migrants from third countries, labour market, labour market integration measures, migration policy, longitudinal survey

Countries covered: EU28

Research Areas: Labour, Migration and Income Distribution


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