| Description |
In this project, I explore the economic integration of refugees resettled in Utah. I argue that previous models of economic integration have been applied to research in a piecemeal fashion and a more comprehensive approach is warranted. To fill this gap, I outline a Holistic Model of Refugee Economic Integration composed of refugee ethnic origins, forms of capital, and the contexts of reception. This study analyzes the relationship of these dimensions to three markers of economic integration: labor market participation, adequate income, and two-way integration. To ensure a comprehensive analysis of these dimensions I use a mixed methods research design involving the collection of quantitative data from closed-ended administrative forms, and qualitative data from the free-form text of case notes and from focus groups. I employed event history analysis to examine the association between the amount of time it takes to formally enter the labor market (i.e., find a job) and later to find a job with a livable wage. I also conducted textual analysis of the case notes and open-coded the transcripts from to focus groups to identify central themes. With these analyses, I investigate sociological issues surrounding migration, integration, and discrimination. I find that existing sociological theories of immigrant economic integration are applicable to refugees, but with an important caveat: piecemeal application of integration theories is inadequate for understanding refugee outcomes. The skills and training of refugees are frequently undervalued in the U.S. labor market. Forms of capital theories often fail to explain this. However, ethnic origins are critical predictors of the economic integration of refugees. Refugee adherence to origin culture can contribute to conspicuous foreignness forming the basis for labor market discrimination. "Creative discrimination" is especially problematic for conspicuously Muslim refugees. More importantly, while two-way integration is an important goal, ethnoreligious discrimination is both an immediate contextual predictor and a potential future outcome, indicating possible cumulative causation. Finally, the analyses show that the factors influencing economic integration interact, change over time, and have different effects on different aspects of economic integration, indicating the need for a more exhaustive theoretical approach namely the Holistic Model of Refugee Economic Integration. |
