Do Refugees with Better Mental Health Better Integrate? Evidence from the Building a New Life in Australia Longitudinal Survey

Arbeitspapier

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.

Object Details

• Language: Englisch

References and Relationships

• Bibliographic citation: Series: IZA Discussion Papers ; No. 14766

Classification and Topics

• Classification: Wirtschaft ; Health and Economic Development ; Economics of Minorities, Races, Indigenous Peoples, and Immigrants; Non-labor Discrimination ; Labor Force and Employment, Size, and Structure ; Geographic Labor Mobility; Immigrant Workers ; Economic Development: Human Resources; Human Development; Income Distribution; Migration
• Subject: refugees ; mental health ; labor outcomes ; instrumental variable ; BNLA longitudinal survey ; Australia

Contributors, Places and Time

• Event: Geistige Schöpfung
• (who): Dang, Hai-Anh ; Trinh, Trong-Anh ; Verme, Paolo
• Event: Veröffentlichung
• (who): Institute of Labor Economics (IZA)
• (where): Bonn
• (when): 2021

Further information

• Handle: http://hdl.handle.net/10419/250427
• Last update: 10.03.2025, 11:42 AM CET