Arbeitspapier
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.
- Language
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Englisch
- Bibliographic citation
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Series: GLO Discussion Paper ; No. 949
- Classification
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Wirtschaft
Economic Development: Human Resources; Human Development; Income Distribution; Migration
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
- Subject
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Australia
refugees
mental health
labor outcomes
instrumental variable
BNLA longitudinal survey
- Event
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Geistige Schöpfung
- (who)
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Dang, Hai-Anh H.
Trinh, Trong-Anh
Verme, Paolo
- Event
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Veröffentlichung
- (who)
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Global Labor Organization (GLO)
- (where)
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Essen
- (when)
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2021
- Handle
- Last update
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10.03.2025, 11:43 AM CET
Data provider
ZBW - Deutsche Zentralbibliothek für Wirtschaftswissenschaften - Leibniz-Informationszentrum Wirtschaft. If you have any questions about the object, please contact the data provider.
Object type
- Arbeitspapier
Associated
- Dang, Hai-Anh H.
- Trinh, Trong-Anh
- Verme, Paolo
- Global Labor Organization (GLO)
Time of origin
- 2021