Binding the Generations: Household Formation Patterns among Vietnamese Refugees1

Much of the analysis of refugee and immigrant adaptation has stressed the interaction of prior experience with the requirements of life in a new country. For refugees, that interaction has often been jarring because of the after‐effects of their flight and their relative inability to prepare for a new life in a new country. Yet refugees have often done rather well in economic terms in that new country. The reasons for that relative success have been phrased in cultural terms (e.g., the predisposition toward education) and in general socioeconomic terms (e.g., refugees as educated and skilled). This article examines a set of factors that lie between these customary cultural and socioeconomic categories. Specifically, the paper examines key features of household formation among Vietnamese refugees. An examination of historical data from southern Vietnam indicates patterns in household formation that appear durable over time yet are not shared across the breadth of Vietnam and cannot thus be viewed as “cultural” in the usual sense. A comparison of the historical data with recent national survey data on refugees in the United States indicates that these patterns continue among Vietnamese refugees and are ‐ as compared to other refugees ‐ distinctive to them. These patterns of household formation provide Vietnamese refugees with important options in adaptation to a new country.     

Refugee resettlement: models in action

"A model of refugee resettlement containing two axes is proposed: volume of refugee intake and emphasis on economic or cultural adaptation." The refugee resettlement practices of Canada, France, and the United States are then described. The author notes that France and Canada favor a moderate intake of refugees with emphasis on economic adaptation, although the emphasis in Quebec is on cultural adaptation. In contrast, the United States accepts a large volume of refugees, with a similar emphasis on economic adaptation.     

Economic adaptation of refugees in Canada: experience of a quarter century

This paper examines the economic adaptation, in terms of employment and income, for 400,000 refugees, mainly displaced persons, Hungarians, Czechoslovaks, Ugandan Asians, Chileans, and Indochinese, in Canada during the last 25 years. The author looks at 1) east in obtaining a first job, 2) unemployment, 3) wives' employment, 4) job search techniques, and 5) occupation. Economic climate largely determines the time needed to find a first job. 55% of Hungarian refugees in 1957-58 found a job within a month; only 30% of Czechoslovak refugees in 1968-69 found a job within a month. Refugees and regular immigrants have higher unemployment than native Canadians; but the rate drops dramatically within a few years. Employment and unemployment for refugees is influenced by 1) prevailing labor market conditions, 2) English and/or French language proficiency, 3) sympathy by the population for the refugees, 4) support by people of the same ethnic group, and 5) the refugees' own adaptability. Survey results show that more refugee wives are employed than Canadian born wives; over 69% of Chilean refugee women worked in 1975-76. Most refugees use the Canada Employment Center, and informal channels such as "word of mouth" and friends and relatives to find jobs. Lack of qualifications and experience, and lack of language proficiency hinder many refugees in finding jobs for which they have trained. Income is an indicator of the success of refugee economic adaptation. Refugees, like regular immigrants, have lower than average income levels in their first years in Canada; however, they often earn more than the Canadian born after the difficult first years. Family incomes, because of female labor force participation, may widen the differences even more. Although many refugees are not working in their intended professions, most refugee groups have adjusted well economically in Canada.     

Stages and modes of incorporation of exiles in Switzerland: The example of Chilean refugees

Many scholars perceive the incorporation of refugees and immigrants to a new society as a matter of time: the longer the length of residence, the more the refugees and immigrants perceive their stay in the host society as permanent. Other social scientists go even much further: they perceive adaptation not only as a linear process but also as an inevitable and desirable process which should lead to the disappearance of immigrants as an ethnic community and to their assimilation to a new society. In this paper we argue that incorporation to a new society is not necessarily a linear process depending exclusively upon length of residence. We also argue that assimilation is not necessarily the end result of this process. In our opinion, linear and assimilationist approaches neglect macro‐social context and, to a lesser extent, social stratification which are important variables influencing the incorporation process of migrants to a new society. The empirical study of Chilean refugees in Switzerland shows the relevance of these factors and also of the actor's own perception of the situation in the definition of different stages of exile.     

The Employment Experience of Refugees in the Netherlands1

This study focuses on the economically disadvantaged position of refugees. We use survey data of refugees from Somalia, Iran, Afghanistan, Iraq, and the former Yugoslavia in the Netherlands, to analyze refugees’ odds of employment and their occupational status. In line with human capital and social capital theory, we find that host country specific education, work experience, language proficiency, and contacts with natives are positively related to the chances of employment and occupational status. The study shows that health problems, integration courses, and the time spent in refugee reception centers form important additional explanations of the economic integration of refugees.     

Die Entwicklung von Organisations- und Teamstrukturen zur Integration von Flüchtlingen: Zwei Fallbeispiele aus der SchweizThe development of organization and team structures in institutions for refugee integration: Two examples from Switzerland

The article is concerned with the organizational and team-related challenges of integration of refugees in Switzerland from the perspective of the actors in organizations who assume this task in their daily work. Based on interviews with employees of the Zürcher Fachorganisation AOZ and the Fachstelle Integration Graubünden the development and functionality of different organizational structures will be discussed and analyzed with regard to their adaptation to structural conditions of the region as well as specific requirements of the arriving refugees. Particular consideration is given to measures of social and professional integration. The two organizations were chosen because the former is well established in Switzerland and has been active in the integration of refugees for more than 30 years and the latter has been particularly successful in assisting refugees to get a placement in the primary labor market. Numerous challenges of newly arriving refugees in Switzerland require different targeted services (language training, cultural integration, psychological support, etc.). In order to meet these requirements coordinated, balanced team structures are required. The results show that the two organizations differ considerably in their structure, distribution of tasks and integration into networks despite almost identical remits.     

Spontaneously settled refugees in Northwestern Province,Zambia

The UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) commissioned researchers from the University of Zambia to conduct a socioeconomic survey and census of "spontaneously settled" Zairean and Angolan refugees in the Northwestern Province of Zambia in 1982. The sample consisted of 188 Angolans, 201 Zaireans, and 2 South Africans. The difficulties experienced by refugees in Northwestern Province in achieving integration were related to a combination of factors including the lack of a clear national policy on refugees and refugee status, a national concern for maintaining security, the popular belief that aliens are responsible for an increasing crime rate, the desire by immigration officials for stricter laws to control alien infiltration, conflict between traditional and modern leaders, and Zambia's deteriorating economic situation. In spite of the problems described, the integration of refugees into existing communities is a desirable goal and should be encouraged. One should not assume that self-settling refugees are able to live with ethnic kin, receive assistance and hospitality, and thus are better off than those in camps. The Zambian case provides ample evidence that integration is not easy even with kin support, shared ethnicity, language, and historical connections. Moreover, given the fact that Zambia will continue to receive refugees it is vital that there is a well defined refugee policy and an administrative mechanism for implementing that policy at all levels. This will be particularly important in Zambia as it will undoubtedly continue to receive large influxes of refugees, from countries such as Namibia, Uganda, Angola, Mozambique, and South Africa.     

A new asylum law for the KRI and Iraq: Reality or wishful thinking?

Despite having its own internal population displacement due to conflict and civil war, Iraq and the Kurdistan Region continue to accommodate large numbers of refugees from Iran, Palestine, Syria and Turkey. However, Iraq has not ratified the internationally recognized legal framework for the protection of refugees. Currently, the protection offered to asylum seekers in Iraq is regulated by secondary legislation, mostly in the form of administrative circulars. The lack of an applicable law regulating the status of asylum seekers has led to local-level ad hoc policy implementation. Similarly, the Kurdistan Region of Iraq has no legal provisions in its domestic legislation to regulate the status of refugees. This study presents: (a) the argument that Iraq must adopt legislation to regulate the entry, exit and stay of migrants, in line with international protection for both asylum seekers and the provision of adequate rights to refugees, and in accordance with international human rights standards; (b) a proposal for provisions for such legislation in Iraq; and (c) a timely impetus to re-energize local strategies aimed at filling these normative legal gaps through domestic agreements rather than regional and/or international ones.     

Transnational Activities of Syrian Refugees in Turkey: Hindering or Supporting Integration

This article focuses on transnational activities of Syrian refugees in Turkey examining the relationship between such activities and integration. The main research question addressed in this article is whether involvement in transnational activities hinders or supports the integration processes of Syrian refugees in Turkey, by drawing upon fieldwork in Istanbul, Ankara, Hatay and Gaziantep. I argue that Syrian refugees perceive integration as a survival mechanism and use transnational activities as a strategy for adapting to a new society, especially when they are faced with insecure legal status and a lack of access to rights in the receiving country. This study contributes to the literature on refugee transnationalism and integration by focusing on the refugees’ perceptions of on integration processes and addressing the question of survival.     

The Settlement Experiences Of Refugees From The Former Yugoslavia

In the 1990s many mixed marriage refugees from what was Yugoslavia settled in Perth, Australia. A mixed marriage is one where the parties have different ethnicities. Using multiple‐case, conversational interviews, the experiences of 12 of these refugees were explored. The processes of acculturation and adaptation, the development of social support networks and community, and their ethnic identity and ethnicity, were discussed and analysed within both the sociopolitical context of the conflict in what was Yugoslavia, and their subsequent migration. The initial settlement programmes and supports to the refugees and provided by Australia's government and community groups were also analysed. The results illustrated the diversity of experiences of the participants as well as shared experiences resulting from their being in a mixed marriage. In summary, the results suggest that settlement is stressful for the refugees, that community‐based settlement programmes provide more positive settlement experiences than government programmes, and that people in mixed marriages experience particular stresses related to the political context in the former Yugoslavia, including a history of alienation and persecution. Theoretically the results indicate that the participants are moving towards an acculturation outcome of biculturalism. The complex nature of their ethnic identity and ethnicity is also discussed.     

Der „Kleine Mann“ und die AfD: Was steckt dahinter?

Critics of my work have found a negative effect of the social status on the likelihood of someone voting for the AfD. However, these findings do not sufficiently confirm the Modernisation Losers’ thesis that I had formulated and testest in this journal in 2017. The reason is that attitudes towards society vary dependent on social status, and these attitudes have no reference to economic modernisation. When controlling the influence of these attitudes in multivariate analyses, status effects will disappear. One of these attitudes is the rejection of refugees: AfD voters often perceive refugees as competitors for scarce resources and a threat to the cultural homogeneity of German society. This means that the effect of social status on the intention of voting for AfD is mediated by attitudes towards immigration. I find evidence for this thesis in some of the contributions of my critics and in new analyses based on the German Social-Economic Panel (GSOEP). My conclusion is that a policy of redistribution will not be suitable for winning back AfD voters, because it misses the decisive motive for their voting.     

Refugees: On the Economics of Political Migration

Unless literally forced to leave, prospective refugees have a choice between staying and flight, subject to constraints, particularly the willingness of a country to grant asylum. Although all options may be unpleasant, they nonetheless represent alternatives amenable to economic analysis. The incentive to flee is a function of threat severity and credibility, and the attractiveness of available safe havens. The theoretical analysis suggests that restrictive asylum policies have little impact on demand for asylum, except in the interplay with other factors, such as costs of flight and retribution against unsuccessful refugees. While the case of bogus refugees has received much attention in the popular literature, this article shows that threatened individuals may choose emigration instead of flight if there are repercussions associated with refugee status. The article also analyzes the case of bogus refugees.     

Citizenship Rights and Repatriation of Refugees

This article examines the relationship between access to or lack of access to citizenship rights in countries of asylum and the propensity of refugees to return. It hypothesizes that in situations where refugees enjoy civil, social and economic citizenship rights in the context of favorable structural factors ‐ relatively secure employment, self‐employment, social services such as housing, schools, health care and social security ‐ the importance of repatriation may diminish as a viable option. In North America, Western Europe, Australia and New Zealand, where refugees are able to enjoy rights of citizenship with definite prospects for becoming citizens (through naturalization) or denizens through acquisition of permanent status, and where favorable structural factors provide for the enjoyment of a decent standard of living, they tend to remain regardless of whether the conditions that prompted displacement are eliminated. The policy environments and the structural factors for refugees sheltering in Less Developed Countries (LDCs) are the antithesis of those refugees in Developed Countries (DCs). As a result, millions of refugees in the South have been ‘voting with their feet’ homewards to recoup citizenship rights which they lost in connection with displacement and which they have been unable to achieve in exile.     

Responses of the social work profession to unaccompanied children seeking asylum in the Republic of Ireland

The Republic of Ireland is rapidly developing immigration legislation and policies to respond to its relatively new status as a destination for asylum seekers and refugees within the European Union. New political definitions of asylum seekers and refugees are being constructed in a country with its own history of mass emigration. At the same time, the economic growth that is making Ireland a more attractive destination for asylum seekers and refugees has also fuelled an unprecedented expansion in the employment of social workers. Specialized services are now being developed for unaccompanied children who are seeking asylum. This expansion in the number of social workers and growth in service provision has led to little professional debate about the role of social workers with asylum seekers and refugees. This paper examines the questions raised by the provision of social work services to these children and considers the wider implications for the development of the social work profession and social work practices in Ireland.     

The Politics of Recognition: Jewish Refugees in Relief Policies and Human Rights Debates, 1945-1950

This essay analyses the place of Jewish survivors in the refugee system established by the West in the aftermath of the Second World War. Departing from the literature of trauma and mourning, this article addresses Holocaust survivors as migrant refugees subjected to international categorisations, relief policies and human rights debates. Between 1945 and 1950, Jewish refugees were recognised as an ideal-type community of victims by western humanitarianism. Recognition entailed symbolic and material entitlements, and eventually rewarded Holocaust survivors with historical, political and territorial vindication. As opposed to other refugee groups who entered the market of international compassion in the 1940s, Jewish refugees were granted full status of political victims.     

The Politics of Recognition: Jewish Refugees in Relief Policies and Human Rights Debates, 1945–1950

This essay analyses the place of Jewish survivors in the refugee system established by the West in the aftermath of the Second World War. Departing from the literature of trauma and mourning, this article addresses Holocaust survivors as migrant refugees subjected to international categorisations, relief policies and human rights debates. Between 1945 and 1950, Jewish refugees were recognised as an ideal-type community of victims by western humanitarianism. Recognition entailed symbolic and material entitlements, and eventually rewarded Holocaust survivors with historical, political and territorial vindication. As opposed to other refugee groups who entered the market of international compassion in the 1940s, Jewish refugees were granted full status of political victims.     

Employer attitudes towards refugee immigrants: Findings from a Swedish survey

Based on a large‐scale survey of Swedish firms, the authors identify significant heterogeneity in their attitudes towards refugee hiring, job performance, wage setting and discrimination, though experience of employing refugees reduces negative attitudes. Firms’ reasons for discontinuing their employment of refugees are not related to discrimination by staff or customers, but rather to refugees’ suboptimal job performance. While the majority of firms do not regard the collectively agreed minimum wages as an important obstacle to the hiring of refugees, firms with a large share of refugees on the payroll report that reducing those wage rates would enhance employment substantially.     

Turkey's Geographical Limitation: The Legal Implications of an Eventual Lifting

Being a Contracting Party to the 1951 Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees and its Protocol with geographical limitation, Turkey provides conditional refugee status, not refugee status, to persons feeling persecution as a result of events occurring outside Europe. This study focuses on the rights of conditional refugees under Turkish laws and questions whether these rights comply with or diverge from the rights of refugee under the Convention. It draws conclusions on the significance and challenging character of the identified divergences and on the changes that Turkey needs to make in its laws in case of an eventual lifting.     

Odyssean and Rubicon Refugees: Toward a Typology of Refugees in the Land of Exile

With a focus on refugees in Western Europe, this paper seeks to establish refugees in their country of exile/settlement as social types distinct from labour migrants. It looks at the notion of ethnic groups and their strategies as a theoretical tool for better understanding refugees. The refugees' positioning within the structure of conflict of their country of origin is posited as a determining factor of their modes of settlement. It is possible to find two large categories:
1. Odyssean refugees: refugees who nurtured a collective project in the land of origin and took it with them in the land of exile.
2. Rubicon refugees: refugees who did not partake in a collective project oriented toward the homeland or who have forsaken it.