Migration has been a hot political potato for several years, but there is a growing consensus that people’s primary migration-related gripe is the perception that some migrants don’t contribute to their host community. Whilst this perception is largely unjustified, it does nonetheless make sense to clear the hurdles that prevent migrants from working as quickly as possible.
A recent study from the Centre on Migration, Policy and Society (COMPAS) at the University of Oxford explores just some of these barriers for refugees who have settled in the UK. The report aims to shed light on the work situation of refugees in Britain, and in particular asylum migrants, most of whom moved to the UK for asylum reasons, but who now live independently of refugee status. Indeed, many are now British nationals.
Economic outcomes
The researchers attempt to compare the economic outcomes of asylum migrants with native citizens, and indeed migrants who came to the UK through official channels, whether for work, study or family reasons.
The report reveals that asylum migrants are less likely to be in work than either other forms of migrant or native people. Indeed, the employment rate is over 20% lower than the 73% UK-born individuals achieve. Interestingly, whilst the gap does narrow over time, it still persists even after 25 years of residency.
This continues in terms of their earning as well, with asylum migrants typically working fewer hours, for less money than both natives and other migrants. Their average weekly income is 55% less than the UK-born average.
This leads to an above-average number of people turning to self-employment, with 21% of asylum migrants working in this way compared to 14% of UK-born workers.
Barriers to work
Sadly, asylum migrants were also much more likely to report having long-term health conditions that hamper their attempts to work full time. A whopping 37% reported having health conditions that they had had for over 12 months.
“Naturally, we found that asylum migrants – who have often fled conflict and other trauma—are more likely to suffer long-lasting health problems that affect their ability to work than people born in the UK and other migrants. So an important recommendation is that when allocating funding geared towards the economic integration of asylum migrants, governments should first address health issues that impede work performance, including mental health. This could lead to better labour market outcomes for this group in the future,” the authors reveal.
Where the data is slightly more positive is that asylum migrants were more likely to employ others than any other kind of individual, although most of these businesses are small enterprises.
The team hope that the data provides valuable insight and can underpin the creation of specific policy interventions to help this specific population more effectively. Arguably foremost among the barriers however are the legal restrictions stopping people from accessing the labor market whilst their claims are being assessed. It’s well known that absences from the labor market are extremely damaging to any individual, and this appears to be the case for asylum migrants, with the knock-on effect that this may contribute to long-term health issues, which further undermine their prospects.
If asylum migrants are to contribute to society in the way that surely everyone hopes they can, then these issues have to be addressed. Shedding light on the issues involved will hopefully be the first step towards doing just that.
