Do Refugees with Better Mental Health Better Integrate? : Evidence from the Building a New Life in Australia Longitudinal Survey
Hardly any evidence exists on the effects of mental illness on refugee labor outcomes. This paper offers 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 worl...
| Main Authors: | , , |
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| Format: | Working Paper |
| Language: | English |
| Published: |
World Bank, Washington, DC
2022
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| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/099751406132233907/IDU0d25fa10702ac2049bf0bf8d0d61ea329a7d0 http://hdl.handle.net/10986/37544 |
| Summary: | Hardly any evidence exists on the
effects of mental illness on refugee labor outcomes. This
paper offers 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, the paper
exploits the variations in traumatic experiences of refugees
interacted with post-resettlement time periods to causally
identify the impacts of refugee mental health. The findings
show 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 percent
and labor income by 26.8 percent. There is also evidence of
adverse impacts of refugees’ mental illness on their
children’s mental health and educational performance. These
effects appear to be more pronounced for newly arriving
refugees and those without social networks, but they may be
ameliorated with government support. |
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