Dominik Hangartner

Asylum Policy and Refugee Integration in Norway, Sweden and Switzerland

European policy makers are struggling with the design of the asylum process and programs for refugee integration, and there are heated debates about what should or should not be done with asylum seekers and refugees. This project will help ground this vitriolic debate in the first systematic evidence on how the key policy parameters of the asylum process affect the subsequent short and long-term integration of refugees in three key receiving countries in Europe: Norway, Sweden and Switzerland. The core policy parameters that the project  plans to examine are: wait times, spatial assignment, labor market access and financial support. These rules and procedures affect asylum seekers both while they are waiting for a decision on their asylum claims and after they have been granted some form of refugee or refugee like status.

The proposed research will provide comprehensive information to help European countries integrate refugees more effectively, which has tremendous social, political, economic and security implications.

Project-related scientific publications Select publication   Marbach, Moritz, Jens Hainmueller and Dominik Hangartner The long-term impact of employment bans on the economic integration of refugees 2018   Hainmueller, Jens, Dominik Hangartner and Duncan Lawrence When lives are put on hold: Lengthy asylum processes decrease employment among refugees 2016