Czaika and Hobolth (2016) investigated whether restrictive asylum and visa policies increase irregular migration into Europe using data on refusals of entry and on-territory apprehensions of irregular migrants from EUROSTAT as the dependent variables. They measured restrictive policies using data on asylum application rejections (from the UNHCR statistical yearbook) and on short-term visa refusals (from the European Visa Database). The data covered 29 European destinations and more than 200 origin countries for the period 2008 and 2011. Disaggregation by year, country of citizenship and country of destination allowed for the linkage of rejections and apprehensions from the same country.
As shown in the regression table below, they found that a 10% increase in asylum rejections was associated with a 7% rise in the number of on territory apprehensions of irregular migrants. This suggests that rejected asylum seekers may opt for irregular stay as an alternative. Similarly, a 10% increase in short-term visa refusals corresponded to a7% increase in the number of at border refusals of irregular migrants. Based on these results, the researchers concluded that restrictive immigration policies increase irregular migration into Europe.
Table 1: Czaika and Hobolth (2016) Results
Echevarria-Coco and Gardeazabal (2020) investigated how conflict intensity and spatial factors affect the proportions of IDPs and refugees in a country. They utilizeddata on refugees and IDPs for 161 countries for the period from 1996 to 2016, obtained from the UNHCR populations of concern database.
Few studies simultaneously compare the drivers of internal and cross-border forced displacement. They hypothesized that conflict intensity (UCDP-PRIO data) and low levels of civil liberties (Freedom House indicators) increase displacement while terrain ruggedness (Nunn and Puga, 2012) and terrain size (Riley, Degloria and Elliot, 1999) decrease displacement. Furthermore, they expected that proximity to a neighbouring country (CEPII dataset) increases cross-border displacement, or the proportion of refugees.
The results shown in the regression table below confirm these hypotheses. Higher conflict intensity and lower levels of civil liberties (1=highest and 7=lowest) are associated with increased proportions of forcibly displaced persons. The negative coefficients for terrain size and ruggedness also support the expectation that these factors decrease the proportions of forcibly displaced persons. Interestingly, proximity to another country increases the proportion of IDPs but not of refugees, contrary to expectations. However, an interaction between proximity and conflict intensity suggests that proximity only increases the proportion of refugees in situations of high conflict intensity.
Table 2: Echevarria-Coco and Gardeazabal (2020) Results
Bratsberg and colleagues (2017) compared the long-term labour market integration of migrants who settled in Norway for various reasons. The study employed register data linked to longitudinal administrative records of employment and social security use.
Studying labour market integration over the long-term is more informative than focussing on the last five years, which is why the authors use administrative data following the same persons who arrived in Norway over the past 25 years. They distinguished between old EU migrants, new EU migrants, migrants from low-income third countries, those admitted for protection and those admitted for family reunification, to explore potential differences in integration between these groups.
The left-hand figure below plots the employment rate of migrants over the last 20 years by admission class. The findings show that the employment rate of individuals admitted for protection increased rapidly within the first 5 years but began to stabilize for women and even decline for men, thereafter, remaining overall considerably lower than that of other migrant groups. The right-hand figure below plots the percentage of migrants who depended on social security as their main source of subsistence over the last 20 years by admission class. The results show that the percentage of social security claimants decreased rapidly among those admitted for protection within the initial 5 years, but thereafter stagnated (or slightly increased again), consistently remaining higher than that of other migrant groups which displayed a general increase of social security claimants over time.
All in all, the authors showed that a long-term assessment of labour market integration points to a persistent disadvantage for refugees and asylum seekers, which a 5-year assessment would have missed.
Figure 1: Bratsberg and colleagues (2017) Results
