Permanent Residency and Refugee Immigrants’ Skill Investment

Jacob Arendt, Christian Dustmann and Hyejin Ku

No 10579, CESifo Working Paper Series from CESifo

Abstract: We analyze an immigration reform in Denmark that tightened refugee immigrants’ eligibility criteria for permanent residency to incentivize their labor market attachment and acquisition of local language skills. Contrary to what the reform intended, the overall employment of those affected decreased while their average language proficiency remained largely unchanged. This was caused by a disincentive effect, where individuals with low pre-reform labor market performance reduced their labor supply. Our findings suggest that stricter permanent residency rules, rather than incentivizing refugees’ skill investment, may decrease the efforts of those who believe they cannot meet the new requirements.

Keywords: immigrant assimilation; refugee integration; labor supply; language proficiency; human capital (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: J22 J24 J61 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2023
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-eur, nep-int, nep-lab, nep-mig and nep-ure
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

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Related works:
Working Paper: Permanent Residency and Refugee Immigrant Skill Investment (2023)
Working Paper: Permanent Residency and Refugee Immigrants' Skill Investment (2023)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:ces:ceswps:_10579

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