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Credit: R. Bradenbrink
Economic Outcomes
The centrepiece of the first phase of our research was the collection of an original panel data set, based on multi-country and time-series data collection: the Refugee Economies Dataset.
With a focus on Uganda, Kenya, and Ethiopia, the dataset covers urban and rural areas, refugees and hosts, and includes multiple data collection periods. The dataset includes over 16,000 refugees and host community members from across six research sites: Addis Ababa and Dollo Ado (Ethiopia), Nairobi and Kakuma (Kenya), and Kampala and Nakivale (Uganda). The dataset will be made available for use by other researchers in 2022.
Our survey questionnaire is wide-ranging and includes modules on income, expenditure, assets, subjective well-being, physical and mental health, education, aspirations, migration and mobility, refugee-host community interactions, attitudes, and demography, for example. Our sampling methods involve random sampling, enabling us to use the data to explore a variety of questions using descriptive statistics, simple correlations, and multivariate regression analysis. The breadth of the questionnaire allows us to explore correlations between variables, both cross-sectionally and over time. All of this work is complemented by in-depth qualitative research.
We use our data to explain variation in the economic behaviour and economic outcomes for refugees. For example, we explored questions such as:
- What explains variation in welfare outcomes for refugees?
- What explains social cohesion between refugees and hosts?
- What explains refugees’ migration, mobility, and residency choices?
On a theoretical level, we are also interested in understanding what is distinctive about the economic lives of refugees (compared with, for example, citizens or other migrants).
Using participatory methods, we train refugees and host community members as peer researchers and enumerators. In addition to producing academic publications, we will produce a series of accessible policy briefs, combining quantitative data with qualitative insights and human stories.
Uganda
Uganda allows refugees the right to work and significant freedom of movement. What difference does it make?
Kenya
Kenya has restricted socio-economic freedoms for refugees since the 1990s, notably denying them the right to work and limiting movement outside camps.
Ethiopia
Ethiopia has taken gradual steps towards providing refugees with the right to work, but has yet to fully implement those rights.
Syrians in Europe
In collaboration with Deloitte, we undertook preliminary data collection on the economic lives of Syrian refugees in Europe.