The integration of refugees into host countries’ formal labor markets is increasingly recommended as a durable solution to forced migration. Yet, this policy response is a contentious political topic with little empirical evidence, especially in low- and middle-income host countries available to support policy.
This article examines the impacts of integrating Syrian refugees into Jordan’s formal labor market. We use robust greedy one-to-one propensity score matching on comprehensive high-quality data from almost 75,000 Syrian refugee households collected between 2017 and 2019 to generate novel evidence on the socio-economic benefits of refugee labor market integration.
The findings show that the ability to access formal jobs, reflected by holding a work permit, is significantly associated with increased refugee income, strengthens food security, and reduces protection needs and child labor. These findings contribute to a better and knowledge-based understanding of a prominent policy response for forced migrants.